PTA Meeting/ Jill's Interview Scene

February 11, 2018

Brief: 
Piece of Cake is a mockumentary film about a Parent Teacher's group in an average primary school. It is intended to be a light hearted comedy for people of any age to see. It is filmed in the style of a documentary, following the lives of 4 very different parent leading up to the bake sale at the very end. 

I realised that I made the synopsis sound very boring, but there is a reason why I am on the production team and aesthetic as opposed to a script writer. :P I promise there is a lot more depth and dimension to it than the way I phrased it, so stick around!

Newspaper article on the film 
Here is a newspaper article written by the lovely Colin Leach from Guernsey Press about it. 

All I can say is that I cannot wait to get started on it for numerous reasons...the cakes, the company and the fact that it will also be my first time working on an actual film! Ahhhh, so excited! :)
There are 3 of us in the production team, with each of us being assigned specific scenes to work on. I am in charge of two scenes - PTA meeting scenes and Headmaster's office. All of us are also working together on the final bake scene.

*PTA meeting scene: Takes place in a primary school classroom. However, since we are already shooting in an actual classroom, there is not much to dress.
*Headmaster Office: Details on this will be on a separate post under "Piece of Cake"
*Bake Sale: Details on this will be on a separate post under "Piece of Cake"

IN ACTION!

Some things to highlight: 
x Large bake sale sign in the background, which you will see again in the bake sale
x Bake sale sign up sheets (mentioned in the script) 
x PTA flyers
x Notebooks (To make it more realistic, I even made a page in my notebook specifically for this meeting so that it can be flipped open and on that page) 

A page in the notebook 
Other graphics made for authenticity 
Detailed checklist- PTA Meeting 
I decided to expand from the rough set dress list we did as a group and make my own detailed checklist of the scenes I have. This proved to be really useful, especially the notes column as I could highlight certain points to myself, points which I wanted to bring up in production meetings or even to use it as a reminder for others. 

It also made it a lot more professional when I sent the detailed breakdown of the budget to the producers for reimbursement.  

PTA MEETING

Before
After
IN ACTION!
While we were shooting, I did not realised that they were going to film the same scene so many times but from a different angle. They kept moving the props each time and this was not good for contingency. I felt a little mean, but I had to step in and tell them that they could not pour the drinks from the jar as the change in drink level would REALLY MESS with continually. Since this was my first time being on set, I did not think to mark out each items. But that is definitely something I will do in the future.

JILL'S INTERVIEW 
Before
After 
LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION!
I was worried that there might be some pictures of the children in the existing room or certain graphics that needed to be covered up for privacy/ copyright reason. And I knew Aidan (producer) mentioned that he wanted some children's drawing in one of our earlier meetings, so I faked some kiddish drawings with crayons and paper as a potential "contingency" plan. I also added in a "devil" mum for some black humour since it is a comedic film. I was not sure how the producers will like my spin on it, but they actually really liked that little touch.

In the end, the angle in which the PTA meeting was shot did not require any cover ups. However, there was also an interview scene in the classroom, where "Jill" is being interviewed. None of the production designers were assigned that scene, but there was a plain wall in shot and I thought the drawings made a good addition to help dress up that shot.

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