Production - Crafting a New Shooting Schedule with George

Over the past couple of weeks, it has been important to craft a detailed shoot schedule for the upcoming months. I worked closely with George to ensure all of the dates would generally work for us as a team. Our biggest issue when creating this schedule was to respect Cailan's work schedule. He currently works 3 of the 5 mid-week dates which left us with issues when trying to create a schedule in which we could also visit University weekly to show our work to tutors and peers.

This restraint on the potential days we could film sequences meant George and I spent a lot more time than ideal to accommodate Cailan. This challenge means that we now shoot almost every Tuesday and Thursday until the end of March. Some contributors have now also said they cannot do their original days, meaning we are having to work when Cailan is not available. As can be seen in the current schedule below, we have also tried to fit in two sequences in one day, to ensure Cailan can attend these sequences and focus on being the director of photography. 

Currently, our contributors (Interviewees) are on the following days:

• 12th February: Daniel Rowbottom speaking about the basics of motorsport (How to prepare, testing, what to do on track etc)
• 14th February: Jamie Caroline speaking about the costs of motorsport
• 21st February: Team BRIT (Disabled Motor Racing Team) speaking about overcoming adversity and struggles to fulfil a dream and be a racing driver
• 22nd February: Katie Milner speaking about why strength and fitness is important in motorsport
• 6th/7th April: Michael Crees speaking about the equipment needed to go racing

All bar one day (The track/test day in the car I will be racing) is now confirmed. We are really happy with the contributors we have already arranged, but are continually looking to see if we can involve other drivers in some way. Our schedule is packed with shoot dates, but George and I found a way to fit in every segment, while mostly fitting around Cailan's work schedule. Ideally, we would not have had these restrictions, but careful planning has allowed us to mostly shoot on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Because of the issues we faced, working around Cailan, we asked as a group if he could drop his hours so give us a few more options when/if we get anymore shoot dates. We are aware that interview shoot dates could change and that is why we need further options, rather than just Tuesday and Thursday. Cailan has understood our issues and put in a request to work one day less. As we know this schedule will most likely still change, a further day could really benefit the professionalism of this project.

Overall, it took a long time to work out how to fit our 25+ test/shoot dates into just two days mid-week. But, as George and I spent hours figuring out possible options, we now seem to have found a solution. As the director, I would ideally not like to be so restricted as to when we shoot sequences. These restrictions could leave us with a number of pick up shots which would not be the case otherwise. I will detail in a research blog post "how to work around a limited/restricted filming schedule" where I will explore how to best make use of our limited shoot dates.