Filming the first project

After watching a few different styles of documentaries and some short films displaying a 'portrait of place', we were given the brief 'portrait of place' assessed work.
    Myself and my project partner, Jacob, settled on a concept of a slapstick-style film in which a man wakes up to find himself in a field in the middle of nowhere, stumbling into the village (of Edale, in which we were to film) and eventually figuring out where he was. However, during the planning and storyboarding stages, we adopted a more light-hearted approach, still following the man into the village, but instead intertwined with a series of flashbacks which become more elaborate until it's revealed that he was simply drunk the day before, stumbling into the field.
    We storyboarded the piece, for the most part, in two sessions in which we debated our ideas for shooting and possible post-production methods, mainly different ways to separate the flashback sequences from the ordinary shots. I suggested we followed a formula in which we showed close-ups of the character looking confused and troubled immediately before and after the flashbacks as a way to both transition between the present and the memory and to build on expectations to give ourselves the liberty to play with such expectations later on (Jacob suggested the character urinated on a church wall for the shock value - I argued that if we built on expectations, we could instead lead the audience to expect this, yet to break this expectation for what would hopefully be a humorous effect).
    Our initial planning was fairly tight in the sense that we knew what to film, where and how. I asked an actor with whom I've worked before to work with us. However, he cancelled the day before filming (which, realistically, I should have anticipated, since my previous experience with him saw him arrive on-set two hours late). Fortunately, I was able to rely on my back-up actor. Unfortunately, our planning had assumed the initial actor would take the role (I had arranged it with him two days after being given the brief - almost a week before filming), and the back-up actor was a girl, meaning certain sequences had to be reconsidered (though this mainly meant changing urinating in a grit bin to vomiting into it instead).
    While our initial planning may have seemed fairly tight, we failed to consider that we wouldn't be the only people filming in Edale that day, and so on the day we found many of our ideas were hindered by the number of people filming in the same area. This meant certain parts of the storyboard couldn't be followed as strictly as planned, but I nevertheless insisted that, as we storyboarded, we should record more footage - primarily linking shots - than we would need, for security and continuity.

The advantage of uploading my planning after the filming is done is that any mistakes made in following the storyboard can, technically, be 'erased'. (Un)fortunately, I'm honest, so I'm showing (a page of) the original plan - which relied on building the audience's expectations to be broken for a somewhat light-hearted effect.

So far, the project has taught me:
You can't rely on unreliable actors; whilst planning, it's essential to consider all possible problems; storyboards are made to be followed.

Up next:
Editing the footage.