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Director's statement

Honestly, the thing that affected my approach to directing this sequence was the TV show itself. Although we were told not to just copy what the original show had, we all had an image of what it should look like in our heads, we all unconsciously tried to copy the original. But due to some circumstances we were forced to change one thing or the other. In my case I couldn't get the actors to play the Bellman and the Suit so I changed them to female characters because they are important to the scene and I saw no other way so I had to improvise. Thankfully, Lauren's sister was up for helping me out as a Suit, but because I still needed the bellman I decided to act in my own film, which wasn't ideal, especially while editing - it's just too weird to look at myself. The other thing I was forced to decide on were extras, it would have been great if I could get them, but unfortunately I couldn't manage to do so and ended up cutting them out of the sequence, pretend that they're there but not to show them. Other change due to not getting a location I wanted was that there was no grand decor in the hotel, it was very minimalistic.
The location I ended up using was the one I initially thought of using because I knew it would be easier to film it here and I thought that the action could work in the minimalistic looking room. Although I did try to get a room with more grand decor so it would look more like the show, but both places where I enquired either didn't replay to me at all or didn't give me a definite answer.
My casting choices were definitely affected by my actors bailing, however I'm very happy with the people I ended up with because my two main actors were really nice and easy to work with. There were some bits that were harder (for example all of the legal talk) to get right but I ended up with pretty good shots. For Donnas character I knew I'd get my friend Gabriele (who has acted in my first film) to play the role and I think she did pretty well. For the 'Suit' and the 'Bellman' I wanted to get two men because that's who played them in the show originally, I even had the bellman's costume, however I wasn't able to find people to play them so I asked for help in my group (Jess and Lauren) and Lauren's sister agreed to help me out and play the role of 'Suit'. However I still needed to cast the 'Bellman' and ended up playing it myself, at the time I didn't think of how awkward it will feel to edit the footage where I acted in, that's probably one of the reasons why the scenes where you can see me were so rushed and don't have as much of work put into it.


While editing due to not having some of the shots, I did the best I could do with what I had. I had to blur out some of the signs and posters that were in the shot so it would look more like a hotel than a university space. Also ended up using some sound effects to make it sound more like a hotel 



While preparing the final cut, I decided to put some establishing stock footage so everyone would know that the action is based in London (instead of NYC), also a day before I rewatched the whole episode and noticed that it had some mood setting music, so I found some similar music, also used some rock music for establishing shots in the beginning because they use rock music in the show. 
What I would love to learn better is colour grading because some of the shots look a bit blue while others are ok. 

Costumes were pretty easy to think of - suits and clean shaven look for Mike and Harvey, smart look and minimal make up for Donna and the 'Suit', probably the hardest part was thinking about what I could wear to change the bellman's character, I ended up wearing black pants and white shirt (the hotel staff at the Hilton wears similar clothing) and also minimal make up.



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