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Filming Diary

My filming took place over one weekend. I travelled from Canterbury to my home in Leeds on Friday 1st March 2019 and returned three days later on the Monday. At the end of each day I wrote a diary entry to record my thoughts and feelings on the progress I had made.

DAY
ONE
HEADING HOME

I left Canterbury at 18:25, Mum’s picking me up from Leeds at 22:30. I can’t wait to get home but I’m slightly anxious about how filming will go. Hopefully Mum will be comfortable with opening up – I know she’s a very private person and she hates being on camera. That said she sounds very excited about the film, and passionate about telling a story about the trials and tribulations of starting again at 60.

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I hope the weather won’t be too bad. The garden’s really important to Mum and I feel like spring flowers are a perfect motif for this film. So  flowers will definitely make an appearance  – it’ll just be a lot easier to get the shots I need if it isn’t chucking it down all weekend.

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DAY
TWO
FIRST DAY OF FILMING

I woke up early and began filming shots of the garden. When Mum woke up we walked Ruby on the banks. After breakfast we drove to Horsforth to get the pictures from Mum's 60th birthday developed and I got some footage of the old house. Unfortunately none of the photos from Edinburgh came out well, which was very disappointing. 

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Back at home we began looking through old photos. It was fun to go through them and reminisce and I'm happy with the footage I got. In the evening we had our first attempt at interviews. It was a difficult process: I struggled with setting up the shot and Mum found it difficult to come out of her shell, but I'm sure we'll both become more comfortable with practice.

DAY
THREE
SECOND DAY OF FILMING

We started the day with another interview which went much better than last night's - I think I have a lot of useful nuggets to use in my film! Mum was in a cheerful mood today and she sounded very happy and hopeful which will work well when I'm forming a narrative. Then we went through more photographs: I knew I needed some of Mum and Dad's wedding day to play over her talking about their divorce.

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In the evening I asked Mum if I could film her going through the divorce papers. She was reluctant at first but I reassured her that no one would see any details, just her flipping through the pages. I'm really grateful that she let me because I think it'll add context and emotion to the film. 

DAY
FOUR
LAST DAY IN LEEDS

This morning I was worried that we hadn't got into the heavy stuff in our interviews. I talked to Mum about it and she said she was happy to do another interview. She talked about divorce being like a bereavement, and how she had struggled living alone when she first moved house. It was very emotional and I'm so grateful to her for opening up the way she did.

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Afterwards I got a couple of shots of Mum around the house, and we walked Ruby on the Tarn. It was really windy so I hope that doesn't mess up my audio, but I'm happy with the shots I got. In the evening Mum drove me to the station and we had an emotional goodbye. I'm now nearly back in Canterbury and I'm looking forward to going over my footage and starting to edit. 

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