Single Camera Production: Technical Deceit

Pre-Production
     The first essential thing we had to secure for the film was a location. The film centres around a theatre, but we needed somewhere that also had a suitable lighting rig that we would be able to use. I had approached The Garage (a theatre and arts centre based in Norwich) in January with the film concept - before the project had even been given the go-ahead. After some slight script adjustments, serious negotiations around health and safety and several re-structured production schedules, we got permission to shoot Technical Deceit over two days - the 25th and 27th of April 2016.
     I was then tasked with finding cast, as unlike some other groups none of us wanted a large role in the film. This was mainly conducted online through Facebook - finding friends of a friend - and by the Garage themselves promoting the opportunity to their drama students. As a group we chose Isaac Wright (15) to star as 'Dave', Bethany Lain (17) as journalist Kate Hamilton, and James Amey (22) as theatre director Damien Blake. I also cast Jordan Bushby and Connor Stevenson-Wright as the Macbeth actors, Adam Hunter as the voice of Damien's mysterious contact, Reuben Convery and myself as TV news anchors, and Robert as a cleaner.
     Meanwhile, Robert was made Director of Photography and began constructing a shot list and storyboard. This included management of the newsroom scene, which had to be shot prior to filming starting at the Garage. Alex arranged for and made props, and some costume where necessary. I gathered some lighting equipment from a local school to be used as props also.

Production
     Day 1 of production meant first meeting in Norwich, and collecting equipment from the Trett Films offices. Our first shots were up on and around the lighting rig itself - one of the only shots filmed in order was the opening shot (another was actually the closing shot which was admittedly filmed more as an after thought). For this whole day of shooting, we only required two of our actors so we shot all the scenes only involving Isaac and James. Alex acted as sound recordist for this day of shooting, whilst Robert and I remained in our roles as DoP and Director, with all of us taking a join role in production management to ensure it ran smoothly.
     ...It didn't! As with any production, things occurred which we weren't fully expecting, and some scenes took much longer to film than we were expecting. The main consequence of this was having far more that we needed to film on the second day, so for Day 2 of production we split our small team into two units. On the day off between days of shooting, Robert and I discussed at length what else was necessary to ensure we could produce a full film. We colour coded much of the shot list into categories of "completed", everything we were happy with from day 1, "essential", shots we had missed from scenes on day 1 and everything absolutely required for the edit, and "if possible", all shots that fitted neither previous category.
     Day 2: Robert headed up Unit B, working with our tutor and filmmaker Josh Trett and Isaac to shoot all the required shots in the theatre control room. Simultaneously, I ran Unit A. This was a larger group consisting of Bethany, James, Jordan, Connor and Alex. Connor was also a member of our college course at East Norfolk, so he was able to help considerably when not on screen himself. Robert and I therefore shared the roles of Director and DoP for each of our units. This process allowed us to get nearly every single shot that was on the shot list, importantly everything that was considered "essential", and some of the "if possible" shots too. Some small scenes - marked as "if possible" - were completely neglected due to the small amount of time we had to film.
     Over the two days, Technical Deceit took eighteen and a half hours in production.

Post-Production
     The scenes were divided up between the three of us for editing, Robert, Alex and I. Robert and Alex completed the first half between them, and I completed the second half as I had the ability to also edit at home - this included what is now the montage sequence and the final two scenes. The assembly process took the best part of a month, as we were still working on other projects and evaluation work for the course. Alex left the project at the end of May when we submitted a very early draft for assessment for the course. Robert and I, still unhappy with how the film looked, chose to continue work in our own time.
     The main issue we took with the first cut was the pacing. Honestly, it was boring. We started hacking away at the second scene, losing over a minute of dialogue. A lot of the first scene was scrapped, and the music edited to be faster to allow for the jump cuts. Then the montage sequence was made a lot quicker, and another section of dialogue towards the end also scrapped. With that dialogue went some of the final scene - we chose to make the character of Damien more ambiguous and suspicious at the end rather than showing his innocence as the script intended. The end credits were also made snappier.
     With an Offline edit we were happy with, we began the Online. Robert's expertise in editing is with colour grading and stabilisation so he began work on that. We had chose to try and replicate the style of Netflix drama series House of Cards in our cinematography and this is where it really started to appear. I also began work on the sound design and levelling which, for a script with not much dialogue, was quite difficult. The end result was finally published on the 18th July 2016 - 82 days after wrapping production.

Evaluation
      We could have worked for months more on Technical Deceit before I was completely happy with it, but that wasn't realistic given the time I had already put into it. Looking back on our scene recreation of Above the Fold, which was the first thing I had taken an individual active role in directing, I think I have improved.
     The cinematography of Technical Deceit is something I am equally happy about and unhappy about. I think the look of the overall film I had envisioned was realised to an extent in the final product, but not as consistently as I would have liked. The shot variation is interesting, 180 rule remains unbroken, and the framing is mostly good. I'd have liked to include some more dynamic shots to really amplify the House of Cards look into the film, but those shots take time to set up and were often sacrificed for the sake of just having something done. Being low on time also meant we sometimes ended up forgetting the basics, in this case too frequently shots appeared under-exposed and the process of trying to fix this has damaged the quality of the overall film. This wasn't helped by the fact we had incredibly limited lighting equipment, and relied so heavily on what was already available within the Garage.
     In terms of sound, I think I learnt a lot from the Above the Fold scene recreation task, and consistently ensured as a director that it was well placed. There was some necessary levelling to do in post, but this was largely due to how wide the shot was that changed how close the microphone could be to the subject. Frustratingly, the one thing I forgot to do was record an ambience track in the theatre; things like the humming of the air conditioning and buzzing of lights that you don't tend to notice in person are heightened by the recorder. The last scene was the only one really affected by this, as I was able to hide it in other scenes with music and ambience tracks from online.
     In the end, everyone we asked seemed to enjoy watching the film, and would ask us questions about whether Damien really had been breaking the law or not, and what happened to Dave immediately after?

Technical Deceit | Blog #4

Final Week of Pre-Production
            It's been a while! As I write this, we've already began editing having finished the shoot - but I'm going to pretend that it is still Monday 25th and I'm not ridiculously behind in writing these. But lets start by talking about the final week before production began.
            Realising we only had a few hours left where we would all see each other before the shoot, we set to work hard on Monday (I even wrote the previous blog post early in the morning to give me more time later!). Alex completed the two newspaper cover props, as Robert worked frantically to finish the shot list. In the meantime I wrote a new scene - X22 - to be shot on the Wednesday at college as our 'news studio'. This scene was designed to make the main character of Dave feel like crap about not getting any credit for the public reveal of the Director, but it didn't come without a whole barrel full of references!
            The following Wednesday we shot scene X22, with me in the role of the newsreader. We had planned originally to shoot the scene in the college's boardroom but we were told on Tuesday that it wasn't ready and so we planned to shoot it on the green screen instead. This later proved to be a massive pain in the ass in editing despite our best efforts to light the green sheeting well, it even turned out that the boardroom was ready when we shot it on Wednesday but were failed to be informed in time.
            Another issue we encountered was the equipment. A lot of what we wanted in terms of sound recording had gone missing from the college AV room. We had to improvise using a cheap RODE attached to a camera for the newsroom audio, whilst the rest of the equipment was located. It worked well enough though - after all Dave is meant to be watching the news on his smartphone so it shouldn't sound great anyway.
            With the scene shot, we frantically tried to edit it ready for the following Monday. In hindsight this was wasted time, as it was an impossible task with the difficulty of the green screen. We did have some breakthrough on the Friday though, the equipment all magically reappeared in AV! Robert ran about between all the cupboards like a kid in a candy store coming up with ways we could use equipment to help us in ways the objects were never designed to be used! We packed all the kit into some bags and hopped on the next bus to Norwich to drop it off ready for the following week. Our tutor Josh had kindly offered us his office as a place to store the equipment over the weekend, to save us from coming back into college on the Monday morning. Then Robert and I relaxed after a busy week by watching the new Jungle Book at the cinema. I don't know why I'm telling you all of this when there's so much more useful information I can write instead, but maybe it is a good insight to how we worked on this project; lots of hard work, but always with a little time to enjoy it.
            Jungle Book, by the way, was a very good film. I couldn't help be distracted by the extreme blurriness of the film footage, but the story remained to be incredibly well told. The film also partially served as a good omen for filming - as the venue we were shooting made a play of the Jungle Book just last year, which I had some involvement in.
            The weekend was spent gathering props. I managed to negotiate my way into my old school to source a few props, including Dave's broken light (it was truly broken as well, as the one I found didn't even have a bulb in it!), some cables, and a whole bunch of tape. I wasn't able to gain access to any of the wireless microphones the school has - so I quickly bought a lapel microphone from Amazon (I had wanted one for a long time anyway). Then it was a matter of purchasing some batteries, and raiding my mum's tool box to complete the prop list.
            We were ready. At least we thought we were... but that's for next week's blog post... ;) Thanks for reading!

Follow me on Twitter to know when I next update my blog: @mc_onnell

Single Camera Pre-Production Paperwork

Single Camera Research

            When writing my screenplay, I conducted research into the themes, locations and characters of the story which you can read below. However, some things had to be changed, or they developed into something else throughout production.



Themes
           As mentioned above, the key themes for the film were about exploring loneliness and deceit. The film explores the extent someone might go to to try and make friends. Dave listens in on people's conversations to try and fit in. This is a similar scenario to the film One Hour Photo, where a character played by Robin Williams makes copies of photos for himself to study what is normal and feel like he fits in.


            To study the theme of deceit/betrayal, which is evident in most films, I watched Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs. In this, one of the characters is an undercover cop who betrays the others by giving away the location of a jewellery shop they were about to rob. Although there is nothing this dramatic in our film, it was useful to see how deceit can be portrayed well in film.


What changes were made from the script to the film?
            A number of things meant minor adjustments to the original script I wrote had to be made. The most significant of these was the ending, in which originally our lead character was considering committing suicide. However, feedback on the script told us they felt that the situation was not dealt with appropriately in the story due to certain real life resemblances. Additionally, feedback received in a survey I put out had a significant number of respondents saying they would feel uncomfortable watching something of that nature. Therefore, we opted to remove the section of the script from the film, and instead focus on the character's emotions.
            Another thing we had to change was due to the casting. The characters in the script are aged between young twenties to mid thirties, but as college students we found it difficult to attract actors of those ages to work for free on a project. As a result the actor playing the main character was only 15 at the time of shooting, and the journalist only 17. Despite this I am happy with the appearances of the characters within the short film, as I think they were dressed appropriately for the parts and responded to the scenarios in more adult ways.
            During the editing process, we made several choices which slightly changed the overall film. In the script there was a second written section between Damien and the stranger, which the film's audience were able to hear - but none of the characters. In this section it would become clear that Damien was not a traitor to the theatre, but instead the stranger was a private investigator Damien had hired. We recorded all the audio for this scene, but it was cut because I felt the story was becoming overly complicated. To add to this sense of mystery around his character, we included a shot of the cleaner seemingly discovering something of secret importance to Damien in the middle section of the film; later on when Damien returns to the theatre and is talking to Dave, he picks up this piece of paper and tucks it away in his jacket pocket thus concealing the mystery. This leaves Damien's whole character mysterious to the audience, they equally don't know whether or not Dave should be trusting him. To amplify this, you may notice that in the final few shots of the scene we do not see Damien's face at all - this was a deliberate choice to conceal what he might be thinking and make him even more ominous.
            Other editorial choices included the removal of a couple of small detail shots in order to improve the pace of the film. The whole middle sequence was not intended to be one long montage, rather some montage parts with small scenes happening around it. This choice was made not only to speed up the amount of time the film was taking to edit, but also to make the pace of the film better and conceal the fact that we had not had enough time to shoot everything within that sequence. I am incredibly happy with this montage regardless; I think the music choice is good, and the wide shot of the movement around the theatre is interesting and engaging.

Locations
            Despite all the changes we did have to make to the original planning and script, we were able to secure the location that we wanted for two days of filming. We had some restrictions with filming due to health and safety shooting on the theatre's lighting rig, but we were mostly able to overcome these. The location through Norwich city centre was scrapped however in a late re-write which removed the necessity to use more than the one location.

Technical Deceit | Blog #3

1 Week until Shooting
            It really doesn't feel like a week since I last wrote one of these! As we get closer to the deadline I can feel myself becoming more worried and stressed - might be in for a couple of sleepless nights over the next week. Thinking back over the past 7 days though: we returned to college to begin more pre-production work, which included more production schedules, cast permission slips, sorting props and equipment, and the all important shot listing.
            The week began with a lot of emails and messages. As briefly mentioned last week, we were initially told that the production schedule needed to be adjusted slightly to accommodate for when we would have access to certain locations within the venue. This changed a couple of times throughout the week, as details changed. We will now have a tutor with us for roughly half the time of the shoot, which thankfully gives us more time to shoot certain scenes on the lighting rig. With a third production schedule now complete, we wait with our fingers crossed for it to be locked down!
            Robert spent most of the week working on our shot lists. We discussed at length the various ways we could shoot in certain locations, and plotting the character movement around the locations. Currently this still isn't complete, but we still have this week to lock that down too. Meanwhile, Alex has largely been working on props including the newspapers which the character of Kate writes in. Not only that, but we completed a prop, costume and equipment list to help remind us of everything we need.
            On Tuesday, I spent some free time typing up some useful information to send to the cast, regarding the location, timings, costume, props and more. Alex made some permission slips to be sent alongside the information, as we need to confirm we are allowed to photograph the individuals. A few of them live quite far away, and so we cannot receive these forms (they need to be printed and signed) until we see them in person on set.
            Rounding off the week, I completed the second version of the shooting script (ironically titled Shooting Script_01) alongside an extract script of a newsroom scene which appears near the end of the film. We plan to shoot this scene (X22) this Wednesday so we can edit it ready for the shooting days next week. As always, I've tried to pack as many references as possible into this extract; it includes a crossover reference to a film by my own tutor, and the lower third graphics are set to reference events that take place in the films being produced by my other classmates. All for fun!
            Exactly this time next week, as I write this, we will be shooting. If you happen to want to come along and be in the background for a couple of scenes, please let me know! We need background artists between 10am and 4pm on Wednesday 27th, so make sure you're free and then slide into my DMs for more information. Thanks for reading!

Follow me on Twitter to know when I next update my blog: @mc_onnell

Technical Deceit | Blog #2

2 Weeks until Shooting
            In the last week, some significant progress has been made in pre-production of the screenplay, including a production schedule, a re-write of the script, and casting. Despite the progress, I can't help but feel slightly worried by what is still left to do as time runs out.
            The first few days of the past week were spent re-writing the script. The ending had to be changed fairly significantly due to my own lack of decent research. Along with that, I simplified it down a fair bit too. There was too much back and forth going on, so I condensed a few scenes down into one and cut out the bits in the middle that weren't necessary. Suddenly 28 scenes became 22, and 13 pages became 12. Much easier.
            In case you're wondering, I won't be uploading this version of the script until the film is released. This is mainly because of spoilers, but also because we're already at work on the next draft, so there's no point. The people who do have the script however *smooth segue* are the actors!
            We now confirmed all three main cast roles of Dave, Kate and Damien. Once the final videos were sent in last Wednesday, myself and Robert reviewed all of them and chose the best people we could agree on. Then there were the tricky messages between cast to sort out, but nothing was too bad as most of those who didn't get a main role should be joining us on the shoot to help out and appear as background artists.
            I'm very excited about the cast. All of the auditions were great, and I really enjoyed seeing my script come to life. The auditions for Kate in particular were all very different, but each one gave me some new ideas about where to take her character, so I'm extremely grateful. Contrary to what I said last week though, I won't be announcing the cast just yet. They have the all important forms to sign off, and I think it is best to not say anything at least until those are done. I might be really mean and stay quiet until we release a trailer...
            There was a bunch of minor things that also happened in the last week, including emails about the location and messages about other various pre-production, but the one big thing I wanted to talk about was the production schedule. In total, it took me four hours to compile all the information on each scene to work out who should be there at a certain time, when we could and couldn't be in a location, and how was easiest to do it all in just 18 hours.

            Luckily, I had a huge whiteboard lying around which quickly became very useful for plotting out the scenes where everyone was. Combined with some paperwork I had done previously, everything started slotting together nicely.
            At least it did, until we were told we couldn't quite do it like that! As these things go, there are guidelines in place - in this case mainly about being up on a lighting rig - which you have to work around. All part of the fun, I guess. So a second production schedule later, the week came to an end.

Follow me on Twitter to know when I next update my blog: @mc_onnell

Technical Deceit | Blog #1

3 Weeks until Shooting
            As previously promised, I will be briefly documenting our progress throughout the production of my short film Technical Deceit over the next several weeks. If you don’t already know what the film is about, here’s a few handy links to the Screenplay Treatment and the Documentation for the project itself.

            We are making the film as part of the Single Camera Productions unit of our BTEC Media (TV & Film) Extended Diploma course. The team consists of Robert, Alex and myself – as well as a couple others from the class who we intend to recruit for the days of production.

Over the last seven days, my primary focus has been on finding cast. Having had our dates confirmed at our location, this was my next big worry. Robert produced the image below for us to begin posting (although many would consider it spamming) on social media. It was a simple matter for me to change the dates on the post to the ones we had confirmed, and then posted it on Wednesday evening. I kindly asked my friends on Facebook and followers on Twitter to share the post in an attempt to make it get seen by as many people as possible.

I prepared a few documents to send to the people who responded to the casting call – including a brief explanation of the plot and each of the characters, along with one of two extracts which were for female or male applicants respectively. In return, I requested a video of the applicant reading the extract in character. At the time of writing this we are still accepting applications (if you’re reading this before noon on the 6^th April 2016, please apply!) but I hope to announce the castings of each character in my blog post here next week.

Looking forward over the next seven days, as well as casting I have got to make all the final tweaks to the script so we can begin sketching out the storyboard; Robert and I are hoping to make a visit to the venue at some point to make this easier. Also there is a whole variety of things which need preparing, such as rick assessments, recces, production schedules and prop and costume lists (to name but a few).

            Check back next week for more!

The reason I have not achieved quite as much progress as I would have liked by this point in the process, is because I was very busy editing for another project which you should totally check out here! Follow me on Twitter to know when I next update my blog: @mc_onnell

Single Camera Practice - Scene Recreation

Pre-Production
     This was only intended to be a small production, so pre-production was very quick. Within our group we chose the roles very promptly, taking into account everyone's abilities. I was selected as the Director of the project, so myself and the chosen DoP - Adam Hunter - began work on a shot list. We decided the bulk of the conversation would take place in a car, and then discussed with the rest of the cast and crew as to where the car could be located. We chose the Gorleston cliffs car park because of its scenery, fairly quiet location, and closeness to the college. The shot list was completed having discussed this, and I started to compile a mental storyboard.

Production
     Having travelled to the location, amusingly stuffed into the back of the same car which appears in the film, I used the shot list to try and complete my visualisation of the scene. It wasn't until this point that we decided to use the bench near the car to film the first few shots. Firstly, I had some ambience sound recorded for overlay, and establishing shots of the location filmed. We then worked from the script to record all the necessary dialogue, filming mostly chronologically, but getting a minimum of two shots for everything, with several takes for each. This required returning to the location on a second day due to time constraints.
     The particularly challenging shots were those within the car. We had to have our sound recordist - Jack Reeve - lie down on the back seats of the car to prevent him from getting in the shots as he recorded the character's dialogue. It also took several attempts to get the focus pulled right during some of the shots. As the director, I advised the actors - Alana Taylor and Ellis Platten - on how to play their characters. In particular, I spent some time with Ellis trying to get him to think like his character so that he got a good tone to his voice and appropriate movement in and out of the car (although most of this was cut out later).

Post-Production
     I was quite hands on with the edit, because some members of the group were not so confident in Premiere. Due to time constraints, and the fact that this is not a final piece of work, we did not do any colour correction on the footage which I think was certainly needed. I gave the edit a basic structure, before doing the full audio edit in Audition once all the dialogue was in place. This was to get all the levels right when switching between shots, although this was done quickly so some does still sound slightly weird. Finally, we added the music (a shameless rip from the Bourne Supremacy soundtrack, although no copyright infringement was intended!) and the end credits as designed by Ellis in Photoshop. We decided at this point to mockingly call the project 'Below the Crease' in parody to the original short film's title.

Positives & Negatives
     For the time scale we had for this project, I am very content with it. I think most of the cinematography is good, there is lots of shot variation throughout; however I am not happy with the low angle on Ellis during his monologue. As mentioned previously, many shots needed colour grading to make them look more reasonable. We had to disregard some footage because it was so blatantly shot on a different day because of the weather, which was unfortunate.
     In terms of sound, I think everything sounded rather good. Most of the reason it sounds different between shots is simply because of whether the car door or window was open when the camera was rolling for that take. In some cases this affected where the microphone could be held as well. When it came to editing it was clear that the microphone has been nearer to Alana than Ellis and so this all had to be adjusted, which was annoying and unnecessarily. In hindsight I would have paid more attention to the audio to ensure it would sound similar, rather than focusing more on the visuals of the project. Considering the lack of audio direction, I think Jack did a great job.
     The story we went with, although the lines were already written, was still interesting and still fitted the mood of the original film. If we had more time I would have made sure the actors fully knew their lines as at some points it is obvious they are reading from the scripts just out of shot. Because of the small crew, holding the script became my job which meant I couldn't always keep an eye on the camera. Having an extra person on the set would have helped free me up more in several scenarios so that I could have paid more attention to what was being recorded and the way actors were saying their lines.
     Even though this was an ungraded piece of work, I took it seriously and encouraged the rest of the group to do the same. Motivation and encouragement is something I consider key to directing, and I think this is comparatively something that I did well - as a group we worked well together, keeping a fun environment on set whilst still getting all the shots we needed. Ultimately I learnt a lot from the project which I hope to carry through for the single camera production unit.

Single Camera Techniques

Multi-Camera and Single-Camera Comparison

Friends (Season 1, Episode 7)

     Friends was a multi-camera production, involving a small number of sets in front of a live studio audience, with several cameras to move around to capture all the shots. The scene is usually only done once (unless something goes wrong, like getting a boom microphone into shot or an actor forgets their line). This makes the production process quicker, the director can choose his shots 'as live', but there is also the option to edit them later to make sure all the best ones are used. To ensure it goes as close to plan as possible, however, the cast and crew go through rehearsals to know which camera needs to be where, at which point in the script.

     In this particular episode of Friends, there were only four locations: one of the flats, Central Perk, a ATM vestibule and some corridors. It all seems very flat, as all of the shots are taken from the same side of the set - the fourth 'wall'. 

Scrubs (Season 7, Episode 1)

     Scrubs was a single-camera production, shot on location in an old un-used hospital. There was no audience, so the scene could be ran multiple times the same way to capture all the required shots. This allows the director to have more control over each shot, so they can perfect the angle and the lighting. This takes a lot longer to complete than a multi-camera production, but many directors would argue it is worth it to improve the look of the show.

     Notably in this episode there was a lot of movement of the camera. Because it is shot within an actual old hospital building, the director can follow actors down a corridor or through a car park without much difficulty. On a multi-camera production, this would be nearly impossible without capturing other cameras or other crew members, or even an audience.

Research Texts

Silent Witness: Choices, Part 1 (2005)

What happened in the opening episode?
     We see a drive-by shooting take place outside a night club, that results in three deaths. It occurs as part of a gang turf war. The team worked to trace the bullets to find out who did the shooting. They find the car, and a decomposed body of a drug addict. Towards the end of the episode, another man is shot who belongs to one of the gangs.

What happened in the opening scene?
     A group of people stand outside a club as they wait for it to open. The club owner and his girlfriend arrive outside, he gives her an engagement ring, which she then goes to show her friend. The club owner notices a car, which then makes everything go into slow motion as a gun emerges from a window and begins firing rapidly into the crowd. Three people are seen to be hit, as the club owner screams angrily (we later find out he was shooting back as well).

Who were the characters involved in the opening scene?
     The Club Owner - Modest, Modest's girlfriend - Helen, a couple of bouncers, Helen's friend, a crowd of unknown people, the gunman.

What made it indicative of a single camera production?
     The shots used had more variety to them than would be possible in a multi-camera production, there is more movement of the camera across an area. In some shots you would have been able to see another camera within them - for instance a close up cutting to a wide shot. There is also evidence of actors having to hit a mark in order to be suitably lit how the director desires.

Edge of Darkness: Episode 1 (1985)

What happened in the opening episode?

     A police officer's daughter is shot and he begins investigating why she was killed. Many believe it was a failed attempt to kill him (potentially by a criminal he helped convict), but he informed by somebody attached to the prime minister's office that his daughter was a known terrorist. He discovers that much of his daughter's belongings and her body itself was irradiated.

What happened in the opening scene?

     The police officer, Ronald, is confronted by a politician who is being accused of fixing the vote in the latest election. He persuades Ronald to delay the enquiry by two weeks, whilst there is a trade union meeting, on the basis that they are already on the verge of another strike by local workers.

Who were the characters involved in the opening scene?

     Ronald Craven, a Yorkshire police officer, a politician, and an unknown person.

What made it indicative of a single camera production?
     The shots were more interesting, you could see in a shot the place a camera would have been in the previous shot. The characters were lighted specifically, and had to reach certain marks to make sure of this.