Sunday, March 17th, 2024
So many complications
Yesterday, Saturday, we got to the restaurant at 9 am sharp. We hadn't started filming until 10 because Rasheli, the girl who owns the restaurant, ran behind, which pushed things a little bit behind.
Note: We had to work on the restaurants timing
Everything started off perfectly fine, things were arranged great, and there were no 'real' customers yet so there wasn't any need to feel awkward or shy (yet). We filmed at the restaurant between 10 and 1:30. We tried utilizing a Lavalier mic, but it didn't work well since it needed to be wired to something, so we ended up using Carson's father's camera, which was a Canon DSLR with incredible camera quality. During this procedure, I was able to learn how to shoot with a camera and was one of the film's cinematographers (barely). This was enjoyable since I was able to learn something new, which is an important aspect of filmmaking and entertainment in general. We had a great day shooting and got a lot of shots that I feel were very fun and helped communicate our story the way we intended it from the start. We didn't finish shooting, there were some unanticipated obstacles, and we just have a few sequences remaining.
When we first started filming we couldn't stop laughing and it took us a good 8 tries to get it just right for the FIRST shot. I feel so dumb because as I was going through all the clips, I deleted the ones that weren't going to be in the official film, so now I can't show the bloopers. DAMN IT.
We didn't end up using a tripod which we thought we would, but one of the drawbacks we had throughout the film was lighting. In most areas, it was too dark and you couldn't see the characters face, so it took us several tries to maneuver around different corners. Eventually we got that part down.
Towards the end of the "day" shooting part, customers started coming to dine in, and I felt awkward since we were being stared at, somewhat feeling judged. What made this more annoying was that we had to speak at a pretty high pitched voice so the audio would catch smoothly through the camera. At one point, we had to shatter glass plates for one of the shots, which Kyle and Carson cleaned up (Kyle is the customer).
When we finished filming the day time part, we planned to come back at 10 to start and for what we hoped, to finish, the night scenes (yea, that didn't happen). Well before I start with the process of that, something really annoying happened which now gave us an extra day needed to film. As I was going through the clips on the camera, I ACCIDENTALLY deleted one of the shots. I was in disbelief and it wasn't like we had other of the same shots we could have worked with, I deleted those too. On the bright side, that shot was just of Kyle, and it was only like 4 seconds. We should only be there for 10 minutes, so we're going after school this Wednesday at 4.
Moving on to the night scene, we got there around 10:30. It was only myself, Carson, and Rasheli. We filmed the last restaurant scene, and then Rasheli left. Which meant we had to start the whole biking part. Coincidentally, there was a bike rack RIGHT beside the restaurant which was literally PERFECT. We had to squish the bike in the back seat, which is what also pushed us a little bit back on filming time (since it was already really late).
There was no light whatsoever in the area where the bike rack was set, so we had to improvise and use the car headlights to shine on it.
Now that we had that fixed, we ran into another problems with one of the shots. It was a medium shot, but Carsons shadow was visible, which also meant the camera and another figure was in view.
This meant we had to reposition the car from another angle so it wasn't too light but also not too dark.
From here on out, things went by smoothly. Time went by REALLy quick, when we were halfway filming, it was already 12:00 am, so we knew we had to be quicker, but that also put pressure which would ruin the "perfect" quality we were striving for. Twenty minutes later, It's now 12:20, what lucky notification popped up on the camera? "Low Battery." This worried me even more because we had maybe just a few minutes left to film, which forced us to try to get as many shots taken possible. Eventually, the camera completely died and we have yet to complete the night part. We will fully finish that on Thursday. This was the best day to choose for the week since we basically are already on spring break because its a half day, and there's no school Friday, which means we don't have to worry about waking up early.
Now, the flashbacks. We ( Carson and I) planned on fully completing that part today, but that didn't happen either because a major argument built up. Everything was going perfectly fine and suddenly we just started disagreeing, back and forth. The setting for the flashback we established would be at his house, so we got there, and I started using makeup to make bruises on my arms and face. It turned out really realistic and I was happy with it, but we didn't even film it. It was already 2:15 when we finally made up, but it was already too late to shoot because I had to be home strictly at 2:45 since I had babysitting all the way in Sunny Isles. We just decided we'd film this Tuesday after school.
Even though I didn't fully complete filming this weekend, I'm not as stressed since the scenes we have left aren't too long. I'm glad with the schedule/breakup I made with the days of shooting this week, each day for the different settings.
Editing isn't a HUGE concern since Carson's dad is really good with that type of computer stuff. He will transfer all the clips to his computer and smush it altogether. One thing I am still worried about is timing. I still have no clue how long everything will be when It's all in one clip. I'm concerned that It'll exceed the 2:15 limit.
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