Filming Blog: Filming Day Part Two!

Film Blog

Today was very hectic. It was our second day and filming and hopefully the last. We only had two other scene location to record and we did both of them today. The first section went very smooth. My aunt played the role of Mom in the film and she cooperated very well. She only had a couple lines which she memorized prior to recording which helped time-wise. We followed the same procedure we used during our first day of filming. We recorded multiple videos from different angles and had our actor do the lines. There wasn't any issues that delayed our production process. The only "issue" we had was the positioning of our camera. Since we don't have any fancy camera equipment, we worked very hard to get the desired angles and lighting. For example, one of our plans was to record from a high angle. To achieve this, I, the cameraman, stood on-top of a stool and hand-held the camera and tripod, while tracking the actor. This wasn't necessarily difficult but getting the camera still as possible took a couple tries. We also timed ourselves this time. This was such a great idea and helped us get things done faster. 

The next part we shot, was Kassandra arriving at the grandparents' house. Majority of it was recording her walking up to the door from a different angle. It was very wind so our audios are foggy but I still think it turned out great. We also had to fight with cars passing through the neighbor and listening to make sure we didn't record a scene while they came by. We actually ended up reshooting the scene where she gets out of the car at the end of the day because we forgot the lines "uh i think this is it... here goes nothing." I'm glad we caught that, I would've hated having to spend another day filming.

Our third section of filming was with my uncle and Kassandra, my uncle is playing the psychopath. My uncle was more difficult to work with. Luckly, he did not have too much camera time and Kassandra was the only one required to actually act. He also delayed our schedule a bit because he wasn't on time but at least we made it before the sun could set. For this portion we followed to same procedure of recording the lines from different angles. This was one of the easiest portions to record, there were only a couple angles and no one of them were super hard to achieve. The angles were close-up, over-the-shoulder and mid-shot angle.

Filming Blog: First Day Of Filming

Film Blog

Today, Thursday 18th was our first official day of filming. We actually ended up changing our park location to a different park. The park is called Hamptons Park. We changed it because when we visited our original location we realized it did not have enough trees and nature to act as a forest. So we switched to a more suitable location. I picked Kassandra up, from her house and we drove to the park. At the park we ran into some difficulties. First we basically filmed in the parking lot. It was not very spacious and we had to continuously park and reverse. This took a lot of time. Another issue was camera movement. In order to get different shots of the same dialogue, we recorded the entire scene from different angles. Since we don’t have professional nor proper filming equipment, a lot of our mechanisms were makeshift. Our camera was mostly leaning on different internal parts of the car. This caused the camera to be shaky and move whenever we would start to drive. We prevented this problem by adjusting the camera or holding it, whenever this happened. I also realized all the preparations we did still was not enough to bulletproof plan our filming day. We had all the equipment but plans still ended up changing in the end. They weren’t major changes but we did have to adjust to the area and adjust to the issues that came along with it. I would say it was a very productive day. 

  

Production Blog: Once Again, We Have Rescheduled!

Production Blog

Once again my group planned to record our first scenes with dialogue this week. Thursday is the day we picked. We are very determined to get this filmed because we want to be on time with everything. We will meet at the park on Thursday and do our first recordings on Kassandra AKA Jenna. The next set of recordings will be at my house for the scene with Jenna and the psychopath.

The scenes of Mom will also be recorded on this weekend. Basically, we expect to finish filming this week and spend the rest of our time editing. I will be doing the editing and I really don't expect take that long. It should not take me too long considering we planned the scenes and storyline on the storyboard. 

As you can see we've pretty much been playing the waiting game. Our group has continuously rescheduled our film days due to inconvenience. The wait has caused us to spend more and more time preparing to film. This preparation included: gathering equipment, recording establishing shots, meeting to schedule film days, think of ideas for editing and looking into how we will achieve our title sequence. This is both a positive and a negative. Though we will be very prepped, we have compromised our time for each other continuously. 

Personal steps that I would take in order to keep our time consist is carpooling. Clearly, transportation is our biggest weakness and I'm willing to help each other out if needed. I am a very busy person just like everyone else and waiting on each other is taking a toll on things I have planned. I hope our group is able to work collaboratively again. Can't wait to begin this filming!

Filming Blog: Filming Establishing Shots

Film Blog

We ran into a slight inconvenience, Kassandra who also plays our main character, was not able to film today nor will she be able to film this upcoming weekend. We were determined to get some shots done by this week so we revised our plan. We decided to go ahead and film all the shots that are in extraneous locations, including all of our establishing shots. These shots do not have any dialogue or actors in them, meaning Kassandra's absence won't be a problem in this case. There are only two establishing shots in our film, the beginning title sequence and scene 40, the grandparents' house. Since the "grandparents house" is my house, I took the responsibility of getting these shots. I waited till evening to capture shots of it and I tampered with multiple angles and movements, hand-held and steadicam. One issue I had was deciding whether or not I would allow cars to sit in the driveway for this shot so I did some with a car in the drive and without. I referred to my group members to decide if we should include the car. Another issue was my family being in the way of shots, they were a bit disruptive but it was not a big deal. Here are some the shots:

There were a couple more angles I captured. I showed my group members to get their opinions and see whether or not I should reshoot. The shoot I tackled was my title sequence shots. We captured these shots by getting dropped of at the side of a road and waiting for my sister to passby on the street. This was very difficult and time consuming. For every scene we had to wait nearly ten minutes for my sister to come back around in our camera's view. Once we realized so much time was being waste, we configured our path to drive on and was able to now produce twice as many shots in the same ten minutes. This shot took a lot of takes but my group members and I are proud of what we got. Also, we shot these scenes on two separate days. We let Gabby go through the shots and let us know any flaws that may need reshooting.

Production Blog: I Feared This Would Happen

Production Blog

Today we prepared for our upcoming film day. We went over all the equipment we would need to began our filming process. For the first day of filming, we need a vehicle to capture Jenna, our main character in. The vehicle will be provided by one of our parents. We made sure the parent would be available to chaperon while we use there car. Also, the actor who will be playing Jenna is reliable enough to drive the car, as it is required in order to carry out our storyboard. Another piece of equipment would be a tripod to stand a phone up, which is what we will record our film on. We don't have a tripod but we do have a ring light that will do the exact same job as a tripod. This are the only pieces of equipment needed to film in our first location. I am responsible for bringing the ring light and the car will be provided by whoever is available. The other pieces of equipment includes a framed photo to act as the grandparent and cellphones. We wouldn't need reminders to bring cellphones because I'm pretty they will be on-hand anyways but I included it because it is an important prop. I just want our group to be prepared as possible because we've done so well with managing out time and due dates so far. If anything goes wrong it wouldn't affect us as much considering we've planned every other aspect of our film process. One issue that has arose, that I was afraid would happen is the conflicting scheduling. We've had to reschedule filming days multiple times due to lack of transportation, other plans being made and personal dilemmas. We still have much time left so I'm not to worried yet but if this continues it will take a toll on us. Other than that, I don't have any real worries, but of course we have to expect the unexpected. Another step I took to prep for filming is deleting unnecessary photos from my gallery. Since we will use my phone to film, I didn't want to run out of storage in the midst of recording. This is a small part of preparation that may or may not be needed but I like I said earlier, It would be helpful to prepare for as many scenarios as possible. 

Production Blog: Adding a New Group Member

Production Blog

This is the week we began the filming process of our film. My group and I met to discuss what days worked best and we agreed to start this weekend. We did create a schedule but we had to rearrange film days to accommodate the already busy schedules we all have. One change we made to the schedule was postponing the second week of filming to the week after. So far we have still been finalizing our script and filming crew. I think a problem we might run into is getting all the members of the group to the same location, at the same time. Considering, we've already began rescheduling our dates and we haven't filmed anything yet. I just hope it doesn't take a toll on our organization nor our film. I do have an announcement though. We are no longer a group of two but of three! Recently, we added a new member to our group, Gabby. She is another friend of mine and I am excited to work with her. I haven't done many group projects with her but she has helped with designing scenes in both the shoot script and storyboard. We've gone over our participants list and gave Gabby the role as co-director and co-editor. Having an extra hand during this process will benefit drastically. We as a group with back to our intro & group blog to reintroduce our group members, including Gabby. The last update is where will begin our filming. We only have two filming locations and we will start at the park. We thought it would be a good idea to start with the furthest location first. The park is in a nearby city, not local.

Planning for the Final Task: Storyboard

Planning Blog

This is our storyboard. We, as a group, worked collaboratively to complete all the drawings and planning of the scenes. Our storyboard is detailed, showcasing angles and facial expressions of the characters. This will help tremendously in our filming process. We are excited to begin.