Filming Day

So as you may have guessed from the previous posts, I did film over this past weekend. I’m just going to run through everything that happened. 

Sunday (3/6/22) 2:00 p.m. 

Sophia (the actress) and my friend Rachel showed up at my house. Rachel brought her  tripod which we did not know was broken prior to filming. Sophia changed into her costume which she wants everyone to know is the “ugliest fit” she’s ever worn. 

Then, I went over the storyboard with both of them. We established that I overplanned some of the shots so we decided which ones to cut. The ones we cut were not really necessary so they will not be missed. (Although, I am still kind of worried I have too much footage but I will only really know once I put the clips together). With some shots cut, we continued to film in order of the storyboard and it went pretty well. 

We switched between using a tripod and a hand-held device (it was basically a selfie stick). 

       

We filmed many shots with the half broken tripod but it could not lower as much as it was supposed to and when we tried it just completely fell apart (I indicated in the picture the lowest the tripod went before fully breaking). Luckily, I found this mini selfie-stick that turns into a tripod at Walmart for like $6.00 so it was fine. 

This hand held device also had an effect that I did not expect. We noticed that the shots filmed using this device had a sort of shaky quality to them. This actually ended up working out in our favor as these particular shots were meant to be from the perspective of the protagonist. Thus, the shakiness of the shot actually seems like a more realistic simulation of the character's own perspective.

We followed the storyboard and had no other issues until about page 3. The trouble came in shot #7 of this page because we realized putting the board on the top part of a chair would block Sophia from the view of the camera. We couldn’t really change the angle it was filmed at either because it would reveal the board. We had to get creative so I ended up sitting in my closet behind the chair. The back of the board was propped up against the legs of the chair and my feet. I also placed the mini tripod on the seat of the chair to get the top of the board and Sophia in frame. This angle was perfect because you can see that Sophia is working on the board but you cannot see its contents.

 

We continued to shoot until about shot #4 of page 4 where we needed to actually construct the murder investigation board. We stopped here and went to “Craft Services” which was just my kitchen and some takeout chicken.

After eating, we put together the board because itwould appear in the subsequent shots. To make it, we just used a cork board, multicolored post its, cut-outs from travel/Nat Geo magazines, and red string. We tried to make it look as chaotic as possible. Then, we continued following the storyboard and finished filming all the shots on page 5. Since I am worried about having too much footage and going over 2 minutes, I filmed an alternative ending as well. This second ending stops prior to the last 3 shots on page 5. 

We finished around 4:30 p.m. and I did not do any more work that day.