The week after the presentations we planned to do our main shoot at Magic Mountain Saloon and in the car park next to it. But upon reflection we decided that we just weren’t prepared for shooting that night. We had not booked equipment yet and were not completely decided on the shots we wanted, nor the roles we wanted to fill when shooting. But we already had a table booked at the restaurant and had actors arranged for the Tuesday night shoot, so we decided we would do a run through and block out the scenes, without lighting or sound equipment.

We started at Magic Mountain and decided we liked the idea of a slow tracking shot, showing our actors Ella and Taylor sitting at the window table and then exiting the restaurant together. We liked the way that the outside of the restaurant obscured them from view at times, as we tracked their exit. While the argument in the script doesn’t happen until the car scene, we thought it would be more realistic to show the tension between them in the blocking as they leave the restaurant, rather than have them behave normally as they exited. I think some of this was lost in the positioning of the shot, but you can see it in the way Ella angrily walks ahead of Taylor. One big hurdle that we will have to tackle for the next shoot will be working out whether to introduce artificial light for this shot, as the spill from red lights of Magic Mountain is very intense and may need counterbalance.

We decided we liked the carpark next door to MM because of its convenient location and because the white light of the carpark created a really nice contrast to the neon red of MM’s signage. We thought we would experiment with some transitional shots in the car park leading up to getting into the car, but whether we will continue doing these in the next shoot, I’m not sure.

The next shots were of a dialogue exchange between the two, over the roof of the car. We choose to compose over the shoulder shots, and adjusted the composition to allow for the lights from MM to spill over onto the hood of the car and create a more visually interesting image. This worked really well for Taylor’s over the shoulder shot facing Ella, but not so well for Ella’s as the positioning is different from Taylor’s shot. This is because of the cramped spot we were parked in which didn’t allow for much freedom in terms of framing and also because we were facing away from MM and alot of the spill from the lights was blocked.

We then had the actors get into the car in order to film the main argument scene. We shot through the back of the car, and used two phone lights on either side of the front windscreen to allow for more light. This angle works well and is a good median point to cut back to in-between the shot reverse shot.

Robin suggested the framing for the close up shot we used for the interior scene, which is one often under-utilised in car scenes. I’ll try my best to describe the shot, it’s where you shoot from behind the car seat, the person in the opposite seat. I think this shot turned out really well, as it was an unusual way to frame inside a car. For this shot we had to use phone lights again, as the lighting was very dark inside the car.

Finally we did a shot through the front windscreen which was trying, as the windscreen was dirty and we had to work around the reflections of both the camera and ourselves pointing the phone lights through the window. I think that this shot would have worked better with more planning and precise composition.

In general I think the test shoot went well, going forward we will need more preparation in order to gain the level of polish we want from our scenes. We have to keep it fairly simple and not bite off more than we can chew. We have to think about when it’s appropriate to incorporate artificial light and when less is more. We have to be decisive in the shots we choose to pursue and be as prepared as possible for the locations we choose.

 

Above is an edited version of the best shots from the test shoot.

Here is a link to the first test that was done of the location, before we got the actors involved.p