As we planned last week, we are going to shoot the memories scenes at the night market today, and I will make up all the scenes I lost last week. HOWEVER, the night market is closed, and last week was the last day of the night market in this year.

We tried very hard to plan out everything this time, but problems are still coming. This reminds me of an old Chinese saying, “Plans can’t keep up with changes.” But, we have the whole crew with us today; we can’t waste such a good chance! SO we decide to move up the schedule and go to China town for some other memory scenes. It’s such a pity that I can’t get those abstract shots back in the night market.

Today’s scenes are very easy, we just need a sweet little moment of a couple, feeding each other food and smiling. But, the chemical between the actor and actress is a big problem. As a Chinese, I know a lot of us are very shy, especially with strangers. Our actor is one of them. Because of this, it was very hard for them to look like an actual couple. We could literally feel the awkwardness from the camera screen. I wanted this scene to be very sweet, and I want them to smile like they are actually feeling the happiness, I wanted this scene to make our audience to fall in love with someone. But it was hard. It took them a long time to finally reduce some of the awkwardness. The scene still doesn’t look that sweet, but it was the best we could get. I think next time we need to find a more open actor.

This shooting taught me another lesson, is to know the actor/actress’ personality well, so we would know if they are suitable for the film. Today’s scene was suppose to be easy, but it took them a long time to build up the chemical. The 50mm lens worked very well today, the !.8 aperture is perfect at night, the blurry background helps the audience to focus on the focal point, and the bright aperture looks very nice with the lighting in China Town.