Sometimes, there are simply too many things to be reflected on, especially when we are doing our own group work. It involves not only analyzing our finished works and how we may improve it, but also our collaboration during the making. I feel that we’ve already had a really good start and hopefully, everything will go smoothly.
Film Day One – May. 4
On the day of the filming, we had all of our crew and two of my friends to help, Kai and Murphy. They mainly helped us with moving the light head, setting up and taking the equipment to my apartment. Murphy also helped us to achieve the human dolly by moving the wheelchair by the end because Rachel had to leave early. Doing more than two hours of setting up, Kris and Rachel cut up the blackboard for the bar shadow. Yolanda and Kai set up the light and the black curtain. Sylvia and I discussed the shots and how to achieve the human dolly effect since we wanted a long take. According to our plan, we used one 1000k Arri light and two dido-lights. The take started with a medium close-up of the character sitting in the corner, lit by Arri. As she walked toward the camera and the dido lights, passing one of them, the light head of Arri was turned by 90° to the camera so that the character could stand in front of it to create a certain lighting effect.
Overall, I think the shooting of the take went very well. We were collaborating as a group. The human dolly shot effect was pretty good considering the time of our preparation, the skills we had and the little equipment we had. Everyone had their position and did their job accordingly which helped make this first time shooting went very smoothly; however, there were still some problems I can identify from this.
Pre-filming Plan of Day One
The very first issue we encountered during the shooting was that we did not have a black curtain which can create an isolated the corner. We had to borrow another black curtain and put it up beside the one that was already in a studio. It was lucky for us that we could borrow another curtain, otherwise, we couldn’t proceed with our original plan. This has informed me that we must be very familiar with the location where we will be filming in. Sylvia and I usually are very careful with such things but we forgot this time. And this shouldn’t happen again.
For the bar-like shadow, I feel that it was too soft and the shadow was not very obvious. The audiences may not see the bars and so they cannot grasp the setting of a prison. Next time, we will no longer use the blackboard we cut out this time. It will be the best if we make another one which will have bars with thinner gaps.
One of the most challenging thing for me was to both direct and act, especially when I’m inexperienced. I couldn’t see how the shot is framed and decide whether I like the shot. Since I was not very familiar with the script, my mind was also very occupied with how to act. Actually, I did feel like that I needed advice on acting but no one could give me any. This challenge has resulted in another issue which is the pace of this take. When we got home and took a look at the shot, we immediately felt that the pace was simply too fast which did not suit the story and our purpose. The fact that I was both directing and acting, as inexperienced as I was, made me unable to fulfill the duties of a director who should be controlling the pace of this take. This is a crucial job for the director. Meanwhile, we spent more than two hours to set up the scene and the lights, so I think all of us was in a rush to finish the take before the booking time. I believe that I did my best. What I learned was that if I were to both act and direct, I should not forget the duties of those jobs. I even forgot to take two shots: one close-up of the character, one empty shot of the lamp. Now that I look back at the shots on the computer, I just noticed a lot of adjustments I would do if I had concentrated on directing. One of the major problems is that the light temperature was not consistent during this long take. The other thing is that we could have designed the shadows and light better if I was only directing. To solve this problem, I could have written up a list of the shots we need beforehand and spend more time to communicate with Sylvia, the cinematographer. I admit that I was insufficiently prepared.
Film Day Two – May. 9
Pre-filming Plan of Day Two
The filming at the beach was quite hard to proceed but I was glad that Kris, Sylvia, Yolanda and I was able to achieve what we have right now. We imagined shooting on a bright sunny day with a hot sun to fit with our script. However, due to the lack of time, we had to shoot on Wednesday when it was cloudy for a day.
To achieve a long take in this scene was pretty difficult. I guess one of the reasons was that we weren’t familiar with the location again. According to our original script, we want the camera to move away from the character and then follows her as she walks. We also wanted to include a close-up of the tiny flower. However, on the day of the filming, all of the plans seemed difficult to achieve. For example, the first shot turned out very differently—we originally wanted to place the character at the right-hand corner below with a minor occupation of the overall frame. The close-up of the tiny flower was also hard to achieve in one long take. According to Sylvia, the tiny flower couldn’t be in focus when the camera moves towards it. The weather was also a bit of downfall. With the coldness and the wind, I think group members weren’t really fully concentrated on doing the scene.
