The next stage: shooting the scenes.

We had our first shoot on the 29th last week for the library scene on the 2nd floor of the Redmond Barry reading room. We shot it according to our script, and all three of us took initiative in pitching ideas, directing as well as holding the camera. Aaron was really cooperative so he literally just did whatever that he was told to do by the three of us. We took as many shots as we can because if there is one thing we learned from our experience was that the more materials we have to work with, the better.

We met again the next day for our two other scenes which was “Yarra River” and “China town”. This time, we had the help of my friend, Terry, as the lights we borrowed from RMIT was really heavy (thanks much bro) that none of us girls would be able to carry it around.

We started with the Yarra River scene, which was where the girl and boy have their first encounter. Once everyone arrived at Flinders Station at about 5 in the evening, we walked around Yarra to find a nice spot to shoot before finally deciding on an area in front of Southgate. This scene was about making use of the Golden Hour sunlight, so we shot as many as we can when before the sun set.

After we were done, we went to Chinatown to shoot the night scene where the two had their final interaction. We did look around for a bit before deciding to shoot in this alleyway with a nice neon red light banner on one side of the wall. We made use of the light panels we borrowed since it was quite dark. None of us were very familiar with it, so we took some time setting it up. The lights were mainly used to light up the actors’ faces. After experimenting with the light, we ended up with soft lights as it looked good on the camera. After numerous amount of error and successful shots, we finally wrapped up the shoot at about 8.30 pm. At that point, we were all frozen and exhausted, but I was glad that it was done. We went for some warm dinner together afterwards, though Aaron couldn’t make it.

Then, there was the schedule problem. We were supposed to meet again soon to shoot but unfortunately, none of our schedules matches that week, mostly because we had to depend on Aaron’s schedule, and he was unfortunately very busy. It made me realise just how important availability is in a team work, because everyone has to be available at the same time. It was indeed one of the biggest hurdles of this project.

Nonetheless, me and Lyreca made time to shoot the opening scene, as Pavina and Aaron wasn’t available, but it was okay because the scene was just about the girl. We shot it at Docklands at around 2 in the afternoon where there was ample sunlight. We did some scenery shots (some by me), but it was mostly the girl doing random things alone, like walking around the pier, reading a book, etc. We also did some shots at my house for the part where I got ready.

Our last scene was supposed to be a tram scene but since the weather wasn’t helpful yesterday, we changed it to a train scene instead. Thus, we met at around 1.30 pm at Southern Cross Station. It was a bit challenging because we were changing the script last minute but thankfully we all kept giving out ideas on what we should be shooting. We did have to deal with so many people as the station as well as the train can be really crowded, but thankfully no one had any problems with us shooting. So after 2 tiring but productive hours, we are finally done with the filming.

We decided to split the editing workload by scenes. I will be doing the first two scenes, Lyreca the next two, and Pavina the last one. We all have very different schedules so it’s really hard to meet up but we promised to find a time to put everything together by next week before submission.

On to the next stage: editing.