Day 1
For our first day of shooting, we decided to make it a quick shoot because of other commitments that the whole crew and I have to attend to. This was also the official meeting between the whole production crew and Aaron, who was amazing enough to be part of our little film production. It was also the opportunity for Joanna and Aaron to get to know each other because they were going to be working together on screen and off screen – here are their profiles as I had posted on our Facebook page;
Our initial point of contact was the call sheet, something that I purposely wanted to use because that is part of the process in any professional setting. I also sent Aaron the link of the script, so he knew what to expect and how his character would be like.
We initially wanted to shoot in a bookshop inside State Library as James had suggested, but when we asked the store clerk, they suggested that we shoot on a weekend. Of course, we had already organised this short shooting for that day so that wasn’t a choice for us – we decided to scout around State Library and the librarians allowed us to shoot within the premises. At the end, we chose to go with the Redmond Barry Reading Room, a room with shelves of books which was perfect for the vision I imagined. It did have the yellow, artificial lighting which I try to avoid but at that point, we were running out of time and we had no choice but to go through with this location.
I’ll be honest, despite it being a short shoot, it was one of the most difficult shoots of this production because it was our first time collaborating in a practical setting. We had to do a lot of takes and cuts to take the shots from different angles, including other mishaps like the actress being unsatisfied or feeling awkward in front of the camera. However, these things are all understandable and can easily be fixed. One thing I learned from this shoot though, is that it probably isn’t the best idea to cast an actor/actress who was part of the pre-production process. It’s best to cast someone with a fresh idea of the story so that they produce the results that you want and will be easier to give them instructions because after all, they had no contribution to makings of the narrative.
Day 2
Shooting for Day 2 was a jam-packed yet productive session. We knocked down two large segments of the story and that was the opening and the ending of Missed Moments. We also received help from Joanna’s friend, Terry, who was kind enough to help us carry the extremely heavy LED panel and also assist us in using the camera and lighting.
I was not expecting it to be this heavy so I’m really glad we got someone to help out. Day 2 of shooting consists of dusk (yay for the golden hour!) and night time shooting. For the golden hour scene, we were actually at a rush for time because the lighting literally changes by the minute when it comes to sunset. We started shooting at 5:30 with the estimated sunset at 5:56 PM – 26 minutes to film! We found a perfect location to film by the riverside and just started from there. Although we weren’t able to film the actual sunset, we still managed to get that residual lighting from the golden hour, so we were able to get those soft tones and tinges of cool colours:
Yet again, we went with the same procedure as Day 1 shoot, and filmed from different angles and perspective for both the BOY and GIRL character. This was easier to shoot because there was little movement for the actor and the actress. The only challenge in this shoot were people walking in between our shots, making it harder for the main characters to be recognised. It was also rush hour and we encountered a larger amount of crowd in the Southbank area.
By the time we had finished shooting this scene, the sun was already gone and it was dark enough for us to start shooting in Chinatown. This is where the LED panel comes in, aka, the fun part! Fortunately enough, the camera we were using is accustomed to filming in low light situations (actually its peak is AT the low light). However, we still needed the assistance of the LED panel especially in alleyways where artificial light was scarce. The thing with the Sony a6000 is that it is able to pick up as much light as it can and the LED panel played its part in that aspect, but there is only so much you can do in order to make the LED panel look natural as if it is part of the whole environment.
Here is a testing shot of the light, with our actor, Aaron:
To be completely honest, this was another one of the difficult scenes we filmed because by the time we reached the second shoot, we were all tired from walking around the city and we were all quite irritable from our low blood sugar levels. The most difficult shoot, in particular, were the characters walking towards the camera:
It was quite difficult to get the timing right because either the camera would move too slow, or the actor and actress would walk too fast. However, it was all in the matter of editing so our shots were still usable.
Now, onto Day 3 and 4 of shooting!