Shooting commenced on Tuesday the 5th of December, it was a rocky road from there. Most of our cast and crew were late due to public transport issues and just issues in general. I find that no media project is easy, but this was just plain hard. I bought all the props I had made, and came pretty early, with only Sonia waiting for me, who was figuring out how to call the Techs so we could tell them that we weren’t able to collect the camera equipment until later. Olivia came a bit later, which was fine as she was bringing the cast with her, and also her mum was driving her in. Molly came last.
There was a lot of misunderstanding that day, and some very questionable decisions. I’m not a pessimist, I try to stay positive when I can, but that day really tested me. Poor communication resulted in arguments breaking out by the minute, and I found people were talking behind each other back more than people were behind the camera. It was weird honestly, it wasn’t professional. We kind of rangled ourselves in for the final shots but I felt like I didn’t really have an impact on those, I tried saying the camera wasn’t in focus, I tried helping out, only to be used a guide for where the lead had to stand, honestly tape could’ve done a better job than be during that last hour.
Not only that, but I was sent to upload the footage to media server only to be told by one of the group members that they ‘didn’t trust’ the media server, and 2 others who didn’t even know what it was. I felt like I was in some alternate reality sometimes. I guess the highlights, for me at least, were shooting the green screen scenes, and the policeman scenes. Those were fine and I felt like my input was valued and understood.
On that day we shot:
- All red scenes
- All green scenes
- All jail scenes
The second day of shooting wasn’t worse but it wasn’t better; I took 3 buses and one uber across town, when two of the other group members said they couldn’t make it, I’m not saying that that’s an awful thing, just that it was kind of discouraging. I managed to get there eventually despite my struggle and felt exhausted even before the shooting begun. Thankfully we had a lot of helpful friends there with us; I did feel kind of out of the loop for the beginning as there was a discussion of changing shots and how that would be done. But I feel as though that day of shooting was much less stressful and also a lot more productive. I was glad to be put in charge of the getaway scene and also the revenge scene. The cast seemed to be enjoying them a lot more too. It was honestly the only time I felt like any of us were having any kind of fun.
On that day we shot:
- All getaway scenes
- All pool party scenes
- All arrest scenes