Sunday shoot was our longest and most exciting shoot! We learnt from our mistakes on the Wednesday shoot and committed to starting as early as possible to ensure we had ample time for each shot and were able to shoot the group party scenes as soon as the extras arrived on set. Our first couple hours were spent setting up Alex’s living room to look more like a nightclub; taping fabric and newspaper to the walls and blocking out the windows to prevent any natural light from coming in. The “realism” of the club was not necessarily a priority for us due to our establishment of the comic frame. Looking back at the Week 3 reading, the audience uses frames to “view, group, and interpret experiences with reality, determin[ing] the symbolic actions and choices humans make from these experiences’ ‘ (Voth 2014). Because our film’s comic frame is established through our absurdist characters and crafty aesthetic, the rather unconvincing club setting suits the tone and (hopefully) adds to the humour. The boys try so hard to get into this “exclusive” Naarm-core nightclub, only for it to be comically small and dingy. Most of the scenes were set indoors, making it much easier to play around with lighting. Alex was very clever and had coloured cellophane wrapped around the LED Lights to create a strong hue. We used this to mimic the inside of an eclectic club and illuminate the ominous pink neon demon (picture attached). We also were lucky enough to have a smoke machine and worked really well to spread pink and yellow light and create a hazy, dream-like feeling to the footage. 

The final scene was shot outdoors on the street and we faced a couple road-bumps (pun intended). There was some traffic that affected the quality of sound and light sprinkle of rain which meant we were in a bit of a rush to finish. Alternative’s to have avoided this could’ve been to either move to a quieter location or postpone the scene to a later date. however these options would have slowed down our whole production progress and we were all feeling pretty tired by the end of it so decided to go ahead with it.

Overall, the filming process has been such an amazing experience. I’ve learnt so much from working alongside my friends and I really believe we’ve made a great team, bringing our own strengths to the production; Claudia’s artistry, Alex’s leadership, Jaden’s skill and Luci’s organisation. I couldn’t be more grateful to have made something so creative with them!

BTS Photos taken by yours truly:

References