Filming Day #1

Dang! Things are moving fast! Friday we had our first day of filming!!! It took around 6 hours to film the scenes that I had allotted for today. We started around 4:10 PM and ended at 10:00. Not going to lie, it was EXHAUSTING!!!!!!

Preplanning: 
I was sure that I wanted to separate my filming days into 1. Acting/ Action shots and 2. B-roll/ still shots of artwork. I wanted to separate the time I had to work with my actress that way I can occupy her once, and then not have to waste much of her time afterward. I actually loved how a lot of the shots turned out and am sooo glad I had everything completely preplanned and drawn or else our really long filming day would have possibly been longer and not as successful. I started the day by gathering my props, laying out my lenses and running through the scenes I had planned with my mother.

1. Key Moments

Here are my top 5 stills of my favorite shots that we got that day!

2. Challenges

#1 Lessoned learned: DO NOT EVEN TRY TO FILM A STILL SHOT WITHOUT A TRIPOD! ITS NOT WORTH EVEN ATTEMPTING! I tried to get the first couple of still shots that last a long time going completely handheld and later using a gimbal stabilizer- a huge mistake. Some of my first shots are very shaky and you can see visible movement. Unfortunately, I did not notice this until after I transferred a lot of my video to my computer so I just have to do my best to slow the shots down in post to minimize the video's "energy" as much as possible. I THANK THE LORD that I ended up discovering that I could screw my camera onto my ring light stand and get my sister to hold the lighting instead.(I was going to borrow the tripod of a friend but could not due to social distancing) It was definitely a hassle though since it was not a typical tripod: I had to physically crew the camera onto a screw at the end of the stick, couldn't tilt, pan or angle the stand since it was meant to only light, and could only get so low

#2 Lesson learned: HAVE BACKUP BATTERIES and MEMORY CARD READY TO GO! My battery gave me a lot of trouble this time. I don't know why it kept dying every 30 minutes, even when we took a short break to charge it, the battery drained rapidly, disrupting the filming process. I know it is an old battery (since 2015), but I didn't anticipate it's flakiness. Near the end, my memory ran out as well. Just as I was getting one of my favorite shots, my card filled completely and the camera stopped :( I had to ask my sister for her SD card in order to finish filming and had to clear mine before the next filming day.

3. Changes To The Project (+why)

At first, I had planned a scene in which my artist knocks the easel down in frustration. My mother refused to do this scene. In her words... "Nadie hace esas cosas, me vas a poner como una histerica desquiciada" (Nobody actually does that, you're making me out to be a hysterical, deranged person). Now that I think about it, she is probably right... It's a little bit over the top and probably would have ruined my new easel. I decided instead to make her throw the towel at the painting in frustration and I feel like I got the same amount of drama without having to be so violent. It is also a nice way to tie in the rag she dried her hands on earlier in the project.