Film Opening - Blog Post #15

Today's the Big Day 

        Good afternoon! I am home from one of the most fun yet exhausting filming sessions of my life. In this blog post, I will be talking about some of the complications we had, how we overcame them and things I learned from producing this film opening. Let's dive right in.

Oopsies...

        As expected, there were a couple complications - but nothing that Logan, Sabrina and I could not handle! Our first complication was actually leaving to go to the filming location. Sabrina accidentally overslept until 8:00AM, which unfortunately pushed back our plans by around an hour (since she had to get ready, buy the Twinkies and pick Logan and I up). After this was figured out, we were able to get to the location around 10:45AM, which was not ideal but also not terrible. As soon as we got there, we went inside, put our equipment down and immediately started scouting the place.

        This brings me to the next "problem" we had (which was not much of an issue, simply something that we had to adjust to): the fact that the office space was much smaller than both Logan and I expected. Of course, this was bound to happen, considering that we were not able to scout the location the week before like we had planned (or get any pictures of the inside). Despite this, however, the three of us were able to look around, run through the entire production (before we filmed) and adjust our plans.

        After we did this, we individually did what we could to set up as quickly as possible. Sabrina got dressed and did her makeup (used eye shadow to look sleep deprived and worn-out, as well as the red velvet emulsion to add fake injuries to her body). Logan set up the equipment, and I set up the missing people posters while getting footage for our CCR. Though this took longer than expected, we were able to start shooting in about an hour.

Here, Sabrina is using make-up and red velvet emulsion to make herself look like a survivalist.
Around her is all the equipment, which both Logan and I were unpacking.

This is Logan's Canon T7i, which is the camera we used to film. 

        Next, we ran into a problem with exposure. Because it was late morning in the "Sunshine State," the shot where our character walks in was difficult to shoot (since we had no choice to film against a window). Though we did not have much control over this, we exposed the shot as best as we could and got the shots we needed, even if they were not perfect.

As you can see in this picture, the sun was very bright outside, causing the walls
to come out very dark in comparison to the windows. 

The Show Must Go On

        After resolving all of these obstacles, we were able to shoot the remainder of the film opening pretty effectively. We got the hallway dolly shot using an office chair, used our character's flashlight as a light source, and used a ladder to get the security camera shots (since I was the cinematographer, I had to put my life in danger and film on top of a high ladder without being able to hold on to it. Scary). We also got some extra shots just in case, many of which will be replacing some of the shots in our storyboard.

This is a picture of me getting one of the security camera shots for the beginning of the
film opening. It was hard to stay stable due to the instability of the ladder and the
inability to shoot with a tripod at that altitude. It might not seem that bad, but
Logan had to hold the back of my knees to keep me stable as I filmed.

This is a picture of Sabrina and I discussing the dolly shot
we were about to capture.

        Overall, this experience was both quite entertaining but also very draining. We only had a few hours to shoot, we had a handful of complications and lastly, let's just say that the Florida sun sucks the life out of you. Regardless, I really do think that our film opening has potential and cannot wait until we edit it! I am off to take a nap. See you guys next time!