I had quite the... scare this morning, I must say.
As I was importing all of the footage, I ended up passing out on my couch and then jolting awake around 6:00 AM. I'm not sure what came over me in this moment but I got really anxious, looking at the clips from the shoot and questioning whether or not they were even good. I proceeded to over-analyze everything (the lighting, framing, stability of the camera, etc.) and sending panicky texts to Kim wondering how we could make things look better - if the project was salvageable at all. I think I had been slightly unsure about the footage last night but suppressed those feelings until they exploded in the middle of my sleep session, and I was struggling to cope with the fact that in the end, the B-roll is going to look very different from the Pinterest board I've been worshipping for the past couple weeks. As you can probably tell, it was not an easy conclusion to come to (especially since I knew only a fraction of yesterday's footage was usable. I only posted the better stills)...
I immediately started planning ahead in order to make sure that both Maya and Tess could film at night, since I realized that the wishy-washy lighting was what brought down the footage's quality the most. I addressed a lot of my concerns in the chat later in the morning and even asked Sabrina if we could re-shoot. Luckily, she had Saturday night available - which meant that we would get a second chance at her B-roll, and that I would somehow have to convince my parents (and Jim) to keep all of the equipment/props/set for longer than expected. However, I was up for the challenge. I sent Jim a voice message regarding the equipment (he said there was no problem) and came to an agreement with my parents that I would change the living room back to normal Thursday morning, move everything again before the shoot Saturday night, and then immediately move things back once filming was over. Despite all of these new things to stress about, I was feeling quite relieved - we weren't screwed after all.
Although, this added a lot more pressure in terms of not messing up this time around. Both Maya and Tess said that shooting the B-roll at night was fine, which I was super grateful for and apologized for the last-minute changes. Instead of shooting after the interview, the B-roll would be filmed at 7:30PM (when the sun went down), allowing us to work with more controlled lighting conditions. Maya's interview went well (the AC was annoying as always, of course), so I did my absolute best to ensure the success of the B-roll shoot later in the day.
Before Maya showed up, I looked through some of Sabrina's B-roll and identified the key issues with it:
- LIGHTING: Despite covering the windows with blankets and blinds, the light outside would be so intense that even with five lights pointing at Sabrina, the white background was still brighter than her. This was super frustrating in the moment and no matter what we did, we could not get rid of it. Because of this, we just kept shooting, hoping that the lighting would improve as the sun went down and praying that some coloring/exposure tweaks could be done in post (however, one can never rely too much on this).
- TRIPOD SHAKE: Even though both cameras were on tripods, there were still some slight shaking of the camera, most likely because of our hands trying to adjust the focus (the Rokinon lenses we were utilizing were manual focus only, which was ideal but of course that slight pressure on the lens does cause a bit of movement). Usually this slight shake does not make a difference but because I will be editing the screens on, I need each clip to be as stable as possible. I'm glad I noticed this, because later in the day (for Maya's shoot), I found myself being much more careful with the camera.
- SHADOWS: Unwanted shadows on the subject's face and background were really annoying to get rid of, especially when shining one light causes one shadow, another light causes another one, and then you're stuck trying to find the perfect arrangement in which all the lights perfectly light the scene without creating any unnecessary dark spots. Obviously this was very difficult to manage, but I'm hoping that with a more controlled environment, we'll be able to minimize this.
This is an example of a clip that showcases these problems. Even with multiple lights pointed at her, she was still not properly lit! This was super nerve-wracking especially since we were doing everything we could to cover the windows. There are also strange shadows on her face, and overall the shot looks... amateurish. This really shows what a couple wrong decisions can do to a shot; but, as always, we move forward.
Maya then came around 7:30 PM and we started immediately. This shoot was INFINITELY smoother and less stressful for a handful of reasons: first of all, we had some more experience with the set and equipment than before Sabrina's shoot, which definitely made us feel more confident with the cameras. Additionally, the lighting situation was so much easier to work with, especially since the darkness allowed us to have a "blank palette" in terms of lighting. Maya was also easier to work with, since she was enjoying the filming process and finding the most visually interesting poses she could think of. I definitely enjoyed this so much more, and I can tell that everyone else on the crew did as well. Here are some stills!
Towards the end of the shoot, my dad came home and seemed annoyed that we were not done filming yet. He kept asking us when we would be done and then eventually gave us a time limit, which caused us to speed through some of the later set-ups. Although this did take away from the experience a little bit, I do understand we were disrupting his usual post-work routine and ultimately preventing him from resting after a long day of hard work. We finished at 10:30PM and cleaned everything up, preparing for Tess's shoot tomorrow. So far, this has been my favorite day in the project - and with a lot of the previous issues now solved, I feel a lot better going into tomorrow (and Saturday, since we still have to re-film Sabrina).
Thank you guys so much for accompanying me on such a hectic journey, it really has been interesting to be able to learn from my mistakes and push forward despite some issues. I hope you have been liking the results so far, and I'll be sure to post again tomorrow after filming with Tess! See you guys then.
No comments:
Post a Comment