Filming: Finishing up

So far, the only shots we had taken were the ones that included Sydney. This meant that our next filming day, we had to take the shots with out her, which were the majority of them! We planned our next day of filming to be the following Sunday, from 11:00 to 3:00. The way we decided to film was to start at the top of the street, the furthest from the "house" Jane was running to, and work our way down. The first shot was the establishing shot of the street. Our original plan was to take the shot from the second floor of a house looking over the street, but this didn't end up working. Instead, I set up the camera in the middle of the street, I had someone watch out for cars, and take a slow plan from the sky, down to the street. Our director Breanna, and main actress for Jane, had the idea to have her run through the background of the establishing shot. I loved this addition because it made the shot look more natural, instead of it being a silent street. Through the next two hours, I took shots of Breanna running from various angles. We took lots of unplanned shots, just in case we need more footage when it comes to the editing process or if one of those shots came out better than the planned one.

One shot we had an especially hard time doing was an over the shoulder tracking shot. In order to achieve it, I had to angle the camera towards the ground on the tripod and face the viewing screen of the camera towards me as I held the camera, still attached to the tripod, up almost over my head! We had to take that shot over 7 times before I felt confident enough to say that at least one of them was a good shot! Even though it was very difficult, I think it will be a very cool shot when we stabilize it during editing. The next couple shots we had to take were of Breanna running down the street, and crossing it. One angle I tried when shooting her crossing the street was like the establishing shot. I centered the camera in the middle of the street, with someone watching for cars again, and did my best to make the street mimic how the street looked in the establishing shot. I'm hoping the two street shot will be similar enough that it makes the street and neighborhood look asleep and unimpressive, to further put into perspective how magical the forest will be. Although, I'm not the main editor for this project so there's no guarantee it will work out that way, but I can still hope!

This picture is a screen shot of one of the shots we took through the day. We wanted to have the soccer ball Joshua is holding to bounce, but to do that we had to time it correctly. In the picture, you can see Breanna pointing to where she should be when Joshua should drop the ball. This shot was hard to time, but was ultimately pretty simple to pull off with practice.

Filming: Getting it done

Our second day of filming was also a rainy day, but we still planned to film what we could despite it. First, I set up the camera on the tripod. The camera I was using to film was specifically used because it creates a depth of field. One of my main fears when using this camera was that, when filming the music video the same depth-of-field camera kept dying, even after the battery was charged and replaced, and that the camera would do the same thing when filming our final project. Despite my fears about the camera, we headed out to go pick up Sydney, our supporting actress who lived right down the street from where we met up. As soon as we got to her house, it started pouring. The group and I decided to take this time to completely fill Sydney in on the shots we would be doing. After the rain stopped, we manage to take around three shots with multiple takes before my fears about the camera were confirmed. When the camera died, we had to take a break and switch cameras. The camera we switched to was made to zoom and didn't have depth of field. This made it impossible to use to re-shoot one of the shots we had taken with the previous camera, so that might be something we have to re-shoot at a later date to maintain continuity.

Using the new camera, I re-took the shots I could take with the new camera and by then the sun had come out, although there were still rain clouds in the distance. After getting a good amount of takes for the shot's we planned, we got in the car and went to the park. Unfortunately, after the rain, the ground was still wet. This was bad because some of our shots required the main actress to lay down on the ground, and this might mess with the continuity. We decided to just keep filming, and the main actress toughed it out. When filming in the forest, I got to film a lot closer to the actors, which I found refreshing after filming across the street from them during the neighborhood scenes. When filming these scenes, I also decided to change some of what we had on the story board. For example, there was a shot of the main character laying of the ground that I decided to film upside down to make her look more disoriented. My new shot actually ended up looking better than the originally planned one! The last shot was originally supposed to be spinning, but due to the technical difficulties this created, we decided to go for a different shot that ended with a fast pan that we intend to cut at to make it look scarier.

This photo is when we are filming with the first camera. I was scouting out potential places to place the camera, which is where i took this picture from. Joshua is standing by the camera, keeping it dry from the potential rain, and Breanna is helping set Sydney and her dog Lily up for the next shot.

Filming: Rainy days

The first day we had planned to film turned out to be not the best day to choose for filming. I had failed to check the weather for the filming day when we had originally scheduled everything. This made a lovely surprise when the day planned for filming came up and it was already pouring rain. Despite the fact that I could not film anything, inside or outside, me and another teammate still got together to plan our next course of action. We went through different ideas. One idea was to wait until next week to film, as the rest of the weekend it was foretasted to rain. This plan was quickly shot down, as it had a high chance of raining next weekend too! After a couple more ideas, we decided on a final plan. We were going to keep the filming plan as scheduled, and extend filming to the day after, so we still had two days to film. We planed to film the next day, rain or shine.

We then talked to our adult supervisors about the new plan, since they needed to drive us to the park. Then we contacted our actor, to make sure they were still available with the new plan. Unfortunately, our actor was only free one of the two rescheduled days. So, we resigned ourselves to only be able to film one day. This was not good, because the longer it took us to film, the less time we would have to edit! If we were using the school provided editing software, this would be fine because we would have class time to edit. But, were using our own program and camera, so we have no way to edit in class! This fact only made me more determined to film the next day. After everything was scheduled, my teammate and I decided to block out the scenes that were inside. We established where the camera would be set up, the movement of the actor, lighting, and more.

Planning: Storyboard

This is our story board for our project. Each box is 3 seconds long, with 24 total boxes. At first we were going to have 6 seconds per box, but we decided to change it to capture more detail. The titles are in order, according to what we researched previously in title research. When doing the storyboard, we made a checklist of shots to use, as we progressed through we checked them off. In our storyboard, we have three characters, and 2 are featured: Jane and Rose. The two of them are set apart by their hair styles so we can know who is who when filming. The storyboard also describes where they are in relation to the streets we are filming on, so it is very clear. Additionally, camera angles, sound and acting cues are written into the note section for each box, to reference easily. The process of creating the storyboard was simple after doing it three times before this. We already had the scenes planned, so all we had to do was split them into 3 second intervals. First, Jane is shown to be jogging along, starting up her music. Then, passing a corner, she waves at her neighbor: Rose and her parent. The camera follows Jane across the street, but not without showing the neighbor disappearing, and tracks Jane to her house. Inside her house, Jane is then transported to a forest, where the two minutes end.

Planning: Health, Safety, and Title Design

Safety was simple with this project. After the music video, we now have experience with these details so planning for possible missteps was easier this time around. Title design was a new one, though. There are many aspects to titles, which makes this process take longer. Sites like Watch the Title and Art of the Title really helped with knowing what to plan, like spacing and font. Currently, we haven't decided where the titles will appear on screen, this will come with the storyboard. Generally, everything we have planned has room to change and grow, but we hope that this is a solid base for our project to at least work off of.

Planning: Location, Cast and Scheduling

Our first location is the house of one teammate, who has given consent for us to film there. We will be filming some of the streets, but mostly the sidewalk. In order to keep as many cars out of the frame as possible, we will be using specific angles to their best effect. We will also be filming the driveway, and inside the friend’s house. We will be moving the cars in the driveway, and clearing some things from the front door to get a cleaner shot. 

The second location is a nearby park. It is close to our first location, so it will be possible to film everything in one day because the commute is so short. The park is public, so we are allowed to film there, but we still plan on asking permission. We have a specific location at the park we want to film at, but if that space isn’t free then we have scouted out other possible places to film.

Casting was an easy process for this project. We have three characters who need actors, and one actor will be from our group. We kept the cast small because we wanted to keep scheduling conflicts to a minimum. As a backup plan, we have an understudy for Rose. The actor for Rose’s parent isn’t truly determined, but it isn’t the most important because the character isn’t the main focus of the film.

Scheduling was still difficult, even though we tried to keep the people involved with the project to a minimum. The actress for Rose might have to leave early into filming on Saturday, but time for this was built into Sunday just in case that happens. Since the weekend of filming will last 3 days, we might even get to start the editing process right after filming! Getting this project done quickly is important because we won’t be able to edit in class, only watch and take notes on ways to improve.

Planning: Sound Script

I had a hard time finishing this sound script, for a couple reason. The first reason is because me and my group couldn't decide on what our movie should be about. Originally, our film was going to be fantasy, but as we brainstormed we found our idea straying away from pure fantasy to something with more suspense. Along with this change, we had a hard time picking music. This was because, for our commercial, the hardest part was picking the music, as we chose it at the end. To fix this problem, we started looking into different royalty free music. Through out the whole project, we planned to use 3 different songs: One for the first jogging scene, a second for the white noise, and a third for the forest scene. We found many song choices for the last two songs, but the only songs we found for the first track weren't royalty free. So, naturally, we contacted the artists and are now waiting for a response.

In our film, we plan on using lots of diegetic sounds and sound effects to set the scene. Sizzling sounds are to be a reoccurring thing to represent the presence of evil, and the diegetic sounds are to bring you further into the scene. There isn't a lot of dialogue throughout the beginning of the film, which is meant to show how peaceful and simple things were, before the inciting incident.

Planning: Shooting Script

For our shooting script, we decided to keep a lot of the sound elements in it, even though they weren't necessary. For me, the purpose of this was to make sure the sound affects lined up with the planned visual affects. Lighting, isn't planned to be varied from scene to scene, but instead change more dramatically from setting to setting. For example, the house will be a lot darker than the forest. In our film, we also plan to use a lot of the background, so I made sure to make note of every planned use of it. I also made sure that we had every of the required parts to our film, which we didn't do so well on our last project. I was unsure how to correctly format the presentation, so I made it as straight forward as possible. I'm hoping that we can use it as a guide when creating our official story board.