Expectations vs. Reality
I used one day for shooting as I wanted three different types of lighting, as the film's tone gets darker, I wanted the outside light to get darker with it. So I filmed a number of shots in the morning and early afternoon, a small amount of shots in the late afternoon and a larger amount of shots in the evening. I had worries on the day that I would not complete the 'daylight' shots in time, however using my shot list made shooting go very smoothly and in a more timely manner than expected.
I found that while shooting in a bedroom allowed me to have no worries about issues such as weather or interruptions, the size of the room caused some issues. I found that the room was too small to get certain shots that I wanted and was too small to set up certain equipment such as a lighting kit. Due to the tightness of the room, I had to film most shots on my own so that the room only had myself and the actress, allowing her to move around more.
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| An example of the lack of space in the room |
Issues
Due to the lack of space in the room meaning that I couldn't use a lighting kit without it being either dangerous from the possibility of overheating or it being in shot or too bright due to closeness, my lighting suffered. While I didn't need to rely on extra lighting in most daylight shots, it became more obvious that the quality of lighting decreased in the evening and 'sunset' shots.
Another issue with lighting was the affect of weather outside. Due to it being very overcast with dark clouds, the daylight in the room often dipped and became very dark, so this not only made the lighting in the room vary from scene to scene, but made it difficult to get quality lit daylight shots in certain places. I will need to use certain effects and make changes in Final Cut when editing to create consistency in lighting and colour between shots as well as fix some over and under exposure issues.
I found that claustrophobic feel of the small room had an effect on myself and my actress when filming, it seemed to make filming more difficult and more draining, which meant that I struggled with energy when consistently holding up the camera for steady handheld shots, and she felt less energetic in her performance. However, the timeliness of filming allowed us to have a number of breaks to regroup and regain our energy.
Filming was delayed slightly towards the end of the shoot due to running out of space on the memory cards. This meant that I had to take a break and look through every clip and be brutal in deleting a large amount of them to make room for my final scene.
I planned to use a Go Pro camera for my top angle shots, with it mounted onto the ceiling or wall, facing down onto the bed. However after a lot of effort, we could not get the mount to stay attached to the surfaces. So my solution was to stand on the bed, leaning over the actress with the Sony camera to get my top angle shots. While this allowed me to get the shots I needed, I feel it took away from the look I had in mind and lacked in quality of the shots slightly.
What Worked
Due to being prepared in scheduling of set up time, set dressing, time slots for shots and breaks, I think the overall filming process ran smoothly. We were on location for approximately 8 hours, and filming for about 6 hours in total. I think having all of my props ready along with having the script and shot list to hand allowed me to be organised and get into a flow when filming.
I feel that I got a great amount of coverage when filming, I had 99 shots on my shot list, and I now have 158 clips, with approximately 100-110 of them being original shots and not reshoots of certain moments. So I feel very accomplished with the amount of footage I captured.
My actress portrayed both sides of the character very well, I feel that she was great at bringing emotion to the film and was very professional to work with which made filming much easier.
What I Would Change
I would use a larger location for the set of the film so that I had more options when filming shots, for example wide shots. As well as the actress being able to use more space and being able to have more crew members involved. Also being able to set up a lighting kit would have highly benefited the shoot.
Final Result
Overall, while I had a lot of issues in filming, I think the end result has turned out very well. There's a lot of improvements to be made in post production, especially to lighting. But the amount of coverage I have along with my actress's performance will benefit the film in editing.
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