Production Blog: Filming, Friendship and Fumbles

 

On March 22nd I continued filming for our project. I ended up having to refilm all of Francesca's scenes. While this was inconvenient, it allowed me to better plan for what I wanted to do.  It also gave the actress playing Bernadette some time to get into costume and rehearse lines. Bernadette's hair also changed a bit from my plan. We couldn't get the updo to hold, and look comfortable, so we opted for a half-up, half-down with various twists and spirals to appear more vintage. I finished re-filming rather quickly and I began working on Bernadette's scene in the bathroom. This took a while as me and the actress were laughing quite a bit, and couldn't get super focused. I cannot blame her or myself as I was crouched on a bathroom counter in a rather silly position and we are quite good friends. We had to do several takes of the scene, as I would either stop filming too soon, or she would keep doing something for longer than she should've. After this, I refilmed the table scene and all that was included in it. This was a rather short process, as the blocking and camera work was very simple. We also remembered to keep the door unlocked, unlike last time. The final thing we filmed that day was the action match to Bernadette getting the door slammed in her face. We had daylight left to burn and time left to film, so we set up to begin filming the outdoor scenes. Unfortunately something got in the way just as we are about to begin filming. I live very close to the beach and my friends will often use my house for parking. A few of my friends, who were not involved in this project, were at the beach as we were filming and unfortunately, one of them got hurt and asked if they could come back to my house for first aid. I obviously said yes, and we stopped filming for the day in order to care for their scrapes. The injuries were luckily not super serious, nothing that some hydrogen peroxide and a band-aid couldn't fix, and while I did not get work done for the rest of the day I did get to spend some time with my friends after they were all bandaged up. 

Production Blog: Preparing to Film

 Once again, not many updates in terms of progress. The rest of my props arrived. Including the new tripod, and fake lipsticks. The tripod is nicer than the one with the ring light and should save me some time while filming. The Lipstick tubes feel cheap, which makes sense for the price, and doesn't matter anyway because they're only a visual. I'm going to buy the lipstick that Bernadette puts on this weekend. I've chosen to buy it in person because I've found it to be significantly cheaper than purchasing it online. After we film that lipstick is either going to be thrown away or given to the actress playing Bernadette for sanitary reasons. In preparation for filming, I have begun to organize my house to better suit the time period. Hiding any technology that would not be appropriate out of the camera's line of sight. I will also be placing the tape on the floor for where I want the camera to be for each scene. This way I will not have to waste time adjusting the camera as I did last time. I'm hoping to finish filming on the 22nd. However, I am ready to continue on to the 23rd if necessary. 

I did not get any editing done as planned. But that is mostly because most of the footage I got the last time I filmed was shoddy, or scenes were completely missing. Editing now would mean having to undo most of my work when I got the rest of my footage, which I'm not particularly interested in doing.  However, because of spring break, I will be able to spend a lot of time editing the film. I should be able to make up for some of the time I lost earlier.  

Production Blog: Costuming, Props, and Purchasing

 Once again very little was done in terms of editing or filming over the past weekend. However, I have begun to prep for my next filming escapades this upcoming weekend. The biggest thing I have decided to do is to re-purchase the tripod I used for my music video project. I loved using it so much, and I think repurchasing it will save me a lot of time. The ring light I bought will likely only be used as a ring light from now on. As I mentioned in previous blogs, it was too finicky to change camera angles easily and quickly. I also purchased some props. Instead of risking my own lipstick falling all over the dirty asphalt, I decided to buy new props. Lipstick can be pretty pricey, even when they are of the cheaper variety, and I want there to be a plethora of tubes falling out of Bernadette's purse. In order to save some money, I bought empty lipstick containers, meant for lipstick makers, rather than full lipsticks. As the actual colored part of the lipstick is never shown, it does not matter if the tube was empty. The tube also looks quite high-end despite being so cheap and will fit the time-period better than your average cheap lipstick. It also comes without branding, meaning I won't have to cover anything up for my film. I've also begun to set aside some ideas for Bernadette's hair and costuming. I own quite a few 50's reproduction dresses already and don't really want to buy a new one, as they can be very expensive. The actress playing Bernadette is roughly the same size as me and will probably be able to fit into one of my dresses. In terms of hair, styles from the fifties were known for being well constructed and short, often being set the night before. Jessica (the actress playing Bernadette) has long hair, and I do not want to force her to sleep with rollers in her hair. In order to keep her hair relatively period-accurate I will be doing a relatively simple up-do and sweeping one piece of hair back like the following picture. 

Production Blog: Music and More

 I've yet to get much filming and editing done since last weekend. I've worked every night this week, and I've had a considerable amount of work due in other classes. I have done a few things to help my project over the past few days. Firstly, I reviewed all of my footage from last weekend. A lot of it is, not great, and I'm going to refilm a lot of it when my actors meet up again. Some of it being bad is little things, like a phone charger being in the shot for a movie set in the '60s, but some of it is bigger things, like forgetting to film entire shots. I also re-ordered the tripod I used for my music video project. The flimsiness of the ring light tripod was too much to deal with and cost me a lot of valuable filming time. I figured that spending a little more money to save a lot more time would serve me well for my filming process. Another big thing I started looking for was music. I have been looking on Royalty free music sites such as Epidemic Sound and Incomptech for music for my final project. I have elected to use royalty-free sites rather than ask permission to use copyrighted music because I do not want to fall in love with a particular score only to not get a response when I ask for permission, or even worse, be told no. Looking for music has been somewhat difficult as a lot of the music I've found has a distinctively electronic element. Which does not fit the mood or setting of my film in the slightest. I also want my music to be close to my desired length of the film, or have a cut that doesn't end suddenly that would fit the length of the film. I find music cutting out suddenly to be very jarring. Looking for music is also somewhat hard because I have a pretty specific idea for how I want it to sound. I would like the music to sound of the film's time, very jazzy in a film noir kind of way, but I also want it to be cinematic and sad. A lot of the jazz music I find on these sites are rather upbeat. I have found a few songs I'm considering the use of, but I don't think I will settle on the song until my film is more wholly put together. 

Production Blog: Filming for Francesca

 On March 7th I began filming with my friend Giulia and I filmed all of the scenes where Francesca was alone. I began by filming the first scene where Francesca was lying in bed. Unfortunately, my neighbors were playing music very loudly, so I decided, with little time to waste on waiting, to remove the audio in editing and add in the sound of the alarm later. My storyboard is not as accurate as I hoped, as the way the room we were filming in was set up did not allow me to get the alarm clock in the frame. In general, I overestimated how much space I would have, and some of the shots look more cramped than expected. However it just might be my own self-criticism, and I will assess whether I need to refilm when I go over the footage for editing. After filming that scene, Giulia changed from her pajama costume to her work costume. While she did that I set up my tripod and reviewed my storyboard.  Filming in the bathroom was not all that easy, because I relied quite heavily upon my tripod at first. This would normally be good, except for the fact that the tripod kept sliding down, or the phone would fall over, and it was generally very messy, after filming the shots filmed from the side, I essentially abandoned the tripod as a filming tool. Although, I still used it for lighting as the ring light was absolutely brilliant. For the medium shots, I sat down on the bathroom counter and placed the camera as far away from Giulia as I could so I could get the distance perfect. I did not use the tripod for this shot, but I did use the ring light as it gave me the side lighting that I wanted so desperately. After filming in the bathroom we took a quick break to eat lunch and for me to write the letter that Francesca writes to her sister. The letter is not my finest work, and none of the letter is in the shots I filmed so I may just end up rewriting it. I filmed the pan with very little trouble, although I did have to toss a few modern objects out of the shot, after noticing how they didn't fit. This scene was probably the easiest to film because of the wide and open spaces and relatively easy directing. This isn't to say there were no mistakes, in fact, there were quite a few. The most humourous was when Giulia attempted to open the door, as it is part of the scene, and it ended up being locked. However, we finished filming in good time and had fun while doing it. I plan on sorting through and dumping some of my footage later this week, and filming the object close-ups. Overall, I found this day of filming to be quite productive.

Filming and Editing Blog: Tripods

 While I have yet to begin filming for my project, as my actors are only available on weekends, I have begun to prepare to film. One of the biggest things I did was purchase a new tripod. I raved about how much I loved the tripod I got for my music video project, and I still do. Unfortunately, I lost it while filming something else and had to purchase a new one. I ultimately decided to buy an entirely new brand of tripod, and it has pros and cons compared to my last one. The most useful feature of this new tripod is that it comes with a ring light, meaning that I will not just have to rely on natural lighting or light in my room for the scene. The light is incredibly bright but it can be dimmed down quite a bit, so I have the potential to use some softer lighting in my film. The light also has three color modes, from a neutral, cream light, to a cool, icy white, and a warm yellow light, which might help with some of the issues of yellowing I've found in my previous projects. Unfortunately, the ring light is not battery operated, and thus must be plugged into work. I don't think this will be a huge issue, as most of the shots in my film where the camera moves are lit by natural sunlight, but it is still inconvenient. This tripod is also much taller than my last tripod, this is absolutely wonderful as it means filming high-angle shots, or close-ups will be made all the easier. The size of the tripod also means it is quite bulky, and truth be told, it is not all that stable. The actual base of the tripod is perfectly grounded, but the clip that holds the camera often tilts to the side under its weight, and changing the angle on the camera is a fiasco of knobs and not quite being able to keep it in place. This ring light also doesn't include the Bluetooth button which turns the camera on and off, which I find incredibly inconvenient. However, it usually will eventually stay put. I intend on trying to find the tripod I used previously, however, I am not all that mad at this one. The ring light honestly makes a massive difference in how the shot looks, and the height is a huge plus. If I do find my old tripod I will probably use the two of them in tandem. If I don't find it, I won't be too mad, and I'll just have to spend a little more time setting up the shot. 

Planning Blog: Storyboard

 I created a storyboard in order to help me with the filming and editing process for my final task. By using this storyboard I will be able to carefully plan my shots, edits, and camera movements. By making this storyboard I already know what I am going to do for every scene, so I do not have to worry about making it up as I go along, and wasting precious filming time because of it. I also know for a fact that I will like the way the scenes mesh together because I already have an idea of what they will look like, meaning I will not have to re-film an entirely new shot because I didn't like the way a certain one looked in a scene. I think my storyboard will serve me very well throughout my creative process. 

Planning Blog: Title Design

 For my film introduction, I will have my titles be written in a soft and romantic-looking cursive. They will dissolve in from the previous title, and dissolve out from the last. Each title will be in a different spot depending on the shot of the scene. 

The working title for this film is Rouge Hearts, although that is prone to change. 

The title will be written in a much more elegant and fancy font than the rest of the text, looking somewhat like this 

Rouge Hearts.

The main title will also be written in a much larger font than the rest of the titles. 

The titles will come on for around 2-5 seconds. 

 

I am currently planning on making my film black and white, as it fits the mood of the film  I intend to make. Because of this, I do not have many options for font color for my title. My current plan is to make my titles a stark white, with a black shadow border underneath to help them stand out from the background. 

The credits for the actors will appear alongside their appearance in scenes 3 and 4. This is so the audience can better understand which actor is which. After scene 3 the rest of the production crew's credit will commence. 

Each role will be written in a smaller font than the name of the person filling that role. This is a common theme I saw in many movie titles from the Fifties and I think it would fit my film very well. The example below has the role font at roughly half of the size of the name font. 

The role title being smaller helps to emphasize the name of the team member who helped out, which I find as a filmmaker to be more important to emphasize. However, making the role title much smaller makes it harder for the audience to read. In order to remedy this, I will space out the letters of the role title.