I'm back at it again, and I'd like to start off by saying how grateful I am to have such cooperative and flexible teammates! Without them, we would have surely missed our filming deadline and fallen behind schedule. You may have noticed that my blog is titled "Out of the Frame," and you may be wondering why I'd need to point out this fact after already having established that I am my group's camerawoman in my last post. Well, that's because the phrase now applied both figuratively and literally as I was not present for any of the filming conducted by my group mates today. Earlier in the day, I was called out of class right before our filming period due to my suspected exposure to COVID-19 by a fellow student. However, after a quick trip to a testing site, I thankfully tested negative, so I will be able to return to class and help with editing as soon as tomorrow! However, the main takeaway from the entire situation is that neither I, nor my group members, allowed my physical absence to stop me from contributing to our film's production process. Due to the fact that we had previously accounted for what to do in such a scenario (as mentioned in my Planning Blog), and the fact that one of our members had already experienced the same situation that I was currently in, we were able to quickly resolve the issue with some good, old-fashion communication.
I kept in close contact with my teammates via text messaging, where they shared the shots they had taken and kept me updated on their progress. Originally, my team planned to conduct filming in the baseball field being that we thought it would be fitting to use the red dirt as a way to portray that our backdrop was set in the Copper State (called that because of its abundance of copper, sadly not because it is ridden with red sediments). Unfortunately, they were unable to find a way to enter the field other than jumping over the fence, which would not only risk them becoming injured, but would also increase the likelihood that our props may become damaged, or even be potentially destroyed. Hence, they decided it would be best to station themselves in the softball field because it was more accessible and they would still be able to incorporate the same, Arizona trademarked, red dirt, as in the baseball field. Thus, making for a fairly reasonable trade-off and a smart decision on their part.
Once they had set up and begun filming in the merciless Florida heat, they started to send me clips of the scene that they were actively recording. That, in turn, gave me the opportunity to offer up any advice regarding specific angles or methods that could be critiqued with the purpose of having our Arizona backdrop look more realistic; thereby allowing for the creation of the setting we were aiming to achieve. Moreover, I also helped my group decide which shots were best after a critical evaluation of two key aspects: the presence of certain shadows and the placement of the Arizona Iced Tea can in the frame. Regarding the shadows, we wanted to ensure that we excluded our actress's head's shadow from being in the shot, as their arm was the only thing that was meant to be in the frame. This was done in an effort to maintain the continuity of our shots between scenes. As for the placement of the Arizona Iced Tea can itself, since it is the main focus of our commercial, the subject if you will, we wanted to guarantee that it was front and center as opposed to being off to the side. That, in turn, may have then caused the audience to become distracted by the sounds, both diegetic and nondiegetic, and the set in which our prop is placed, instead of the product we are trying to sell. Furthermore, I was also able to begin trimming down some of the shots to ensure that our final film project would fit within the given time constraints of twenty-seven to thirty seconds, removing any awkward pauses to allow for the scenes to flow together more smoothly.
Below I have attached two images, one of which is a production still that shows my group using creative thinking to work around camera angling and set issues, and the other of which is a screenshot of one of the conversations I had with my team members (The blue chat bubbles are mine) to make a decision concerning where our backdrop Arizona props would go (they are also pictured in the above image to the right of the Arizona Iced Tea can).
- "diff": Shorthand for the word "different"
- "cam": Shorthand for the word "camera"
- "gor": Accidental misspelling of the word "for"
- "rn": Shorthand for the phrase "right now"
- "gotchuu": Teen slang for saying "Ok, understood"
Other things such as the capitalization of I and words at the start of the sentence, as well as the lack of hyphens between certain words, are also improper; however because they do not affect the meaning or readability of the messages, I did not feel the need to correct them.)
When it comes to life, nothing ever goes as planned, and often unforeseeable challenges, such as the one my group and I faced today, may arise; however, that does not mean that one should simply back down, but instead, they should learn to expect the unexpected and work with what they are given to overcome any problem.
After having seen "Triple Frontier," a rated R film for which I did obtain parental permission to watch on a streaming platform (whose name I'm not sure I'm allowed to mention for copyright purposes) this weekend, one particular quote by Óscar Isaac that I believe can apply to life in general really stuck with me, so I would like to end off with it as some food for thought: "It’s always a little harder than you think it’s gonna be" (Triple Frontier 2019).
No comments:
Post a Comment