Hi-ya! Yesterday marked our official completion of filming for our music video and we were able to wrap things up quite nicely. Since last night was a school night, we needed to leave directly from campus to head to our group member's house before embarking to the nearby Moonlite Diner, which is why I packed the blue and green straws (and some back-ups) with me. I would like to note that we did contact the diner beforehand to request permission to film at the restaurant in order to ensure that we respected their privacy policies. We were given the all-clear by the restaurant’s owner and set out soon afterward to begin filming.*
Once everyone had arrived at our group mate's house, we proceeded to drive over to the Moonlite Diner. Once there we showed the hostess our email of approval and were given the green light to proceed after having been seated at a table in the far corner as to not disturb any of the restaurant's other patrons. Our first order of business was to film the action match cut that would bridge the two locations together. Before we did that, however, we were seated at a table where we waited for things to slow down in the restaurant. As soon as the diner had begun to empty out and fewer customers were walking in, we got up and went to film at the front door. One of my group members then pulled up the car scene video we had shot and I crouched down to film the subject's foot as they stepped up to the diner's front door. Once we had achieved our desired look, we returned back to our table where we ordered the food for our subject, a burger and fries, and our own milkshakes (if Brandon gets to enjoy one after we're done filming then we should too), asking that our subject's milkshake order be held off until the food arrived, as to ensure that nothing melted or that we didn't accidentally make a mess. While we waited for everything to arrive, we went over what the next few scenes would look like, regarding timing as well as their general execution.
After we had finished enjoying our milkshakes (yes, Brandon did have to wait until the end to get his), and the food had made its way to our table, I took it upon myself to pull up the video where our subject was seated upright in his bed, being that I had a copy of my own, in order to ensure that the location of our subject in the frame for this scene was the same. We first positioned our subject in the center of the frame and carefully laid the dishes out in front of him so that they did not obstruct the camera’s view. One of my group mates then sat directly across from him at the table and began to record him as he apathetically played with his food (we ensured to have our empty milkshake cups moved out of the frame), whilst another one of my group's members assumed the role of a waitress and placed his milkshake in front of him once more after I had switched out the provided straw with two of our own. We placed the blue straw, which represented our subject, higher than our green straw, which served to symbolize their deceased girlfriend, reflecting this exact fact. To execute the jump cut, my teammates and I slightly shifted our subject's plate over to create the effect that he had just finished "eating," more so picking at his food, during which another member of the group expedited the subject's milkshake melting process by placing their hands around the cup to warm it up.
When my groupmate had concluded filming for the rest of the scene, including as the subject stepped away from the table and paid for his meal, we then proceeded to actually pay for our food and exit the premises. Upon leaving the diner, we set up my iPhone to record and began by distancing ourselves from the camera in front of the subject, so that only an empty background and he would be present. During this time, I was in control of the camera whilst also managing the timing of the couple (comprised of one of our very own groupmates and another one of her friends) to ensure that they entered the scene at the appropriate time and that they maintained a good distance from both our subject and the camera so that it would be easier to blur them out when the time came for editing. Whilst filming that scene, I ensured that the lighting was adequate by employing with the help of two of my groupmates who positioned their phones' flashlights in the direction of my recording. After that, we told our subject to move up a bit so that we could position ourselves behind them to obtain an over-the-shoulder shot.
At that point, I handed over the camera to another one of my teammates who held it in the correct position as I used my hand to steady their shot. Once that was done we were officially in the home stretch and performed a cutaway shot from the phone screen to the subject's face and back to the phone screen once more. Whilst that was occurring, I had referenced our earlier clips of the scene to keep the subject's hand in the same location after each cut. After that scene, we engaged in well-thought-out and careful discussion in which we decided to switch our plot twist to be that our subject had been texting their girlfriend, who we learn is deceased at the end of the music video, as opposed to being upset with him, which is what we misled our audience to believe. Finally, we had a member of our group text our subject's phone and have the message appear on-screen, using a close-up, zooming-in shot on the phone to refrain from showing the face of our subject entirely. We went a bit over our time limit of one minute and fifteen seconds, clocking in at one minute and seventeen seconds, but with some good old-fashioned editing, we'll have it down in no time!
*Denny’s was another one of our prospective locations; however, after repeated unanswered phone calls we defaulted and chose to contact the Moonlite Diner. Admittedly, this entire contacting process should have been conducted during the planning stage of this project, but we know now better and will follow the necessary procedure when it comes to our final task.
Below, I have attached a picture of the email we sent to the owner of the Moonlite Diner to request permission to film at the restaurant.
We've come so far with our music video already and after having such a successful day with filming, I felt that it called for a celebration because "Woah, we're half way there(!)" (Bon Jovi 1986).
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