Welcome back to yet another blog by yours truly, Jordyn Minnis! I’ve had a pretty hectic weekend between having to work and attending a good friend’s birthday party, which is why this blog is going in today rather than yesterday. On Saturday, I found out that my aunt had changed her mind once again regarding the ability for us to film within her home, so I promptly notified my team of the change. This did come with its own implications of course, such as the fact that my kitchen and living room needed to be altered, which meant that any and all baby or family photos I had needed to come off the walls. On top of that, since the change occurred on such short notice, my parents and I didn’t have time to tidy up their bedroom (the one with the walk-in closet), otherwise, we would’ve likely filmed a few of our bedroom scenes that day. Thankfully because of the change in filming time to a bit later in the day, something that happened because of our new actor, my group mates had no issues adjusting to the new location, my house, especially since it is quite a ways away from where they live. Despite the aforementioned drawbacks we faced with regards to being unable to film some of our shots on Saturday, the fact that we filmed it at my house made the process seem less rushed overall and it was a more comfortable filming environment for myself and my groupmates alike. Moreover, since we were filming in my home, everything will be much more convenient when it comes to reshooting our scenes to account for errors, which I will discuss below, as we will not need to trouble my uncle in any way and risk overstaying our welcome.
Due to the location change, we also needed to readjust some of our shots so that they would make sense under the new circumstances. One of the most notable shot modifications we made was that we had the camera angling in a way that showed three-quarters of our subject's profile at the dining table because of the layout of my condominium. We also changed the positioning of the props on my kitchen counter by positioning the cans on the table as opposed to having them lie in the background so that they would be visible enough for the audience to make out what they were, but so they would not be obscuring our subject and main props, which included the apple, bowl, and the subject's laptop. Now, if we were to proceed with our original plans in accordance with the storyboard, the camera would eventually face towards my empty kitchen that leads outside as the subject's mother responds, which wouldn't make sense since her voice is meant to seem as though it comes from deeper inside of the subject's home in the following scene. With that being said, in scene three to be exact, we ended up deciding to follow through with our use of shot-reverse shots for the entire segment. This was done with the intention of creating a more dynamic feel that would stray away from less mundane and stale composition shots, which we would've likely produced had we chosen to stick with maintaining a single stationary shot for the majority of the conversation that took place between the subject and his mother. While this did lead to some complications with maintaining the continuity and smoothness of our transitions, an issue we've previously run into in earlier projects (our commercial), I am quite confident that said problems will be resolved once I get around to editing them this week and when we reshoot some of our scenes this weekend, so the creative decision will be worth it in the end. On the topic of said conversation, my mom, who, despite being present from practically our entire filming process, did need to step away for a bit to get us all some lunch, so by the time we got around to filming the scene in which her voice was needed, she was not available. That being the case, we ended up having one of our groupmates, Nicole, voice the subject's mother; however, because they needed to leave early, that part of our film was a bit choppy because we tried to get things done as quickly as possible, so that will likely be part of our refilming schedule next weekend. Now, depending on how everything goes, my mom might actually end up subbing in for Nicole if we deem her to be the better fit in terms of time management and voice acting on the whole.
When it came to more tangible mistakes that occurred during filming, I don't believe I can express how frustrated I was when we accidentally got filming equipment in one of our scenes, a shot that my teammates and I agreed was one of the best we had taken all day. I will say that if filming on Saturday taught me anything, it's that there is a first for everything and that that little mishap will certainly be the last time something like that ever happens on set. As I mentioned in my previous blog, my dad and I repainted and cleaned our stairs a few days before, so while my team and I did need to scrub off some of the grime, dirt, and dust that had built up over the last couple days, it was not as time-consuming as it could've been had we not prepped prior to filming and had we ended up filming at my uncle's house and deferring filming at my place until this upcoming weekend. I ended up bringing out one of the carpets in my house and using it to line the stairs. We did of course take the proper safety precautions, having made sure that our subject held on to the railing at all times and checking beforehand to verify that his open-toed sandals had enough traction to limit the risk of him potentially slipping and being injured.
Overall, I'd definitely say that my teammates and I had a great deal of fun on Saturday and got a decent amount of our shots done. Despite making a few mistakes here and there, I strongly believe they were inherent with the last-minute location change and that since we've already made them, they won't happen again, especially because we've had the time to learn and adapt to our new environment. For each of the alterations we made while filming, I do feel that the end goal we have in mind will be able to compensate for any concessions we have made.
I've attached some production stills below to give you an insider peek into what exactly goes on behind the scenes:
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