Shooting Day #2

SURPRISE!!!! There is no day 2 of shooting!! Not today at least. Here's a quick story to help me explain the situation better:

I once I asked my mentor, "Becky, what's a lesson you think would've helped you if you knew early on?", she responded, "people suck". Don't take Becky as a negative person, that wasn't a negative comment, it's true, sometimes people just suck. I keep finding myself quoting Becky, there are times were "people suck" and today was one of them. (Also, just making sure I set the record straight, Becky is amazing! Her lessons are raw, she doesn't try to sugar coat or hide things, that makes her a great mentor!!)

Short Version:

My actors were a no-show and we only had one shot to get it right. Now I have to resort to Plan B. 

Long Version:

Today I was supposed to film the last scene of the opening sequence, the barbeque scene in which a white family and a black (African American) family can be seen having a good time as the camera slowly reveals a sign with the name of the community they're in, which has "Y7Y" on it, implying that the experiment had been activated. I asked my neighbors if they were willing to help me by being in the film opening, they agreed; I even waiting for Mr.Mang.. uh... let's call them the Guava family, yes, like the fruit... I even delayed the filming so that Mr.Guava could arrive on a trip and be in the film. Yesterday I spoke to the Guava's to make sure everything was fine with them and to confirm that we would be shooting today, they confirmed it all. Guess what? Nothing! They canceled and Mr.Guava (who, in theory, is a key part of that scene) leaves tomorrow morning. In conclusion, because I won't be able to record this scene I have to change part of my opening to fill the time that was meant to be used up for the scene. In addition, I no longer need to move forward on the licensing of the song, which sucks because I was really looking forward to going through the licensing process; I might just do it anyways to learn from the experience.

As you can probably imagine I'm frustrated and quite mad because I confirmed it twice!! But I also understand that plans change, it's just life. This little inconvenience is going to set me back which is exactly what I was trying to avoid, but I plan on changing gears quickly!

Quiet on set! Lights, Camera, Action!!

Me directing on my first day of shooting!

And we're off to the races! Today was my first-day recording! I shot the background video for the 1964 experiment which explains the experiment's purpose and conclusions! I met the actor who played the experimenter for the very first time today, 15 minutes didn't go by before he was in costume and in front of the camera. I want to separate today's shoot into categories so it's easier to breakdown and analyzes!

The Set Up

Costume

 

The night before the shoot I asked the "actor" to bring a white dress shirt which was my choice of the costume because he is, after all,  he is playing an old 1960s psychology professor at a highly respected -fictional- university (inspired by Standford University). I looked at pictures of Philip Zimbardo (the Standford University psychology professor famous for the Standford prison experiment) and Stanley Milgram (the Yale psychology professor famous for the Milgram Obedience Experiment) to draw a conclusion as to the most probable outfit the experimenter would be wearing. Similar to the experiment in my story, both of them conducted their experiment around the same time the debriefing video would have been filmed (Milgram 1963 [REALLY CLOSE] & Zimbardo 1971).  I then concluded that a white shirt and skinny black tie would be the best costume choice. 

Philip Zimbardo 

Set & Lighting

I knew I couldn't film the 1964 video in the same place the 2017 experiment is being planned so I scattered my house for the right place. I decided to shoot the video in front of a plain white wall, sure it might sound boring set design-wise, but not all sets can be academy award winners  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. I realize now that I shouldn't pursue a career in comedy, I should probably stick to business. Seriously speaking however,  I strongly believe that if you're filming a secret debriefing video for a classified experiment that you know could potentially cause public chaos, you want to give as little clues to where you're recording it as possible; especially if it's a prestigious college whose reputation could be potentially damaged by information about the experiment leaking to the public. To achieve this set I recorded it all in a VERY tight shot which allowed me to block out the rest of my room. To light the set, I used a 3 point lighting set up which eliminated the shadows from the shot, regardless of where the "actor" moved. The backlight in the set up is warm white light unlike the fill and key light, I thought it wouldn't be very noticeable but  I remembered that after editing and lowering all saturation it won't be noticeable at all (I quickly edited the same picture of the "actor" reading the screen to test this).

Original Picture

Edited

The Script

As expected I did a few minor changes to the script minutes before we began shooting and most importantly I added directions for the actor so he knew when to look frustrated, serious, and (because at times he was reading from the printed script) when to look at the camera. 

The Shoot

The Directing

I decided to shoot it all separate, every paragraph in the script was a different video, all ranging from ~8 seconds to ~15. After getting every paragraph in the prologue separately, I filmed it all together as one about 3 times. In total, It's fair to say the shot took about 1 hour (because everything technical was set up before Enrique arrived). 

The Acting

I have to start this by saying that I truly appreciate Enrique coming out to do this, I had never met him before, he met my dad not long ago, and he volunteered to help me by acting as "Experimenter #1" who has the only lines in the entire 2-minute opening. I also have to mention that 2 of his kids graduated in media and/or cinematography and another one is studying acting in California so he came in knowing how much this type of project means to the director. I knew I wasn't going to have an award-winning actor on the other side of the camera, but I hoped they would be as convincing as possible. I know Enrique tried his very best, but it was too obvious that he was reading his lines because he kept squinting to do so. Near the end, however, his lines flowed out nicely! However, I had a bigger problem by then... In order to be authorized to run a classified experiment about racism in 1945, the experimenter would have had to be white ( Enrique is white, but English is his 3rd language, he has a very heavy accent, and the script is full of technical psychology vocab; therefore, you can't always understand what he's saying.) I think I could try and pass him as a German researcher; however, the experiment began in 1945 which is the end of WW2. At the time, a project of that magnitude and level of clearance wouldn't have been given to a German. Yes, I do think of those little details because my job is to tell a good story and this isn't a children's movie where plot holes can be left unfilled, the audience for this drama will analyze and draw conclusions of their own; I have to give them "2+2" not "2 and go figure it out." In conclusion, I don't want to use the audio; if it sounds off to me, the audience will pick up on it. I thought of reshooting but I have no time to waste and dubbing it to perfection would be near impossible. I'm going to sleep on it and try to find a creative solution tomorrow. 

PS: Tomorrow is day 2 of filming! I'm super excited!! 

Sneek Preview!

Now that I have the background, the lighting, and some of the props all set up and ready to begin filming soon, I thought I'd give it a test run using an iPhone while the camera is getting ready to shoot some scenes in another location tomorrow! Here's the rough long-take I took!

I'm still worried about the lighting, I fear is too dark. I'm gonna ask to have some of my classmates and friends taking AICE media to peer review it and give me feedback before I shoot the actual thing! (FOR BEST RESOLUTION, DO NOT EXPAND)

*Disclaimer: I had the "Stranger Things" theme song as the background music for personal use ONLY. This is NOT the song I'll use in my project nor have I gone through the licensing process for this score, it was being used in private and it's, therefore, fair use of the song. 

So, funny story...

Like I mentioned in my other post, there are two main features to the composition of my state's environment, transforming the location's back and the lighting. In this post, I want to focus on how I'm using lighting to help enhance the mysterious mood of my set as well as share a little mishap I had when setting things up.

My light set up:

I'm using 4 different types of lighting equipment in order to create the right atmosphere, as can be seen on the picture, two of the lights are set on the floor, while the other two are higher to better illuminate the props on the table. I crossed the garage lights because I will not be using it while shooting. I decided to place a diffuser on 2 lights: the one I'm borrowing (Top one on the right) and the study light I'm using to help illuminate the background I built ( I want to illuminate the background so that it can be distinguished from the table with the props & show the depth of the room); to diffuse this one I decided to place a white china paper on top of it. I also switched out the light my garage had (top left) for a smart light that can change color; I control this light via my iPad, granting me full control over it's color and color brightness. I figured the more control I have over the set, the better I'll be able to emerge the audience into the story. The colors light on the floor (bottom left) is there to reinforce the color from the smart light above.

Lastly, the light set up is meant to help reduce the number of possible shadows the camera can pick up. The faint shadow of me with the camera that's cast by the color light is contrasted by the warm white light given off by the other two lights. 

Using Color: 

The lighting is KEY because it will help establish the mood of the experiment through the movie; however, shooting at too much low lighting could make for terrible scene composition. For this set, I decided to mix warm white light with blue light; the contrasting color hues symbolizing contrast and balance (similar to the Y7Y easter egg and the nature of the experiment). My biggest challenge using color is that pure blue light is very dark which makes it difficult to shoot in, especially without having to boost the camera's ISO and ruin the detail with a grainy look. If when shooting I find that lighting is simply too dark I'll change the set up to one more closely resembling the one I plan on using to record the file cabinet (I included a reference picture below). 

So... Funny Story:

Boy, do I have a funny story about today! As I was playing around with my lighting set up to take some set pictures (like the one above) some lights began to flicker. I didn't pay much attention to it, I probably should have. I had used a series of sort extension cords to connect all the lights together, and since I'm spending so much time in there anyway, I decided to charge a couple of other equipment in the room including my phone, 2 cameras, the iPad, and a speaker for convenience. I'm a smart kid, I should have known better than to overload the circuit. You probably know where this is going... I blew a fuse (◉_◉)... Or so I thought, the garage lost power and my stomach dropped thinking "Did I blow a fuse? What is even a fuse? How in the world am I gonna tell my dad that I blew a fuse?!? Especially when I'm in charge of Christmas lights?!?! I'm supposed to know better than this!" Then I remembered my house doesn't have fuses at all!! It's a box of circuit breakers! (This is just proof that I need some sleep) I just reset the power! I learned my lesson though, I unplugged some stuff and moved them to my room, and quickly transferred everything to a big heavy duty extension cord and a power strip. THAT WAS CLOSE! This taught me I need to think of EVERYTHING when setting up a set, not only aesthetic and technique but technical too. 

Building A Set

Like my calendar says, I was set building today! My film opening has four different shooting locations, 3 of them I found through location scouting: The park where I'll shoot the BBQ scene, the class in which I'll record the file cabinet, and I the white wall in which I'll record the prop 1964 video. The fourth one I decided to build from scratch, in it I'll be recording the shots of the 2017 experiment revival. 

I decided to turn my garage into my set because there I'll have the privacy and space necessary to film. The scene I'll be shooting in my garage is set in a "classified location", this description gave me A LOT of lead way in creating a setting that will help create a sense of menacing mystery. Since the site is classified, the audience shouldn't be able to tell where it's located or what it truly is. To accomplish this, I covered 2 walls of my garage with plastic tablecloths which hid the garage environment. Covering 2 walls instead of just one will make it easier for me to frame the shots and make different camera movements without accidentally showing my garage.

I also put a table in the middle of the corner set, I'll place all the props on the table and have the researcher work on paperwork and crossing out classified information. My storyboard has a shot in front of the table (opposite to the seat of the researcher), in order to achieve that shot I'll simply rotate the table and seat in a way that I still use the same background, giving the illusion of a 360° set. In order to help me visualize the set and the logistics of filming around the table, I made this blueprint: 

 The planning stage for building my set.

In my next post, I'll dive deep into my set's lighting set up!