The Shooting Process

     Today was the day we got all our filming done. We began around 1:30 and ended at 5:30 and personally it felt like a very long day; since I was the actor for Austin I needed to wear a black hoodie with jeans in 80 degree weather which was horrible. I was sweating the whole time and the sun was facing directly at us, but other than that I'd say it was a pretty fun day.     

    During the first scene which was outside, we felt that there was some things that didn't line up. For example, the original setting for where Austin and Asher would have their scuffle was taken up by some people so we needed to pivot and decided to go to some tables on the other side of the park, which actually ended up working better for us that if we used the original tables. At this new spot we weren't in the way of people coming in and out of the park, so it was very helpful when people started coming through during the shoot. 

    For much of the beginning scenes we had a very successful run in terms of efficiency due to there not being any dialogue, but then we started shooting scenes that involved speaking and things started to get more complicated due to laughing or generally just messing lines up. Thankfully, we navigated through this and instead struggled on getting the right angles since we felt some shots in the storyboard worked better closer and further away. This was really the only thing that made us struggle after the dialogue, although I did feel that when filming the scene where Asher runs up to kill Austin we had to do many takes since a lot of the time the shots felt awkward and unrealistic. However, we were able to get the perfect shot and even some backups incase of any issues.

    Now, we transition into the second scene that involves Austin entering his house into his room. Here we originally had Brennan's mom screaming to Austin, but due to difficulties and unavailability we couldn't add that too our scene, but personally I think this better develops Asher. Why? Well I think that him coming into a home that has a dark cool tone to it with no parental figure around helps attribute the fact that Asher is someone who struggles mentally due to no reinforcing figure around to help him. Pivoting, into the actual shooting of this second scene; there was a lot going on between us as a group in terms of how we were going to film this tracking shot. We felt very iffy and unorganized at first but through the process of taking so many takes we were able to have everything and every idea down. The part in which Asher walks into his house was annoying to film since we kept bumping into things and we had no idea how to close the door after Asher entered the house, but by deciding Asher would come back to the door almost like he forgot to close it, it would look natural and that's what we did. Another thing we noticed when filming this scene was that the lighting was off so we made Asher turn on the light when coming in the house.

    Then, as we finished the tracking scene into Asher's room we noticed there was a lot of depth missing, so we as a group decided to add some shots right when Asher turns on the lights in his room, here we would show Asher organizing his materials in a specific way into a close up of all the things neatly put together. And that's it for out filming, I thought it was definitely a learning experience and it helped me put into perspective the dedication it takes to craft art like this into something great.