Film Shoot (4th March and 7th March)

4th March, 2017
Our first shoot on Saturday did not go very well because we were not allowed to go on the rooftop we were originally going to film on. We had previously gone up there to film for our last project, so this was very unexpected and we only managed to film 3/13 shots. The orbit dolly was very heavy and I was only planning to use it for one shot, but in the end we weren't even able to use it because we couldn't film on the rooftop. I also realized that the shot might not work with the orbit dolly, instead, we should use a fig-rig to create the "donut selfie" effect. Our actress also forgot to bring her school shoes, which she absolutely needed for the other scene we were filming because it was consisted of close up shots of her feet. In the end, I decided to change it so that she can just wear her sport shoes for that scene. This was a very unsuccessful shoot and I think the problem was that we did not have a backup plan. 

7th March, 2017

Our second shoot is after school on Tuesday. We filmed the classroom scene outside the drama studio in CIS, the going to school scene outside CIS, and part of the bedroom scene at Tess' home. We were quite productive today, but there are still a lot of shots that we have to film during class and outside of class. It is very difficult to find a time when everyone is free to film because we all have our own activities and assessments. As cinematographer, it was a challenge filming the classroom scene because some of the shots are designed to be overhead shots. I had to stand on the 'desk' that our actress was sitting at in order to film the overhead shot. We also made some changes to the close ups of the face, because the ones I designed were too close and it looked awkward when Tina's face filled up the entire frame. I think I was influenced a lot by the use of close ups in Battleship Potemkin. A lot of the closeups are meant to show Tina's emotions. Another difficult part about filming the classroom scene is that we had to make it look like a real local school classroom because we do not have access to a local school and we had to film at CIS. When filming the scene where she is taking the exam, I decided to have someone standing in front of Tina and we will have that person's shoulder in the frame so it looks like she is in a classroom with another classmate in front of her. For the running to school scene, I filmed two different versions - one where the camera is still and another where the camera follows Tina so that the editor can pick whichever suits the film better.