Digital Filmmaking - Week 15

22/10/2019

I have been unwell since late last week and that's why my previous blog entry for this paper is cut short. I had a runny nose, but got myself to get the filming to go ahead because I couldn't afford to postpone it again. However, it took a turn for the worst on Sunday when I woke up unable to have the energy or strength to get out of bed, let alone leave the flat and go to campus for shooting. It could be a blessing in disguise because of the power outage on campus that day, which would had made the campus inaccessible for anyone.



Thursday

I had picked up the equipment from Chris yesterday. I had only enough time in the past couple of days to make mostly one call sheet and so there were no call sheets for the other days of filming. I also went by to the business involved in my shoot to talk about my shoot and to see if they were fine by it and they were. I wore my hi-vis vest and a SIT beanie when approaching the business, informing them of my shoot.

Royce pulled out of filming and so did Konstantin, Tyler etc, leaving me with a skeleton film crew. My flatmate, Andy volunteered to fill in Royce's acting role as the dairy worker.





Friday

I came in early to get copies of the script, scheduling, and mood board printed out for myself and my AD, Janette. I got myself a hot chocolate from Starbucks for my runny nose. It was a lovely, sunny morning that was perfect for shooting and better than I was expecting. 

We met up in the communal area of the downtown campus and started to carry down the equipment from Luqman's editing suite to the RAW Gallery. We then loaded it all into Caleb's car when he arrived. Luqman went with Caleb to direct him to my flat at Yarrow Street. Myself and the rest carried the rest of the stuff (I think it was a sound kit, a flag kit, and the Ursa?) by foot. 

We took our equipment to my flat first because it wasn't likely that we would need all the equipment for the shoot outside the dairy. From there, we were able to prepare equipment and sort things out e.g. Luqman organised fitting himself with the Easy Rig and attaching the Ursa.

From there we traveled to the dairy by foot and wasn't far. It's basically on the other side of Queens Drive. We set ourselves up only to find that the manager of the dairy wasn't comfortable with the doorway being filmed straight through because there were concern it would scare off customers, so I had to ditch the idea of having a wide establishing shot of the dairy and had to compromise. I didn't think to ask if the dairy had a manager yesterday. I had only informed the people who worked there and they were fine with it, and I thought that would be enough. Next time, I would ask to see the manger and see if he or she would be fine with it.

The manager was fine with my shoot as long as my shoot didn't disrupt business and that we didn't film in the entrance. Because of the unpredictable foot traffic and bigger numbers than I expected (there is usually not many that go to this dairy), it was impossible to be a nuisance to the public visiting the dairy and so we tried to rush the shoot outside the dairy and I didn't do some shots because by then, I felt that we were there long enough as being a nuisance.

There was wind that disrupted recording sound at times and I also couldn't hear when my film crew over the wind. With this and the foot traffic, it was bit of a sensory overload for me.

Shooting the scene on Deveron Street outside the Rebel Sport building took faster to shoot than expected, which allowed us to continue being ahead of schedule.

We used Dillon's car to transport equipment to shoot the scene at the SIT Cafe and fitted as much equipment into his car as we could. I'm able to shoot there today because Vajka pulled out of filming her short film there and so the time was free for me to use, although I had to change the shoot schedule.

We hung out at the SIT Cafe for a couple of hours before the shoot began. The cast and crew went over to Pakn' Save because I didn't have time to sort lunch stuff for the shoot to feed them. A while before the shoot was scheduled to begin, I mentioned to staff at the cafe about my shoot and for a while they didn't believe until they an email from their manager about my shoot.

It a while to sort out the equipment because we told Dillon there was free car park out in the back and he misunderstood, thinking we meant Forth Street, but what we were really meant was outside Hansel Hall.

The shoot went faster than I expected. There might be problems with the trademark signage, but it's something I couldn't do much about. We used the Aladdin to have the dairy worker lit well behind the counter and the staff were fine with us having lighting and people behind the counter for the shoot.

After shooting the interior of the dairy at the SIT Cafe, we again transported equipment with Dillon's car and took it all back to my flat, where we had a couple of simple shots to do.

One of the final shots for today's shoot required to shoot a night scene and we pulled it off by having a black blanket over the kitchen window.

We had also shot the establishing shot of the flat. It was there where Luqman informed that I should had mentioned earlier that I had intentions to have this film in CinemaScope since he would had kept it in mind when framing the shots. As a result, this film will have to be in 16 x 9 and not have a letterbox mask applied, which is not a bad thing since you still make it cinematic with just 16 x 9.



Saturday

It was pouring down with rain and I was concerned that it would affect my shoot today, but lucky for me it didn't. They were a bit late, which I didn't mind since it fitted with my shooting schedule and made my cautious attitude towards scheduling in the past week correct.

It took us some time for me to direct the final scene of the film (outside the SIT Apartments) because of creative differences between myself and my skeleton crew. There some I could put my foot down on and some I couldn't. I used a large black rubbish bag as tarp in the skip bin for when the protaginst drops the jacket into the skip. 

We shot the rest of the shoot inside my flat, where there were still creative difference between myself and my DOP (Luqman), especially around shooting the bathroom scenes. I think my skeleton crew were in a rush to finish their job on my shoot because they wanted to work on their own projects today.

I did think about compromising the balcony scene and shoot in the day, but from the attitude of my crew today, I don't think shooting that scene is an option.

With all the scenes done at my flat, I called a taxi van to transport all the equipment back to the downtown campus. It was a transport idea that I had in mind from when the international students did it for their cinematography shoot.

We carried all the gear bvack into Luqman's editing suite and discovered from Fabri that there was gfoing to be a power outage on campus, which may affect access. It's unknown how long the power outrage would be that day and it was going to definitely affect my shoot because tomorrow's shoot would be on campus. It's strange how only the animation students were informed about the power outage.

Oisin insisted that I contact the power company or someone who may know more about the power outage, but I couldn't because I didn't know who to contact and how can I contact someone like that if I don't know where to specifically look. Contacting the power stations seemed like a wild goose chase and I was exhausted from the shoot with still being unwell, so I spent the afternoon resting up.

I ingested all the footage from the Ursa at the end of the day.



Sunday

I felt absolutely, physically weak from my illness and had no choice, but to cancel the third day of my shoot. I messaged my cast and crew about the cancellation and they were fine with that.


Today

Oisin gave me back the editing suite key that Kres had for me to return to Chris. I also had to return the Aladdin because Chris wanted it returned right away.

I have managed to put together a rough assembly edit. Wit the footage that I managed to take and the best I could do with thew footage, lead to the edit being three and a half minutes. Although sound and good timing with the editing may shorten the short film's duration. I also ingested the sound files from the Zoom.

The short film is much more abstract and vague than I had planned at this stage and that may not change. I told Jacqui that it may not live up to the artist statement and she told that it's okay for me to change the artist statement for Think & Create.

It's at least something to show Patrick this afternoon


Patrick didn't have time to view the edit, but instead suggested to copy it over to the Y drive Dropbox for him to watch later. I inform him some of the stuff that went on over the shoot weekend and he suggested to go ahead with what I can do and if necessary, to submit a from to request a extension for this paper through Kathryn.

23/10/2019

I returned the equipment to Chris and managed to book out a different editing suite to finish post production on my short film. 

24/10/2019

I modified a release form to suit my project and it's for my actors to sign.

25/10/2019

I did work on the edit towards a rough cut with the Zoom audio included and sound effects. I acquired sound effects for a phone from freesound.org

https://freesound.org/people/Aldergrove_Studios/sounds/487522/

https://freesound.org/people/j008b/sounds/85343/

https://freesound.org/people/benniknop/sounds/317851/


I had the premiere project's timecode set to 1:00:00:00 for it to be ready for Resolve. I exported the project into EDL and XML formats as well. I tried to access Resolve on the computer in one of the editing suite, but it doesn't have an activated license on it, so I will need to do the colour grading on Resolve on another computer.

I sent a message to Dillon through Messenger informing him that I need him to sign a release form and asking when would be a good time to meet up, preferably before Monday afternoon (the deadline for this project).