Filming Day 2: Starting again

The shot list and which ones I got done

one of the worst things that could happen in a production is having to restart filming again, especially after putting so much effort into already-made footage. But what is necessary has to happen, and today before filming began, I had to make the difficult decision of finding a different actress.

My original actress became too busy and had something that came up stopping her from being part of the film. This caused me to panic because finding a different actor in such a short time is very difficult. Yet my cousin saved the day as she volunteered. With that decision done it just meant restarting from the beginning.

The first day of filming footage got scrapped but it wasn’t a total loss. As I knew how to set up the shots I liked and had more experience handling the camera. This allowed for an easier and faster experience as there were fewer accidents or errors on the 2^nd day. Most shots went smoothly and I was able to get done a good chunk of the shots.

Today it was the first time we did shot 7, which surprisingly was the most difficult shot of the film and it had to do with moving the camera to a Dutch angle while filming was difficult. The problem was that no matter how fast or slow I made the camera movement, the Dutch angle would slowly happen before it was desired. I wasn’t sure how to fix this problem, I tried changing the frame rate, and exposure, did slow camera movement, and did faster camera movement to stop this but it just wouldn’t for any of my scenes.

So, a difficult decision had to come where I would have to cut the Dutch angle or have one that moved up and down instead. I still wanted that to be part of shot 7 so I decided that the camera would move along the paintbrush up and down to when the accident happened. I knew it was going to take a lot of practice, but I hoped that this could still give the sense of disruption that the original Dutch shot was supposed to be.

This day truly tested being able to keep moving forward and straying from the plan. I had planned to start filming at 9 am, continuing from where I left on day 2, and then keep going until 5, which would be enough time to do all the shots. Instead, my actress got replaced and I couldn't start filming until noon, and I had to restart everything. So, everything went wrong but I persevered and though I didn’t get close to finishing it was a good way to start again.