Shooting Day 2

Today, St. Patrick's Day, (the reason for the green font color) we finished shooting our mini-mini-film noir. It took us about an hour, making total shooting time about 2 hours. Neither Mack nor Kyle could make it today, so, with Even and Eli acting, Conrad and I were left to the camera and sound. We took turns being the camera operator and the mic operator, so we each shot about half of today's work, meaning that we each shot about about a quarter of the total movie.

Being the camera operator was surprisingly fun. I was able to put more input into how the shots were shot, as previously, I would occasionally notice some kinds of shots that I would rather have another way, or the consensus was that the shot was good, and I basically agreed, but I would want to tweak one little detail or something. When it comes to things such as this that I will label under "projects" I tend to be nit-picky. But I don't want to drive everyone crazy, so I limit how much I ask the camera operator to try the shot slightly differently if it's fine the way it is. Anyway, I'll be able to apply my nit-pickyness when I'm editor next week. Editing is my favorite part of the process.

Not that I'm trying to imply that the footage I shot was better than the rest, or anything like that. Not at all. I just enjoyed having this responsibility and being able to execute a pan exactly how I wanted in terms of speed and exact start and end position etc. Our group as a whole came up with the placement and movement of the camera, I just finally had the opportunity to personally initiate them today. And I will also single out Conrad in saying that he had some especially creative camera angle ideas that I think will really make the film look extra good.

So anyway, I think we got some really good footage today. We messed around with angles and lighting even more than we had the first day, so the footage should be quite interesting, assuming that it will still make sense, which I'm quite sure it will. Because we did this, we ended up not shooting exactly how the storyboard had been drawn up, but I think it's even better, since we realized that there wouldn't have been as much variation.