Andrea's AICE Media Blog: The One With 100 Takes

Film Day #2

I filmed today but my problems actually started on Thursday and Friday. On Thursday, I recalled that I actually didn't have a costume for a military officer character. Big oops. Thankfully, my mom knew someone at her work that used to be a Marine in Colombia and he has his old military jacket. And he was more than happy to lend it to us. We also found a prop badge and baton. Then on Friday before I went home, we went to Walmart and got a pair of cargo pants and some black boots that gave off the military vibe.

Also on Friday, it turned out that Nylah's friend who was going to play Maxxine (the main character's sister) wasn't available, and her substitute wasn't available either. And on top of that, Nylah was only able to shoot on Saturday and had to be out by 4:00 PM. The cherry on top was that Nylah didn't know anyone to be the officer and neighbor like I had expected, so I had a lot of work to do.

First, I decided that since the character Maxxine didn't have any lines to begin with, I ended up scratching her character from the second scene and changed the script into having it be Beatrice's birthday instead of her sister's.

Then, the hardest part was finding two guys that were available to film the next day, since it was so short notice. I asked around and many were busy, but my friends Samuel and Julloyd, from my last school, moved their schedules around to help me. And for that I'm so grateful.

Lastly, I arranged for everyone to meet at my apartment by 11:30, so we could start and finish earlier so everyone was free to do their own things.

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This morning I woke up really early, at around 7:00 AM, so I could shake the sleepiness early so I could start working on the set inside my house. As soon as I had breakfast in my system and a little time to wake up, my mom and I started to set up.

As mentioned in my set blog, my goal was to portray Beatrice's family as a family with very low income. This is where my addiction to thrifting for antique, oldish looking things came in handy because I had plenty to work with. After throwing a sheet over the window and the table, putting some dead flowers in the middle and some old decorations around, this is how it turned out.

After getting everything ready, my dad and I went to go pick Nylah up from her apartment. Once got back it was 11:30 and everyone was already arriving on time. (Phew.) Once everyone was there we sat around my living room and had a sort of table reading. I went over the story idea for those who didn't know and we went over the lines a bit.

At first, I wanted Sam to be the military officer since he's considerably taller than Julloyd, but Julloyd noted that since him and Nylah were both black, it made it seem like the brutality is only against minorities/people of color, which I didn't think about. The goal was to show that everyone outside of the powerful ring of government were the victims, no matter what race or ethnicity they are. So, after listening to constructive criticism, we switched the roles to balance it out. We also all agreed that it didn't matter if Julloyd was shorter, it made the message louder in a way. It doesn't matter whether you are tall or short, skinny or strong, when given so much power and the authority to abuse it, you will. And there's not much others can do about it. All in all, you don't need to be large to cause large amounts of harm.

We practiced the lines and the movements I wanted them to make while making each scene, and everyone got in costume. (Except Sam since he was already wearing regular clothes.)

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We filmed the shot outside first since it would be the fastest to get out of the way. To get the angles right, we put some tape on the floor so they knew where to bump into eachother and I set up the camera in a way that the cars in the background wouldn't show. We got it on the tenth take and moved on.

There's not much to say since we didn't encounter many issues filming. The microphones worked well with my phone. And though the lighting was a little tough to control I thought it went okay.

We had to take maaaany takes. A lot. Not because they kept messing up or anything, but sometimes I wanted to change how a line was delivered or a certain angle, and I wanted to get it just right. We kind of scared my neighbors with all the knocking and yelling, but luckily we got it over with relatively fast and wrapped up filming.

(Extra credit to Julloyd for being our voice)

After three hours of filming and 119 takes, the three of us (since Sam went home early) had some pizza and watched a movie for a bit before everyone had to go home. And that was my day. Editing here I come.