Last Day of Filming

Hey, been busy getting the movie edited among other things. But I'm back for some more story telling.

So now I've got to film a scene where I've got eight people playing football. How do you choreograph something as complex as that?

It was actually pretty easy. We went to the football field, made plays, recorded it, the end. Everyone knew what to do, and everyone went automatically went into the state of really playing the game. So it all came off organic.

There were a few problems such as when a player RAN INTO THE CAMERAMAN.

Sometimes the camera couldn't keep up with the action and things such as that but no real problems.

We had to film during the day which I didn't like. I wanted magic hour but time did not permit so we filmed then. Hot as hell and brighter than I wanted, but besides that it was great.

Another scene was shot at the basketball court but with all the dialogue in the scene we weren't able to get as many master shots as I wanted. It was getting dark soon, the curse of magic hour, so we concentrated on getting all the close-ups we needed and with the time left we got what masters we could. Enough to make it work in editing.

This was the day the photographer showed up, so all we got were photos of us playing basketball. So when I post photos of the movie people think it's an entire movie about basketball. Lesson learned, always have someone with a camera on set and make sure the photographer shows up the day they were supposed to.

That's it for the filming of the movie. Any other questions, just ask.

Next I'll move on to what to do after filming the movie.

Controlling Chaos

I'm back! So now is the conclusion to the cliffhanger of yesterweek. Me not have no place to film the movie, where me go? New house didn't want us to shoot there because the woman of the house determined her place too messy.

We were shooting our opening scene and another big scene. Luckily the actor who was going to shoot his one and only scene had his own place and his 3 day late pregnant wife gave him the okay to let us shoot there.

It was really a blessing in disguise, we wouldn't have been able pull off what we were planning on doing in the house we were shooting in. Too loud, too raunchy, too much liability for breaking things. This house was perfect with it's open spaces and being my friends house we could get away with a lot more.

Plus as I mentioned last time, it added another location to the movie.

So this first scene is action packed as all first scenes should be. We set up all the actors hoping with the limited given instructions they could coordinate themselves without looking stupid or rehearsed.

It was a night scene but we were shooting during the day, since it was an interior scene we were able to take care of that. We taped trash bags to the outside of all the windows and we were done.

The DP used the wheelchair as a dolly and we taped it. It turned out being the best first take through out the entire shooting! The ceiling fan got hit a little bit but that was it.

The shot after that was even better, non-pro's can be the best actor's imaginable if you know how to use them. The shot and acting was unbelievable. It didn't require a lot of skill for the acting but it was undeniably authentic as much of the acting throughout the entire filming was.

Some of the scenes were so crazy I couldn't believe my actors were so ready to do them. But a problem that had been eating at me was one of my actors had just got off work and we needed to get him here now, or we wouldn't be able to film the scene. I was finally able to get ahold of him and had another actor who had finished his scenes pick him up while we finished up other scenes.

Now as good as we were doing, the actors still had problems remember lines. Which made it difficult when trying to get your master shots. We got a decent amount of master shots, wish I could've got more but for the sake of time, and the DP's sanity we moved on to the next scene.

My two actors were now here just in time, we filmed an even crazier scene, and we were done.

My friends/actors were always able to help with crew jobs such as holding lights and such, helped out a lot. One friend blames me for ruining movies for him, the magic is gone for him now. He thinks about what's going on behind the camera every time he see's a movie now.

Wish my non-pro's had a little more time to rehearse so they would've known their lines better for more master shots in the big scenes. But if you look at all the things that you didn't get then you're fucking yourself up. Just learn from it for you next project and think of all the things that went right that could've easily went wrong.

Two scenes left! They're outdoor and require a lot of coordination.