Production Diary - Filming Day 1

 Filming Day 1.

28.01.2024

Filming roles:

- Director: me

- Filming: me

- Assistant on set: Vicky

- Talents: Katie and Tommy

Before filming:

We went to pick up the lighting from the rental place.

Since I was on a limited budget - I decided to use the Kino 2-bulb Light - which is the most affordable lighting that was offered. 

Fortunately, my friend has a very good DSLR camera - Canon 800D, along with a tripod, so I didn't have to rent the camera, which got me away from any extra costs from renting or damaging return. 

We then tried to set up a scene in the living room, to test out the lights and how to work with the camera. We had some troubles with securing the camera on the tripod steadily, which later on lead to my shots being shaky - and I didn't do double checking. However, I think I could make up to that by using stabilization mode on editing (which iMovie has - and maybe Davinci does too).

Filming:

There were definitely some major changes in the filming plan of location, since the studio (homestay) that I was intended to rent did not meet all of the requirements for all of the scenes in the script, so I have to find another place to film a few specific scenes. Luckily, my friend's house fit the whole mise-en-scene requirements I've set out! 

So before waiting for the main talents to come, me and my AD decided to film a few shots that do not required talents beforehand, to save up time. 

ISO range: 600 - 1000 - the higher the range, the lighter the shot.

Frame rate: 24fps

Autofocused

The following setting would be used for the most parts of the music video, since most of the scenes were taken in the dark.

The shot came out with good lighting, as I used 2-bulb kino lighting in the background.

After that, the talents arrived and we headed to the supermarket to film our very first scenes.

The shots didn't come out as cinematic as I would've wanted, since I didn't use a camera in store. We didn't ask for filming permission in advance, so to avoid any issues we filmed using cinematography mode on an iPhone, but I think I could justify the color contrast during post-production while color correcting, making it has more deep tones which could brings out the roughness relating to the convention of alternative rock: hard metal elements.

I could've executed a better job if I had contacted the employees beforehand to ask for filming permission and not secretly doing it.

Finishing filming in the supermarket, we decided to go to second location, which is a rented homestay, at this place I finished filming all of the scenes at the living room. 

Here I had used the kino lights for the very first time, and it was a difficult task to move it around the room for different shots and angles. However, in the evaluation of the use of the lights, I find that they're not that necessary since the lights are hard light and not soft light, which does not directly suits the atmosphere and the hue that I was trying to develop consistently throughout my my music video. The cool lights make it harder for me to adjust later on in post-production, since it is more complicated to grade the lighting to make it more warm.

After filming at the homestay, we moved back to my friend's house for finishing filming the scene at the kitchen and dining room. It was a time-consuming process due to time transporting, however it is unavoidable due to the fixed booking with the homestay.

Here at my friend's house, we didn't use the kino lights since the lights in the house are enough for the shots, furthermore they're at the exact tone that I would wanted. More conveniently, the lights are directly from the top of the head, serving its overhead lighting duty.

That is the end for first day filming.