Saturday, March 26, 2016

The Filming Begins!

Today, Nick and I began filming the opening origami sequence of our film. We had to get creative with the filming process as this is a rather low-budget film:

To begin with, we used a piece of black fabric as a backdrop and a desk lamp for lighting. We placed the camera on a small tripod to stabilize the shots, especially when pulling focus, and to ensure we weren't creating any unnecessary shadows. In addition, we were able to move the lamp around and create some really beautiful shots with interesting shadows and compositions.


As shown in the pictures below, in lieu of a dolly we used the tripod on top of a soft blanket to glide across the floor. This resulted in smooth camera movement and a great couple of shots!



Here is a closer look at the origami! We printed out newspaper from the 1940's relating to the Japanese internment camps to show that our actress made these origami figures out of the scraps of  newspaper from the time period.


All in all, we had a really fantastic day filming the origami sequence! We ran into a few problems involving some of the shots, but we were able to work together to fix everything and created some beautiful work. Our next step is to film the outside scene. We plan to work with our young actress this week so we can begin editing the full production very soon! Stay tuned!


1 comment:

  1. I must say, I really love how you are executing your opening! I think it is really creative and very well thought out. The strategy you are using for your opening is one that I can see be presented in an actual movie. From what I read, the opening radiates a sense of simplicity yet power in terms of appealing to emotions. From the origami to the voice-over script, I can clearly tell that you have put tons of work and effort into this project. Not only that, but I like the sincere and personal tone illuminated from your posts. It is also unbelievable that you will be composing all of the music for your opening; it is awesome to see that you are incorporating your talents within your project. I would have never thought to take on a film opening about a topic such as Japanese internment camps, which makes it even more impressive that you came up with all of these little details based on your interest and research. You mentioned in this post that you ran into a few problems involving some of the shots, and that got me thinking as to how you may have some difficulties when it comes to shooting the scene of when the girl is sitting by a fence outside. You may already have ideas to tackle those shots, but a suggestion that I have would be that, if you want to make it look like the young girl is in the internment camp, you could take a high angle shot of the portables from the top of the staircase in the back of the 400s building. It is just a thought, but I feel as though you are prepared to face any challenge when it comes to filming you opening. I am really excited to see how it looks in the end!

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