When We Will Film Again

       As stated in my previous blog we will not be filming during break. However, what we consider to be part of the break is technically not the whole break. The weekend before school starts is technically part of the break but we don't really consider it because we have weekends off regardless. I clarify this because we will be filming the Sunday before school starts again January 3rd. I didn't want there to be any confusion because of my last blog. There was a lot of thought when we picked this date. Many of the reasons we chose this date have been explained in my previous blog. A lot of holidays happen during this break which would cause many schedule conflicts. Parents want their kids home to celebrate with family. Also, many parents work and will be unable to provide transportation during this time. We also felt a break was needed during these hectic times. We were initially considering two options, film the weekend before break ends or the weekend after. We decided the weekend before. While a break from school was needed these are also good opportunities to get ahead in school. We thought it would be better to utilize this time towards the end of break. Also, we still have time to film but would rather get filming done sooner than later. This gives us time for editing and re-filming. There are also reasons as to why our filming date is Sunday and not Saturday. Last time showed us that Sunday works better for the majority of our actors. Many of us have plans that can pop up on Saturdays like work or family events that we don't get much prior notice about. These events don't happen a lot on Sundays so there is more certainty on the availability of our actors. Also, Saturday is very close to New Years and we wanted to give our actors a little space for celebration and relaxation. This will be my last blog of 2020 so happy New Years I hope 2021 will be a better year.

Why We Aren't Filming Over Break

    We are not filming over break. There are many reasons as to why we will not be filming. One main reason is simply because it is break. Breaks are important in life especially pertaining to school work. In order to produce our best work we need to take some time off for ourselves. School is stressful enough in normal conditions but we now have the added on stressor of being in a pandemic. We realize our mental health is important and taking a break is important. Also, this is not just any break but winter break. Many important holidays take place during this break making it difficult to plan filming in the first place. People want to spend quality time with their families and so do we. Spending time with family is important and we would not want to put our actors in the position to chose us or family. Even if our actors did want to film their parents would most likely say no. This is because their parents would probably want them to stay home and celebrate. We understand how important religion is to many and would not want to put our project in the way of people's celebrations. Also, many people's parents still work during this break. Not all adults have two weeks off like us and instead have two or three days off. This would also cause problems when planning to film. Our actors would have to gain permission to go somewhere while their parents were at work. Also, our actors do not have their own cars so they would have to find their own means of transportation. This would mean a parent would have to get off work to take them, they would have to pay for an Uber, or take a bus. We don't want to inconvenience our actors or their parents so it would just be easier to film after break or the weekend right before it ends.

Editing

            We decided to look over the footage we have so far and start editing. Since we are not at school in person and it is break we had to edit over facetime. One of our members has the actual footage and the other member gives their input over facetime. While discussing we realized that the footage was too long. The dialogue was unable to be edited down without the quality also going down. This is because the dialogue was continuous and flowed together so editing it would make it choppy. We then had to make a decision of whether or not to refilm or try our best to edit. Since we still need to film other scenes we thought it was best to just refilm. Since the reason we are re-filming is because of the dialogue running long we will also be editing our script. The scene we are re-filming and changing the dialogue for is the pool scene. We are going to try and make the dialogue shorter while still keeping it realistic and funny. The scene is important because it leads us to the Dairy Queen scene which is the climax and resolution of our film. This also caused us to think about how we will transition between scenes. For the Dairy Queen and pool scene transition we plan to have it cut straight to the next one for comedic effect. For the sidewalk scene to pool scene we have something different in mind. We plan to have the girls walk into the camera, have the screen cut to black, and then cut to the pool scene. For the phone call to pool scene we have two different ideas. One of our ideas is a fade to black and a fade into the sidewalk scene. The other is basically the same thing only with the end of the phone call still going on. This is because the two friends hang up on the main character in the middle of her sentence. We are thinking having the end go on as the screen is black would add to the comedic effect but we are still unsure.

First Scene of Our Short FIlm

       The first scene of our short film is a three way facetime call. The three main best friends of the film are all in this call. Each of the girls is supposed to be in her own house because they are calling each other while getting ready for school. It has been a little tricky to plan how we are going to film this scene. Originally, we decided to have our actors film this on their own. We would share the script with them and have them record themselves reading their lines. Then, we would edit the footage we received from them into a three way split screen. The split screen would represent the facetime call. When we initially planned this, we knew it would be tricky. After filming though, we realized it might be harder than we thought. During filming our actors did not read the script word for word and somewhat fed off of each other. This would make them filming separately alone a little difficult. Our actors would benefit from filming together because the atmosphere is different with other people. Filming alone could make our actors uncomfortable and awkward which is not what we are going for with this scene. The scene is supposed to be fun and natural so we wouldn't want any stiffness. Due to these reasons we decided to think of another way to film this scene. Then we decided next time we film we will film this scene at our group members house. Since the actors will all be there anyways we will just film then. We will film in different areas of our group members house to make it seem like the characters are in different houses when in reality it is just our one group member's house. This also makes it quicker since we won't have to wait for our actors to film and send us the footage for the scene. We feel these new plans will benefit everyone and make filming go smoother.

Script Changes

    After filming we decided to reread our script. This was because our actors did not follow the script exactly. We wondered whether we should change the dialogue to exactly what our actors said during filming. We decided to leave this scene's dialogue alone until we start editing because we may end up re-filming the scene. We also reread our script because of the feedback we received from our actors. They told us the dialogue in the scene we were filming sounded a bit unnatural and this caused us to reflect on our script as a whole. After going over the first scene our group agreed we could do better. Certain jokes were hard to understand so we changed them to cater towards our target audience. Our audience is teenagers and more specifically LGBT+  teenagers. As teenagers ourselves we thought from the audience's perspective and that helped us. Our new dialogue is much funnier and natural. Teens can relate to these conversations as they are like the ones they themselves have. Apart from dialogue we also had to change other aspects of our scripts. One scene is set at a Diary Queen and involves all of our actors. Our group decided we should cut some characters from the scene for convenience. The more people in scenes the harder it is to plan them and this scene is very important. We also realized not everyone needs to be in the scene so it would not be hard to write these characters out. Instead of the three main best friends all being there we are just keeping the main character in the scene. The actors who play the best friends of the main character have tight schedules and are less likely to make it to filming than the other actors. This was another reason that prompted us to cut the two best friends out.  

Filming

      On December 12th we filmed one scene for our short film. We started filming at 11 in the morning. We got ready at our group member's house and filmed at her pool. Originally we were going to film a couple scenes, but unfortunately we could not. The other actors were unable to make it to film so we decided to just film one scene. This scene was originally set in the living room of our group member's house. We decided to change locations out of convenience and keep the dialogue the same. During filming though, the actors gave us input to help the dialogue sound more realistic. This caused us to change the script a little. We still kept the overall theme of our movie though. The actors read their lines and understood what we the scene was about. Then, they took that concept and added their own twist to make the dialogue more realistic. We appreciated this input because we want our movie to be as good as possible. We also felt though, that they didn't understand why the script wasn't as in depth. The dialogue had to be somewhat rushed and unrealistic because the film is so short. Since the actors made the dialogue more realistic the scene was longer than we expected. When editing we will probably cut it down or refilm if we have too. Also, the scene included the main characters doing homework, but we forgot to bring the supplies. To improvise we instead used pages of the actual script and a random pen to replace homework papers. Filming went well overall and we all had a lot of fun.

Cast Updates

           As stated in our previous blogs we have changed the filming date to Saturday, December 12th. Close to filming day we had a drastic change in our cast. We had first planned for about six people to show up to film. Unfortunately, our main actress who could not attend before also could not attend on the 12th. Then our side actors said it was not probable he would be able to attend either. We were sure our other side actor would be able to make it. We decided to plan that the two would not make it and we would work with our side actor who could make it. For this new plan we would have to change the script to accommodate the two actors being unable to attend. Sadly, we were very busy this week with other classes since midterms are coming up. This caused us to be unable to make changes for the script before filming so we planed to go off script and change it after filming. Another problem arised though, which made our filming plans do a total 180. Our side cast member mixed up the days and said he could attend because he thought filming was on Sunday. Since filming was not on Sunday he was unable to attend and was the only male cast member we had. We have two male characters so it would be harder to film their scenes. We, as a last resort, thought we could just have our remaining female actors dress up as the male characters by wearing hoodies and putting their hair a certain way. Our main actor also informed us they would be unable to come. We had planned on them not coming though, so it wasn't as drastic as our only male actor not being able to come. Luckily we got confirmation from one of our original actors that they could make it. Our group, plus her, and one of our group members friend who was willing to help were going to be filming on the 12th. That would make four people instead of six people filming. We went into filming with high hopes and trust in our plans even if made last minute.

Change of Plans

   Unfortunately, we have run into many problems trying to film. Our original plan was to film December 5th on Saturday. This plan had to be changed because of multiple reasons. At first one of our main actors was unable to film on the 5th. We decided that we should try to find a replacement actor instead of rescheduling. The replacement we had in mind informed us she could also not film that day. Our next plan was just to write out one of the characters and continue on filming December 5th with the remaining cast. Then, we were randomly able to get in touch with one of our mutual friends who was possibly able to film on our planned day. We then changed our plan to fit in the new friend who could film. This new plan would cause the filming time to become earlier at 11am because the new cast member had to work and another cast member had practice. With this plan we would have to alter our script to fit in the new friend since they couldn't stay long enough to be in the ending scenes. We also would have to switch around which roles the actors would be playing. Unfortunately, another problem came up where one of our group members was informed late of a babysitting job she had to do. The job was scheduled at the same time and day of filming so ultimately filming would have to be rescheduled. Luckily this will give us more time to plan and earlier notice for our cast members to plan accordingly to filming. Also, the main cast member who could not film on the fifth could now possibly film on our new date. The new date we have chosen to film is exactly a week after on December 12th. We have been recently informed that one of our actors who played a smaller role could not come. Our friend who we though could replace another actor could potentially replace this actor if they are able to make it December 12th. We also have another extra person there to help with filming who could possibly act if needed. We are trying to keep the same positive mindset we had last time and hope this plan for filming will work out smoother than the last.