Day 1 of Shooting Clean Kill

Can you tell that I'm excited to start shooting?

 Hello! I'm glad to say that everything worked out perfectly for today's shooting! While I did undergo a little bit of stress last night when I tried coordinating a time to meet up, we ended up shooting at an appropriate time, leaving us with plenty of time to get the footage I wanted done today completed. The entire process for today took about 90 minutes, give or take some goofing off (this was to be expected, and was accounted for by my padding of the timeslot for shooting). At the end of the day, I ended up being able to tick off a box in my checklist of scenes I need to have, and left the shooting                                                                                                     location satisfied with a day's work.

Scheduling the Night Before

    Last night, I wanted to make sure that the plans for shooting today were still in place, and so I texted both Cesar and Blake to confirm the time set. Unfortunately, disaster struck when Cesar told me that he had mistaken his Saturday's schedule with his Sunday schedule, and was actually assigned to work a shift in a liquor store from 10 am to 5 pm. My heart sank as I read the news: this meant that it would be impossible to shoot throughout the day as I had originally planned. With time running out and my anxiety rising, I hastily offered a compromise: shooting earlier in the morning, from 8 am to 10 in the morning. He agreed to this, and I was given a brief moment of reprieve, as I thought that I had saved my production from a significant delay.

How I felt making the third change to my schedule

    Alas, this was when I got a text from Blake, saying that he had a mandatory practice event for his lacrosse team taking place from 9 am to 10 am, once again launching the fate of the shooting day into calamity. Through frayed nerves and a rapidly decreasing patience, I asked him if waking up even earlier would be possible, and to my surprise he said it was a possibility. The new timeframe to shoot was now 7 am to 9 am. When I updated Cesar on the new schedule, I dreaded a negative response, but to my delight he was also okay with it.

    And so, with my actors now locked into a committed timeframe to shoot, I had to make one final call: one to my ol' buddy Wade. Since he works and participates in professional level competitions in TV production for the school, I knew he was bound to have some tech to help me out on my production. I inquired whether he had a clip-on microphone he was willing to lend me for the morning, and much to my pleasure, he allowed me to pick it up the morning I needed it.

That's right. I woke up at 5 in the morning on a weekend for this project. This project may not have my blood, sweat, or tears, but it most definitely has stolen hours away from my deserved slumber.

Getting the Footage

        I got to the shooting location a little earlier than the others, partly due to my excitement, and partly because I couldn't sleep well. Blake was the first of the actors to get there, so instead of starting to shoot his individual scenes, I instead opted to summarize the story of the scene we were shooting, how his character should behave during the filming, and giving him a brief run-through of the storyboarded shots I had brought along.

     When Cesar got there, we jumped straight into shooting the scenes, which led to quite a few takes of him messing up his lines, contrasting the prepared and well-read Blake. However, what Cesar lacked in readiness, he more than made up for with the passion and energy he brought to his character. I knew I had written Danny's personality and way of speech around Cesar's real-life mannerisms, but I had never expected to see Danny performed so accurately to the vision I had in my mind.

    It took a few hours of line-feeding, awkward camera positioning, laughs at bad takes, and many, many reshoots, but after the 90 minute mark, we had finished shooting the scenes I had set aside to shoot for today, leaving us with a narrow 10 minutes to review the footage and discuss when to shoot next. Both Blake and Cesar expressed a desire to continue working on the film, but were sadly called back to their respective commitments.

Celebratory Sandwiches!

        There is very little to elaborate upon this. We got sandwiches after shooting because we were starving, and it was much earlier than an a time any of us would like to be getting lunch at. Therefore: celebratory sandwiches.

Regarding my next days of shooting, I'm starting to doubt the possibility of shooting tomorrow, since I'll be out of town for the majority of the morning and afternoon hours, and my actors likely have plans for the evening. So my production will continue during the week! Until then, I'll see you around!