Filming Blog: Backyard

  I shot the scenes backwards due to convenience. I had to match my schedule with the actor's which was why we shot from end to beginning rather than beginning to end. The first scene we shot was the ending scene which was the closeup of the actor drinking the water. The scene took multiple takes because I had to redirect the actor.  The movements were either too fast or too slow so we had to work together to reach the perfect equilibrium. 

The next scene that we shot was the side-shot of the actor walking up to the bottled water. Shooting this particular scene was quite difficult because the actor kept breaking and bursting into laughter. Eventually it became quite frustrating after retrying over and over so I watched all of the takes we did and chose the best one. This particular scene left us pressed for time so we had to quickly move on. This led to the next scene.

Getting the low angle shot of the actor walking up to the water was easy in terms of positioning, but difficult in terms of getting the perfect "feel". It proved difficult for the actor to get fully into character so the movements felt humorous which was not what I was going for.  We talked it out and did retakes and then discussed which one was the best because I wanted a opinion outside of my own.  After this the actor then left because they had other business to attend to and I no longer needed them for the rest of the scenes left to shoot.

The last scenes I shot were the three beginning scenes of the six. Rather than going from three to one I went from one to three. Getting the establishing shot was quite easy and did not require more than one take so I quickly moved on to the pan and then closeup of the bottled water. This took several shots because I wanted to have something to compare. I did then the third scene by doing several different takes of panning to a mid-shot of the bottled water. After this I then wrapped up filming and went to go examine all of the footage together.