DiaryBlog Entry 8: Small Update of Filming

Unfortunately I did not get all the filming that I wanted to get done over the weekend with the bear, YET, it gave me the chance to reflect on how much work I had to do for some of the scenes, these I shall explain.

Basically, for the filming; I ran out of day-light time, by the end of it, most of the shots I had to do by bedroom light as it was too dark for the camera to capture the right expression and detail that I wanted. Yet, it's kind-of turned to my favour, as now when I look at the 3 minute footage that I have; it makes it look a little bit unnatural, and a little bit nerving, which I can link to an accidental stumble across a method of showing expression; without necessarily having to literally act it in the screenplay.

When I talk about the amount of work I have to do for one scene, I mean a lot! By this I could say that I've been a bit too ambitious with some of the screenplay. One scene in particular. By this I'm referring to my early confirmed shot of the rotation sequence with the toy bear in the middle of my room, as it constantly cuts between a current and a past version of my bedroom (reminiscing). I got the current footage, yet it hasn't got everything that I wanted it to have (like the posters I've researched music video screen shots put up around my current room). But now I'm sort of dreading the past footage as it'll take a lot of work to get my room into the right condition (especially with what I've got planned), I can't have much current technology in the shot, as it emphasises the fact as to how alien it all appears to the toy bear.

First difficulty with the shot, which I overcame, was the fact that the bear can't stand upright on it's own. This really frustrated me throughout me trying to film him. So I got some tub-aware which helped in me propping him into a stable position, without it being present in the footage itself. (this I'll take a picture of to upload to blog later).
Second, was the arrangement of the room itself. Although there isn't AS many changes that need to be made to my room for the present shot, it was still time-consuming moving stuff out of the way to get a clear shot, which is why it took up so much of the weekend. Plus, from wasting time doing all this, that's how it lead quickly to it being dark, making it even harder to get the right shot.

The other days were simply too dark for me to even try to attempt taking footage, which is where I lead up to my second outcome of this.

In this time, I instead worked on the shot list, perfecting the times of which I was going to film collections of scenes, that were relevant to others they were put with. I have now split my work into four even sections of filming (some bigger than others) where they focus on availability of different aspects and conditions of the scenes themselves. First would be of the opening scene, which requires a lot of effort (as stated thus far). The second being all the shots that have Bronwen present, and relative scenes close to that (because of available camera man and same shot conditions). Third being the next large half of the video, only comprising of me and the Toy bear, without difficult camera technique. And last would be the scenes leading up to Tommy becoming the new owner of the toy.

So really, I did get a lot of good work done this weekend, yet I've still got a long way to go. It's safe to say that this will probably go over Christmas, but hopefully not much longer after then. In addition there's still a ton of paper-work documentation that I have to complete (now just looking at my checklist :/ )

I shall update my blog promptly of any changes or reflections that I may come across in the near future.

Matt.