DAY 1
date: 2021/11/18
location school field
Duration: 60 minites
This is our first day day of filming and collecting footage. I still remember is the weather that day make us go out and film. That is a very foggy day — school was surrounded by mist which gives a very mysterious feeling. We felt that this kind of weather barely popped out from sunny days in Beijing, so it is a very sudden decision that we want to collect some footage and maybe we want to use it in future editing. We have decided the initial version of our plot and the first draft of storyboard.
After a precise consideration, we thought that we could use the footage in fog to represent “Daisy”’s mental state, frantic and opposing her seemingly innocent name. The fog is a very meaningful connotation to foreshadow Daisy’s true personality. And the fact that the fog makes everything blur but the character build up a very personal and individual space for the main character which shows the inner condition inside her mind. Therefore we went out.
We shoot random shots, with Daisy running, crying, laughing, walking from side to side, moving towards the camera and further away from the camera until her disappear in the misty fog. Also，the shot distance of character was changed several times, we took a series of it, from wide shot- full shot-mid shot- close up to extremely close up. Which basically creates a build up of tension after edit them all together in series.
We are happy with what we have in the foggy day, and these shots ended up extremely useful and be a part of our title sequence in the final product.
day 2 of film
date: 2022/01/29
Location: Noor’s apartment
This is our second day of filming, but first official filming day with a complete plan. We invite Richard and Arthur as 2 of our actors which plays important role: Chris, Daisy’s best friend and Chris’ dad, Daisy’s new target.
At that day we planed to shoot all shots with Richard and Arthur.
Following storyboard, the first shots that we are going to filmed are Richard Noor’s 2 shot, recording the when they arrived at Chris’s home and going into his bedroom.
Plot here: Daisy’s friend, Chris invite Daisy this place for dinner.
STORY BOARD
DETAIL ON THAT DAY
Whe start with this shot on storyboard — tracking shot of both of them goes into the door. Because it is the first take, my hand are super shaky, and the iso is not at the right level, so everything is dark with noise for the first few takes. After carful adjustment, I am able to hold the camera steadily and the angle and ISO are at the right level. So we followed our storyboard and filmed each shot using different technique and angles.
low resolution with wrong iso level -- noise level high
The first hour is not that successful and not goes well as what we expected. Because this is the first time we need to film an official storyline, so we are not familiar with how to use the camera; is the shot came out following the storyboard same as what we expected it to be; What should we adjust when we aware of those mistake we made when planning. So it takes long than what we planned as we are shooting each shot several times to ensure there are usable footage. Also, we shoot a lot of shot that goes out of the storyboard — give more space and possibilities when editing. For example: several insert shots for cut on action/ same shot with different angle to create more dynamic.
After the first hour of shooting Richard and Noor’ s entering scene. We started the bedroom scene:
Plot:
Christ lies on his bed texting a boy, Daisy asked him what is he doing.
This is to show Chris’ identity being homosexual, the conversation and the mise en scene inside the bedroom give implications of Chris being gay — as social minorities, Christ understand how painful to deal with other people’s judging and gossips, so he would like to help and support Daisy as a new student even she has a scandal of being raped.
I sticked the posters of Ariana Grande, Troye Siwan, Lann del rey and Taylor Siwft (celebrities that are identified to be the most popular ones within the community of homosexual) as a college on the bedrooms wall to imply Chris’ identity. And conversation also implies that. However, it is still very unsuccessful as we tried out the shot perspective on the storyboard and it does not look nice, and we tried other angles, it still looks weird. Also, the line of “I’m texting Adam”is also very weird when translated to Chinese — seems making comedic effect but we don’t want it. Therefore, we spent a lot of time struggling to find an angle for effective camera work, and a suitable way to demonstrate Chris’ sexual orientation, but non of them works effectively. So we just moved on to the next several shots.
looks very weird on motion picture
Plot: Daisy staring at the Oscar statue, Chris dad knocked the door and called them for dinner. Daisy opened the door and saw Chris’ dad being handsome, masculine and attractive.
These shots are to show Daisy’s histrionic personality and her potential ideal of seducing Chris’ dad acoording to her distort understanding of what is love due to the lack of father figure.
These shots goes very successfully especially the pedestal up of Daisy staring at the Oscar statue, is very effective movement with a nice color contrasting black and gold. A rather chiaroscuro lighting that conveys deeper meaning. Which is both a convention for thriller genre — low key lighting and a symbolic code of the Oscar statue suggesting histrionic personality.
Before we film Arthur, we need him to look tall and middle age. However, Arthur is clearly a teenager, so we decide to draw beard on his chin using eye shadow and make him stand on a stool to look taller, also, cut above his mouth, so only his chin with fake beard are inside the frame. It works effectively.
These shot with Arthur are also successful as we shoot from different perspectives to convey deeper meaning. We used POV (high angle) shot capture Daisy’s micro expression. Insert shot of Daisy touching Chris’ dad to imply on her deed.
END OF THE DAY
date: 2022/02/17
Location: Noor’s apartment
Reshoot + mirror + flash back
Reshoot
After looking at the footage, we found out a lot of problem with the entering scene of Richard and Noor having conversation beside the door. However, Richard is not available so we only reshoot some of the Daisy’s single shot and w can add Richard’s voice in if we decide to use the footage in final cut. Filming goes pretty successful, the quality and resolution; the color and lighting ; and the angle and shot perspective are better than what we have first time. This is comparison with the first time we shoot:
After reshoot this part, we decide to add some new shot in to show Daisy’s curiosity towards Chris’ family and her ignorance attitude of being a guest. Here are some screen grabs:
Then, we consider to add a close up of Daisy’s hand touching Chris Dad — as an insert shot to construct the meaning of “seduction and affection” more obviously. However, Arthur is not here, so we found a sweater that has same color with Arthur’s blue sweater and I will have to substitute Arthur because it is only an insert shot so it does not really matters.
After the reshoots , we started to film the new shots:
Plot: After Chris’ dad called them for dinner, Daisy said she needs to got o bathroom first to wash her hands. Inside the bathroom, in front of the mirror looking a herself, after the first interaction with Chris’s dad, making her recalls when she was trying to seduce mom’s ex boyfriend: who is also middle-aged, masculine and attractive just like Chris’s dad. (This is where the scandal comes from)At this point, it is a hybridity of the reality, Daisy’ s spiritual world and the flash backs)
We filmed the bathroom scene using a tripod, so the camera is static. We also filmed it with different shot distance. Full shot and mid shot — connect together to intensity the emotion.
For mise en scene here, we deliberately put a lot of perfumes here and one of it very special can be seen on this picture -- The lid are women's leg with high heels. This is to To suggest sex, desire, affection, seduction and binary opposition with Daisy’s personality on the surface.
Some difficulties here:
Acting: Noor is struggling to gave out an evil smile, so we filmed a lot times to capture a meaning full and evil looking smile.
After the bathroom scene, Noor stated to put her make-up on for the flash back scene. This is her first outfit:
After filming few shots, we both thought to is not that effective as it sis all black, and seems like she is just a girl who go out and clubbing waring her own cloth. However, she need to look like waring her moth’s clothing and trying to seduce her mom’s boyfriend as , our setting of Daisy is that she has a binary personality and the one she reveals in daily life is rather introverted and gives a good student vibe, so the contrast should be easily detected and dramatic.Therefore we decided to change the outfit to a red bathrobe.And this look much better and effective than the former one.
The shooting goes successfully despite Noor was a little bit shy at the beginning, after we put some music on, she was able to act in a more open way and freely express herself in character. So the footage came out very nice but the noise level is a bit too high. And some footages flickered as there is not enough lighting. Ut overall the footages are very effective to put in flashback montages.
END OF THE DAY
date: 2022/03/04
Location: School locker
Mean girl scene 1st try
On that day we had our first try on the “mean girls in school” scene. However, as time are limited because lunch time passes quickly and we have not got free periods after lunch. Also, as there are 3 mean girls in this scene, and it is our fault that we did not inform the actress in advance. So situations like laugh, forgetting the words, connection problems happened frequently. So we’ve only manage to film the whole scene from one perspective — lack of dynamic in cinematography. And the quality is [pretty low, so instantly, we decided to reshoot the whole thing with well-planning and inform the actress in advanced.
date: 2022/03/09
Location: School locker
Mean girl scene 2nd try
This is the second try of the “Mean girls in school” scene, 3 actress reduced to two because it is more easily to managed and having having conversation between 2 rather 3 are less messy. We’ve managed to shoot from different angle, with POV, mid shots, close ups, and OTS to give more space and opportunities in editing and smooth connection between lines.
date: 2022/03/31
Location: school gate
time duration: 30 minutes
On that day, we decide to film the scene of Chris and Daisy leaving school and walking to Chris home for dinner together
mood: best friend vibe, joking and chatting freely to suggest they have a good relationship and Chris being the only one who accept Daisy as a friend.
We started to film during holistic studies 4o minutes, we strictly following the storyboard but there are several difficulties and emergencies.
It is nearly end of school time, so there are more and more parents gathering at the school gate to pick up their kids. Therefore, as the number of parents keep changing in our footage, we cannot create the sense of continuity because people is adding up as we filmed shot by shot. Also the background is messy and we loss our main character focal point as there are too many people gathering.
2. OTS tracking is not effective enough to showcase their close relationship, so I have to film in front of them for more interactions and details. However, as they are walking, I have to walking on my back without a gimbal, therefore the camera is extremely shaky.
3. time is limited, we did not mange to get good quality footage because of time and the gathering of people as time process suppress of time even more.
date: 2022/04/10
location: Noor’s apartment
reshoot with Richard — bedroom scene + entering scene
We invite Richard for some reshoot:
Firstly, Is the entering scene. Because the footage we’ve got at first time does not really work and my skill of shooting improved after 3 months of practice, so we decide to reshoot the whole scene with Richard from entering the door to the bedroom scene. This time, we are more efficient as we already know what we want according to the existing footage. We made careful plan of reshooting which footage and add what connection footage to make the transition smooth.
Another change is we are exceeding the time limit after a rough edit, so we have to cut any unwanted walking scenes which odes not coneys any meaning. So we need to reshoot a fast transition from the door to Chris’s bed room. Therefore, we thought about the wipe shot, changing scene without with a wipe without changing the subject — therefore, we filmed a transition with inspiration of lip e shot using the wall, and cut 10 sec of useless walking from our opening, here is the edit:
Moving on to the bedroom scene, we changed our sequence from directly shooting Chris goes on to his bed to: transition from the wipe shot directly to Daisy’s back — Daisy turning head around and breaking the forth wall — when she turns head back connect with a POV shot of head turning to bed and seeing Chris lies on his bed saying: “Sit anywhere you like, my dad will come and call us for dinner soon.” Which is more concise and logical. Also, we gave up the idea of emphasizing Chris’ homosexual identity because it does not really matters in a film opening. If we really want to portrayed Chris sexuality, it will build up ad the plot proceed if this is a complete film. So we will remain time for the more important message that we want audience to get.
END OF THE DAY
date: 2022/06/27
location: school
duration 15minutes
After rough cut feedback, we had our final reshoot on 2 things.
A lot of audience feedback says that our pace is too fast and the connection between each scene is too rapid. Therefore, we decide to cut the whole school gate scene with narration that tells about the character Chris and Daisy’ s situation being a new student because the transition is too sudden. Instead, we all going to put more shots beside the school locker which connect with the mean girl scene better and reshoot one footage of daisy getting stuff in her locker and reply to Chris invitation message + narration and text message sound effect to show their relationship, more concise and less visual information.
date: 2022/08/01
Location: Noor’s apartment
Second scene that requires reshoot is the mirror scene, some people feedback from rough cut that the mirror scene is very high quality but the dirty spots on the mirror are really disturbing, therefore, we use 30 minutes to reshoot from exactly same angle and perspective, but cleaning the mirror before we filmed.
original shot: with water spots reshoot: without drty spots
Overall, I can’t say the process went smoothly because a lot of reshoot are taking place due to different reasons. scenes like the “entering home”, we reshoot for over 3 times and there are still issues happening. However, we learnt a to by improving bit by bit, from other people’s feedback, from our own inspection. Th final outcome still has a lot of problem but we tried out best to make it the best we can in limited amount of time.
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