Production Process Obstacles

Welcome back! In my most recent production post I gave a sneak peek at the obstacles we faced when filming our film opening. Today, I will be diving deeper into the obstacles and the stories behind them. 

Obstacle #1: The Football Game

                      Before                                                                        After

Our film opening shows shots of a football game, but my partner and I wanted a non-copyrighted one. My partner searched YouTube for some that explicitly states "non-copyright" and we did end up finding one. What made this process difficult was finding a useable football game. Not all of the ones we found were what we were looking for. 

Before we used this football game in our shots, we used a real football game that we found on YouTube. We realized we had to refilm the shots which included it in the background. 

Obstacle #2: Mail

The first time we filmed Alea opening the mail, we had the envelopes sealed as any other envelope in the mail would come. When Alea was opening the envelope, that clip took around a full minute because she struggled to open the letters. We couldn't cut parts of it out because it would look like an accidental jump cut. So, we had to refilm this last weekend. To overcome this obstacle, we did not seal the envelopes and made sure that it was not noticeable in the shot that Alea received unsealed mail.

                Before                                                                              After

 

Obstacle #3: Continuity

There were a couple of scenes that showed the placement of the pillows and blankets on the couch, so it was crucial that we mimicked this placement when we refilmed to maintain continuity. We also had to mimic placement of the red envelope laying on the side of the couch. We were able to slide with it not being as exact because of the angle we were filming at but we tried getting its placement as close as possible to avoid it from looking discontinuous. 

Obstacle #4: Forgetting Props

When we refilmed some scenes last weekend, I forgot some crucial props to bring. One of them was my sister's black iPhone. I spoke about this in my most recent production post. I reprinted the regular white envelopes but forgot the red envelope! That was easily overcome because I just drove back to my mom's house to pick it up.

Retake day was our second chance to turn our mistakes right. A lot of obstacles led to it, like the sealed envelopes, and some obstacles came out of it, like continuity. We fought it through and learned a lot. Now I know to make a list of what props are needed when refilming instead of just recalling off the top of my head. Talk to you next time!