Filming Day 1

                                                                            he said no
Filming The Treblemakers

    Finding actors is a nightmare. The main casting was easy, we already knew an indie band with free time and knowledge on how to not break instruments, but the ensemble was more difficult. I originally wanted a small crowd of maybe 7-10 people (spoiler: this did not happen) and asked multiple people if they were free to film that day. I even made a handy-dandy info sheet I could post on multiple platforms. This was the one for the day of:

    Although, we still were missing our Florence beater. After asking many tall boys we knew (including the guy in the text message) my film partner ended up being the one to act in the role, which meant I was filming, yay.

Same Day Prepara(tions)

Very proper loading of an instrument

    The day before the shooting of the first half of the opening, I loaded up the car with all the props I needed to bring (I'll elaborate on this in a later post...)

  Setting up all the instruments on stage would have been the hard part, if the cast wasn't 100% musicians. Juan P., being the ultimate amazing musician and human being that he is, helped set up the high hat that refused to undo itself. Every other instrument as well as amplifier worked smoothly.

Multiple people bailed on bringing an entire drum kit, but we did what we could with a variety of buckets. In a way, it makes sense that the band couldn't afford to buy (in Florence's case, steal) and then transport a minimum of five whole drums. Although, we were able to get a floor tom. Don't ask me how Florence was able to steal a floor drum, a high hat, and a cymbal; he will do anything but complete tasks efficiently.

FILM DAY!!!

    After rounding up the whole cast, we were set on our meetup spot, time, day, and who brings what. As stressful as it was trying to get everything set up, it didn't matter that much because things kept going wrong. 

    It was a dark and stormy night. At least, I thought it would be due to the overcast sky, however it cleared up fairly quickly. The time of day was another factor that could make or break our film. In the group meeting, my film partner told me that the others recommended that we shoot later in the day to have more control over the lighting. Honestly, that advice helped significantly. Our shooting location was a very wide open area with little trees around to give shade, and

    My partner, who was in charge of bringing the camera, found that the camera's SD card wasn't working, completely eliminating its usage, and having no place to store our footage. So we settled for his phone, where we could at least have essentially no limit to how much we can film. Another snag: a whopping five people showed up to be apart of our crowd, and someone left in the middle of it (it did make for a good shot though.) A random man that decided to be there too also joined the crowd. Although, the lack of hecklers might actually make the band seem even less popular; there was a positive, kind of.

 

bored teenagers vs. enthusiastic grandfather

    After that it was mostly smooth sailing. My film partner and Florence's actor were there first to arrive and were able to go over the storyboard, which saved us time during the filming part because he was the only character with lines in the scene.

The rest of the shooting was smooth sailing; we were able to get multiple takes on each shot from the storyboard, as well as keep the same compositions when translating from a drawing to a camera. We were even able to add in some scenes, such as the hand going to pick up the monster can, to add clarity.

"Do it for the shot"

It was, indeed, kind of a cool shot:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1B6OYf2-h6gz2sza0gvru3tJ6W09px3ha/view

    One scene I don't like as much is the final tracking shot of the Instrument Mafia Man, played my filming partner, also the cinematographer. We were only able to get two takes of it, since people had to go home and we were nearing the end of the film time we promised. I was the one filming, but I think having the scene be a tracking shot turning into a dutch tilt was not a good idea. When we get to the editing stage, I believe it would fit more if we inserted shots of The Frontman during the tracking shot and as the actor nears closer to him.

What we have yet to do:

- The entire walking scene

- recording a lot of audio

- something else I'm likely forgetting