After the actors finished with recording all the music, our group started to film at Jeremy's house. We spent a day and a half to finish all the scenes during the weekend. For all of the scenes that included music in them, we played the music while the actors lip-synced to it. We began with the scene where the actor packs for boarding school in his bedroom. We had to put props on his bed to help inform the audience that he is leaving for boarding school. Textbooks, a suitcase, clothes, acceptance letter, and even shoes were placed on his bed or in his room. However, for some shots, the camera was against the natural light, so the lighting was dark and we had to use lighting tools and also through editing to make the scene appear brighter. Also, we filmed from different angles so it was not a continuous shot. There was a minor problem in which the actor's actions in one shot do not match the next shot, so we had to film the actor doing other things to fill in the gap in between the two shots that did not match.
Then, we filmed the first scene of the film, where the actor wakes up and takes his acceptance letter from the mailbox. As the camera operator, I had to hold the camera without the tripod for some shots as there was a lot of movement involved in the scene. The actor was lying down on his bed, then gets off and walks out of his room. Using a tripod would be inconvenient because we wanted the camera to be following him and we could not carry and move the tripod while filming. It was a bit difficult to steady the camera, but by making changes in my posture, even though it was not perfectly stable, I managed to reduce most of the shakiness. It was a tracking shot and it was something that I have not done much before. I did some research on how we could do a tracking shot and found out we could use dollies or it could be done hand held. Of course, doing it with a dolly would be much easier to control the shot and ensures that the shot is steady. In addition, there was a challenge for us when we filmed in the bathroom. Of course, there was a mirror in the bathroom, and we had to film the actor brushing his teeth in front of the mirror. We thought that we would be able to see the camera and tripod's reflection in the mirror in the shot, but it turns out that just by changing the position of the camera and tripod, we were able to successfully film that shot without seeing the camera and tripod's reflection in the mirror but have the actor's reflection at the same time.
Afterwards, we filmed the Park scene. At first, we did the Park scene near CIS, but the sound quality was not really good because of the buses and cars passing by occasionally. The voices of the actors were often covered by the noises made by the vehicles. Also, I forgot to bring the earphones down to the park and without them, we couldn't hear if the sounds were being recorded or not. I had to run back up to the 9th floor (I originally intended to go to the 6th floor film lab, but Mr. Chiang was busy) to get the earphones. From this experience, I learnt to always check what to bring before filming. What I could have done is to make a detailed list of equipment that I need for shooting to ensure that I brought everything that we need. So instead we chose the park that is near Jeremy's house, which was a nice, quiet place, as the setting. I did an overhead shot as to introduce the actress coming in to the park. When we did some closer shots, unfortunately, there were some noises from the construction site nearby. Next, we filmed the second scene, where the actor took the letter and came back into his house to call his girlfriend. Since we filmed the Park scene in between this scene and the Park scene, the actor had to change his outfit. In the middle of filming this scene, I suddenly realised that the actor was not wearing the same outfit as he was in the first scene of the film, so the actor quickly went to change back into the same outfit and we continued to film without any major problems. The next day, we finished filming the last scene on a bus / at a bus terminus in Mei Foo. Originally, we wanted to film at the airport, but we would have to pay a high amount of money in order to film there. Thus, we then changed our location to the bus stop. I drew the scene in the storyboard to be set in the bus stop, which was what we intended to do, but we were able to film on a bus in the morning. We did not expect to be filming on a bus, so I made quick last-minute decisions about the angles, shot sizes, framing we would be using as well as what the sequences of the shots would be like.
When shooting, we did not follow all the shots indicated in the storyboard and shot list. The storyboard was just a guideline for us and it gives us a clearer view on what would be happening in the scene. The director gave me suggestions on how the shots should be like to achieve a better look in a limited amount of time. What I could have done more is to express my ideas or communicate more effectively with my group mates. In this unit, I was put in a group with people who I was not really familiar with. I did not feel 100% comfortable around them - sometimes feeling nervous to communicate, but as we filmed, I soon realised the need to express my ideas. Even though I was still a bit quiet, I learnt to share my opinions when needed. For example, I told the director that the actor was not wearing the same outfit as he was in the previous scene. Also, I would also like to put more close ups in our film to show more of the actors' emotions. In most of our film, we usually did not shot close ups but instead did medium close ups or long shots. I think that we could have filmed more close ups. Overall, it was a really great shooting experience. I got to experience with different shot sizes, angles and paid more attention to the mise en scène in this film. Compared to my last filming experience, even though we had less time and more shots in this unit, our group managed our time well by discussing when we will be filming in class and sending emails to one another to confirm the filming times. We got to finish filming all the scenes efficiently. As a camera operator, I have definitely become more familiar with controlling the camera and different shot sizes.
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