This week began the start of our filming! But, to back up to earlier, Mariah and I met with our mother actresses on Friday at our new favorite coffee shop, Lucky Joe. The three women we met with were very excited about the subject once we went over it with them in person. We had a read through of the script with them and we tweaked some of the dialogue so that it flowed better when read by them. It was a very productive meeting that left us really excited for filming next weekend!
On Saturday, we began filming for our teenager narrative scene. We filmed in front of the Fisher Student Center, as it was a place with circular tables that we really wanted (specifically for our opening shot). Our three teenage actors were nothing but professional, providing us with great performances for our scene. This shoot turned out really well and almost completely smooth except for the fact that we had several people gather for a previously not scheduled ceremony in the area above where we were filming during our last shot. Literally our last shot! But after speaking with them, they got quieter and we were able to finish shooting. We wrapped within our scheduled time, which was really nice for our first scene. Overall, it was a good experience!
Sunday, September 25, 2016
Sunday, September 18, 2016
Week Four: Actor and Subject Meetings & Project Preparation
This week was really good for my group in regards to our actors! As you most likely know, our film covers three age groups of women: teenagers, mothers, and grandmothers. This weekend, we were able to secure a meeting with our teenage subjects and our teenage actors at Lucky Joe Coffee.
Before our meeting, we arranged to film a good chunk of our b-roll due in a few weeks on Saturday morning. We all met up at New Hanover High School and got b-roll of the school in relation to the teenager scenes. My group also determined at our meeting that week that we wanted to use crowd sourcing for some of our b-roll for our film. So with the combination of our b-roll at New Hanover High School and crowd sourcing, we feel confident that we have our b-roll covered.
During our meeting with our actors and subjects at the coffee shop, we met with the subject of our documentary first. She helped us secure an interview location (her house), and friends to talk to (our other subjects) and we developed a relationship with her where she feels comfortable with us. We left our teenage actors feeling the same way: excited to be a part of our project and comfortable working with us after having our meeting. We did a read through of the script and discussed the scene and their roles in it. Overall, it was a very successful meeting. We left them with the video/audio release forms so their parents could fill them out (because they are under 18).
Before our meeting, we arranged to film a good chunk of our b-roll due in a few weeks on Saturday morning. We all met up at New Hanover High School and got b-roll of the school in relation to the teenager scenes. My group also determined at our meeting that week that we wanted to use crowd sourcing for some of our b-roll for our film. So with the combination of our b-roll at New Hanover High School and crowd sourcing, we feel confident that we have our b-roll covered.
During our meeting with our actors and subjects at the coffee shop, we met with the subject of our documentary first. She helped us secure an interview location (her house), and friends to talk to (our other subjects) and we developed a relationship with her where she feels comfortable with us. We left our teenage actors feeling the same way: excited to be a part of our project and comfortable working with us after having our meeting. We did a read through of the script and discussed the scene and their roles in it. Overall, it was a very successful meeting. We left them with the video/audio release forms so their parents could fill them out (because they are under 18).
Sunday, September 11, 2016
Week Three: Casting Calls and Calendars
Casting Call
This week has been going really well, especially since one of my biggest concerns has been put to rest. After I posted our original casting call for Circles on Facebook and a few of its casting call pages, I only received one actress interested in being a part of the film. After noticing that the narrative crews were making visually striking casting call images, I decided to consult with my group on whether we would like to do this too (especially since we were looking for actresses for our narratives scenes on top of subjects). We all agreed that it was a great idea and Mariah worked on creating one! Once she finished it, I began posting the casting call on Facebook once again and on all of the appropriate casting call pages. Thanks to Mariah's suggestion, I also contacted a professor in the Theater Department to fin d out where would be the best place for me to post my casting call to reach the biggest range of actors in Wilmington. She suggested to post in the Wilmington Theater Community Facebook page. Thanks to her advice and Mariah's new casting call image, we have received several headshots and resumes! In our next meeting we will be narrowing down our choices to determine our cast.
Pre-Production Work
The Circles crew has been working hard these past few weeks, meeting with a screenwriter to write our short narrative scenes, discussing props, and looking into locations. With part of our cast locked down (our teenage category), we have also been putting our energy into our pre-production presentation. I gave my teammates a deadline to have all of their Google Calendars updated so I could make our shooting schedule. Since they have done that, I have been using the syllabus and the information of our project to get started on our shooting schedule. In our weekly meetings on Tuesday, we will be diving in deeper to our pre-production presentation.
This week has been going really well, especially since one of my biggest concerns has been put to rest. After I posted our original casting call for Circles on Facebook and a few of its casting call pages, I only received one actress interested in being a part of the film. After noticing that the narrative crews were making visually striking casting call images, I decided to consult with my group on whether we would like to do this too (especially since we were looking for actresses for our narratives scenes on top of subjects). We all agreed that it was a great idea and Mariah worked on creating one! Once she finished it, I began posting the casting call on Facebook once again and on all of the appropriate casting call pages. Thanks to Mariah's suggestion, I also contacted a professor in the Theater Department to fin d out where would be the best place for me to post my casting call to reach the biggest range of actors in Wilmington. She suggested to post in the Wilmington Theater Community Facebook page. Thanks to her advice and Mariah's new casting call image, we have received several headshots and resumes! In our next meeting we will be narrowing down our choices to determine our cast.
Pre-Production Work
The Circles crew has been working hard these past few weeks, meeting with a screenwriter to write our short narrative scenes, discussing props, and looking into locations. With part of our cast locked down (our teenage category), we have also been putting our energy into our pre-production presentation. I gave my teammates a deadline to have all of their Google Calendars updated so I could make our shooting schedule. Since they have done that, I have been using the syllabus and the information of our project to get started on our shooting schedule. In our weekly meetings on Tuesday, we will be diving in deeper to our pre-production presentation.
Sunday, September 4, 2016
Week Two: Interview Research
This week, the Circles crew sat down and discussed what we thought were the questions to ask our Expert Interviewees. In order to brainstorm these questions, we all worked together to come up with the bios our Expert Interviewees. As director and producer, Mariah and I came up with the bios and ten questions for two interviewees each and Matt and Hugh came up with 10 questions and the bios for one interviewee each.
The Expert Bios and Questions can be found here. You can also find it on the Google Drive. In summary, we decided to break up our Expert Interviewees into the three groups of women that we plan on interviewing: teenagers, mothers, and grandmothers. Within each group, we had experts who 1. talked behind her friend's back and 2. was talked about behind their back.
My group also spent some time working as a group to come up with 104 (that's right, 104!) things to schedule. This can also be found on the Google Drive, but you can also just click right here! Working as a team, it was a lot easier to get past 100 things on our list because we all brought in different perspectives
I also spent some time reading The Expert Interview. Something that I really liked out of the slides was the slide that mentioned the "softball" questions, which are questions to warm up the interviewee before getting into the hard questions. I think that using such warm up questions is a really good way to start off an interview in order for everyone to feel comfortable.
In the wise words of Alfred Hitchcock, "In feature films the director is God; in documentary films God is the director."
The Expert Bios and Questions can be found here. You can also find it on the Google Drive. In summary, we decided to break up our Expert Interviewees into the three groups of women that we plan on interviewing: teenagers, mothers, and grandmothers. Within each group, we had experts who 1. talked behind her friend's back and 2. was talked about behind their back.
My group also spent some time working as a group to come up with 104 (that's right, 104!) things to schedule. This can also be found on the Google Drive, but you can also just click right here! Working as a team, it was a lot easier to get past 100 things on our list because we all brought in different perspectives
I also spent some time reading The Expert Interview. Something that I really liked out of the slides was the slide that mentioned the "softball" questions, which are questions to warm up the interviewee before getting into the hard questions. I think that using such warm up questions is a really good way to start off an interview in order for everyone to feel comfortable.
In the wise words of Alfred Hitchcock, "In feature films the director is God; in documentary films God is the director."
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