Production Log: (Officially) Day 1

After a little mishap with our chosen model, that set us wayyy behind schedule, we conducted our shoot a little later than planned, and since we were in a rush to meet our deadlines, we also had some issues in deciding a specific time when we were all free.

And thus, I ended up at Tehreem's place (our shooting location for Day 1) at 9.30 am with my camera, flowers, vase, cards, a change of outfits for the model, capsules, and spray paints, and began making early arrangements and final checks - lighting, setting up props etc. We had some coloured pills, but we also spray painted some more while waiting for the model to arrive. The pills were a symbolic element in our music video which represented the character's state of mind and condition.                              

Khadijah, our new model, arrived around 11.00 am and we began shooting. She had done her makeup from home because she was better at it than the three of us combined, so we just asked her to do minimal makeup which she nailed and it came out well on camera.

For the lighting, we used some indoor lighting (yellow) along with natural lighting from a window in the kitchen where the shoot was mainly taking place. Her first outfit was a loose, knit green sweater. The colour wasn't too bright nor too dull so it suited the slightly melancholic mood, and the pills could easily contrast with the outfit as well so the palette wasn't too saturated with bright colours.

The shot required a lot of rehearsing - yes, lots of rehearsing to pour out milk into a cereal bowl - because we realised that once the capsules were thrown into the milk, they would become sticky and soft so it would be difficult to take multiple takes. And so, we tried to bring the practice shot very close to what were expecting before actually (eventually) heading onto shooting the final scene. 

The repeated practice takes also gave me more time to get adjusted with the camera well - we used a Canon 5DSR and a 50mm lens for this shot. 

We followed Andrew Goodwin's notion of  looking theory in this shot as she broke the fourth wall and looked directly into the camera.

The second reason this shot took more takes than we anticipated was because the time frame that we had kept in mind for her actions (picking up the milk and pouring it in, and then pouring in the capsules) turned out to not be very practical. The fact that lipsyncing was required in this shot made it even more difficult to make everything more cohesive and on time.

Hira did her job as a director quite well in this regard, by pointing out errors in the lighting and guiding the model in terms of expressions, lipsyncing, as well as trying to improve the camerawork wherever possible. 

For our next shot we had a change of outfits for the model and she had to water flowers. She wore a dull red sweater which contrasted well with th flowers. We initially wanted this shot to be taken indoors, in front of a plain wall, but director Hira found a spot that turned out better - even if it meant me risking falling off a ladder (I'm exaggerating). I filmed this shot from the outside as Khadijah stood in the window with the flower vase in front of her and a spray bottle in hand.  We got pretty decent shots of this (where my hands aren't as shaky). 

Overall, our production day 1 was more of a learning experience for us that honestly better prepared us for next time.