How Did Filming Actually Go?

     I've delayed it enough, and I feel it's finally time I write out the actually experience of filming. I wanted to start production earlier in the day, but my sister had her friend from college over in the earlier afternoon. I had started to set up the set around 3:00 PM. Moving furniture, finding old props, placing props, making parts of the set, and setting up lighting took about 6 hours. Though I should mention that I took a break at one point to eat, so the total time is probably a bit less. By the time I started filming it was around 9:00 PM. 

    I'm personally used to filming at night, and I honestly prefer it because that way, you can fully manipulate the lighting without having to worry about outside light. And it wasn't that bad either because I was filming on my own and didn't have to worry about pertaining to someone else's schedule. And more importantly, I'm use to filming things on my own and having to problem solve to make it work. One such strategy, I used was taking advantage of the Canon Connect App. For the opening, I decided I'd use my Canon EOS 90D which can connect to my phone via the app and Bluetooth, so that I can both monitor the shot and make any adjustments.

    I started off with the 2nd chunk because I knew that was going to be the most time consuming shot. Because I had to react to animated characters that aren't real, I had to make sure my timings and reactions were right. To help with this I made tweaked the 2nd chunk reference video, so that there would be auditory cues for me to react and help me know where to look. I only included cues for when I would have to react or look over. The video would be playing off my laptop and would be placed on a chair right below the camera. And to help me a little bit, I mirrored the video so that I could more easily follow where exactly I have to look.

The video I made

    Luckily, it only took a few tries to get right. Following that shot I tried to get shots that had a similar character placement like the shot of my hand and the computer screen or the over-the-shoulder sequence. The hand/computer shot took a while to get right. To make sure I was on beat with the pen taps, I had my laptop play a 240 bpm metronome. For the shot I wanted a rack focus, so I used the Canon Connect App, to adjust the focus. While filming I had to count 8 beats before I would select the next focus point.

    I skipped around a little bit getting shots. Towards the end, I just need the shot of the "One Day" computer on the sticky note next to sketches. And somehow it was only at this point that I realized I need to make the sketches. So for about an hour I was drawing the sketch on the right of the photo below. By the time I fined drawing that it was about it was around 2 AM. As much as I wanted to get last shot of me on the phone before the title card, I was just too tired. 

    I ended up filming the last shot the next day (or I guess later in the day). For this shot it was fairly simple, but I just had my mom help with watching the camera. And since this shot required dialogue we also found a way to hide the phone lavalier mic I have. The best setup we found was just using a band-aid to keep the mic in place and having the wire go through my sleeve.

    Overall I had fun filming and I like how a lot of the shots came out. Though that's not to say it went perfect. Of course there was the oversite about the sketches in the "One Day" shots. And probably because it was late there is a continuity error in one of the shots. It's not the worst thing in the world, but I'm planning on re-filming the shot since it's a fairly simple one.