Getting Kicked Out!

For Day 2 of filming, it was scheduled to film the 4th scene in a parking lot in front of a Target, which is massive. I landed on the location since the back end of the parking lot would not be busy, and far from the store. I got to the spot early with Sam to buy the prop bag and remote, and then we'd beginning filming the shots of just me. When I film on location I try to be the least intrusive as I could be, with bare bones equipment and personnel. The scene is fairly brief and shots were simple too.

Knowing the scene would take place in the later afternoon, I tried to look up where and when the sun would set, especially since day light savings recently just kicked in and has thrown off my sense of time. I would a website that did both and modeled when the sun would be at any given point of the day from any specific spot.  The sun would be setting in the direction of the store, so it'd work to back light Eric as he walks from the store and if I block the scene right the character can have the sun as a key light with the car behind them.

The first shot of me from the inside of my car reversing out "into" another person's car. Since I know that the sun would be behind me I brought a small reflector to have in the car and fill my dark half. I taped it to the side of the car to get just the right angle and then BAM, it worked at lighting me yet staying natural.

I then filmed the shot of me walking to the car only for Angelo to arrive as were finishing up with a take. He parks and I begin to walk him through his character and the purpose of the scene. Once we were good I decided we'd first film the shot where Angelo's character angrily marches from his car to yell at Eric, since it'd be the only shot that would show his car (we'd used perspective to hide the point of impact, but the car would still be shown) I wanted to get the shot done fast to avoid having Angelo's car parked in the middle of the street.

In directing his parking and enacting his path of motion, a security car pulled along side Sam and the tripod. I walk over to the side of the car as the man inside lowers the window and informs me that the the mall that the Target is part of has a no photography and filming policy, and that it extends to the parking lot. I mentioned how it was for a school project and he just repeated the same things as before. I then asked him if he knew of any place near that wasn't off limits and he said not here. After that, I took the camera off the tripod to signal we were leaving and recapped the situation to Angelo who was watching from his car. I told him to park normally as I put stuff away. It also wasn't until the broke apart the tripod that the security car finally left.

With the sun soon the set, it'd still be cutting it close even if security didn't stop by, so I called it for the day, and asked Angelo what other day he'd be free to film. He said Sunday (March 26), so that's our new filming day. For Sunday I'll look for a place closer to home that I've used as a filming location in the past to play it safe. In this whole experience I am happy though that we didn't film that much because if the same thing happened later in the process, then I'd potentially have to refilm a major amount of the scene that I already filmed. Anyhow, I never really liked that mall that much anyways.