Filming and Character Name

Today, the 17th, Olivia came over at 10 am as planned. I had prepared what was needed before she came over, and I cleaned my room so that it would look nice for filming.

As far as lighting goes, I did not end up incorporating my neon lights, but if I end up wanting a colored effect, I can do that in editing. I have two windows in my room, but I only opened one because I want the film to have a darker mood, due to the subject matter. I can always adjust the brightness afterward in editing if I choose to make it brighter.

I also did not have my cat in the scene because she decided she wanted to stay outside and nap. As a good cat mom, I didn't want to force her to be on camera.

When she arrived to film, we were very productive. I got more than enough shots from various angles, using my storyboard as a guide, and filming was wrapped up after a little over an hour. I was fortunate enough to have a scene that was not intensely heavy on preparation or filming requirements, essentially it was very simplistic, so we had plenty of time to get everything that was necessary and then some.

She played the character really well, just as I had hoped. I had to have her re-do a lot of clips so that I could get a variety of angles, but she managed.

There were only three obstacles that I ran into with the filming process. The first was that there was limited space for me to get a wide shot of my room, so I ended up having to sit on a storage chest that's across from my bed. I'm small though, so that was easy to resolve. The second issue was that Olivia was reading off of my laptop, which I placed on my nightstand as a prompter, so she would know what to write down in the journal. I had to work with the angling of the camera to make sure that it couldn't be seen.

The third obstacle came with the rap itself. I had this part recorded as a voice-over because I figured it would take a few attempts to perfect the timing, since I wrote it and she is not used to rapping. It took several tries for us to record an audio that we were both satisfied with, but in the end, we got it done. My main worry is making sure that using a voice-over will fit in with the film opening, but that will only be told with time, once I edit it in.

So, one of the main recurring questions I've had for this project was what I would name the main character. I decided that Olivia could pick, and if I liked her suggestion, I would give her the honor of naming the character as a "thank you" for being in my film. Additionally, I felt like naming the main girl might help her get into character better. She suggested the name Maya, and I liked it, so that is now the name of the girl.