9-9-20
After 2 weeks of preparation, it’s finally the day of filming. I was surprisingly calm that morning. Ate breakfast, double-checked if I had all my equipment, and headed out to meet up with my production team Sao and Janae. Unfortunately, Janae broke her foot about a month ago, I went to meet with her because I wanted to borrow her camera for a second side angle shot. I wasn’t actually planning on her to come but faith in the universe she actually came, crunches in all. She even filmed behind the scenes for her youtube channel.
After feeding my crew, we head to the store were we meet up with the store owner and the subject of the interview Yendys, who is honestly an amazing person. She was patient, intelligent and such a great story teller. We worked around trying to find the best location and we chose for to stand by the mirrors and we shot at an angle so our reflection wouldn’t be scene on camera. I had the camera in front that was a mid-shot and a side camera that was a close up. It displayed the store while also the plants surrounding her. I was satisfied with both shots.
Sao was my production assistant and she was fantastic even though she never been on a set before. She became the interviewer because I was concentration on the shot. She got Yendys to open up more and did a way better job than I would’ve ever did. Janae was my camera man and cinematographer. She was the one who chose the shot with the mirrors and the background. While setting up we didn’t realized there was a problem with the audio. I bought a lavalier microphone but it arrive the night before filming. I was preoccupied with prepping for the shoot, I didn’t get to test out the microphone before hand. We tested it out with headphones and we heard sound through the camera but it wasn’t recording I guess. There was a soft static when I played it back later on.
Lessoned learned, I should’ve played it back before we did the interview. Also there was some continuity issues, since she preferred to stand up for the interview instead of sitting to make her more comfortable. She was moving around a-lot and there was some shot that was either inconsistent with each other or she wasn’t looking at the camera. These were issues that I reviewed and prepared to improve next time we shoot.
While Janae and Sao was striking the equipment. I started shooting some B-roll. I focused on the plants and products in the store and used my camera light as a source of light. I used the method of rack focus and planing on using slow-mo when editing the documentary. I returned that Saturday when the store was opened to shoot B-roll of her interacting with customers. Some photographers in the neighborhood was walking taking pictures of black-owned business and stopped by the store. She came out was talking to them and I got really great shots and footage to used.
I’m going to return again next Saturday to take more pictures and B-roll. We should be doing a reshoot in a couple of weeks and I am excited to display the techniques I learned through trial and error and researched.
