Today I started filming for my final production. My actress got to mine at about 5.15 and we had a thirty minute brief about the character, the script, the camera movements and I answered questions that she had. She had brought with her some interesting clothes that she thought could represent the character of Lia rather well and when she put on all the attire, she looked a lot like the original Lia that I had thought of. She brought with her a black poofy skirt with lots of netting, green leg-warmers and a dark green vest top. I added some blue accessories and black Converse so that I was able to stick to the original colour scheme and keep all the connotations of those colours. When it came to hair, I thought that something a little immature might suit the character and so my mum styled my actress' hair into bunches and I then tied silver ribbons around each bunch into a bow. For Lia's make-up, I decided to have dark blue eyeshadow with black glitter liner on the top lid and black eyeliner on the lower lid. I then extended the line from the lower lid across on of my actress' cheeks so that it expanded into a pattern which I then highlighted with more glitter eyeliner. Overall, she looked pretty weird, and very much a social outcast.
My set looked like a proper bedroom although there were a few problems with where to put everything that I didn't want in shot.
Lighting was another problem. Because it needed to be dark, to then get the lighting right so that it didn't look obvious was very difficult. If it was too dark, the footage was grainy and if it was too light, it didn't look like night time. In the end though, and with the help of my brother, we got the level of light pretty much perfect. Every detail is still visible and yet it is obviously night time. When it came to the flashing lights from outside, my brother (crazily if you ask me) volunteered to go out onto the balcony off the room, into the cold and dark with a powerful torch and shine it into the bedroom. He discovered that using a newspaper to cover and uncover the light beam looked more realistic than turning the torch on and off. Flashing the torch by turning it on and off looked a bit amateurish and the newspaper added a bit of fading and a professional touch to the light. I noticed that when the light shone into the set, it looked like a searchlight. At first, I thought that the light should be more dispersed but then I thought of the connotations of the searchlight image. The outsiders are looking for Lia, waiting to take her away. She's wanted by them. So in the end, I left it as more of a searchlight.
Filming went pretty well. I got a good performance from my brother with the lights and my actress as Lia along with a few outtakes that I can laugh at later. I had to do most shots more than once as I wanted it just right and I could tell that after a while, everyone was getting a little bored of me being so pernickety. However, I managed to get most of the shots done and only have a few more shots and my titles to do. I think that I may need to lengthen the footage a little with some cutaway shots and establishing shots so I will do them another time.
All in all, a good days work I think.
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