Calling Card: Filming Process Cambridge

Calling Card Production Process

We originally went over to a friend's house to film our opening but we were unable to return to that house as he was busy for the entire week. As a result, we were forced to improvise by making some changes at the last second. We switched the filming location to be at my house and to bring along a different more available person to help us film and record our process. When my partner and Lucas (The available friend) showed up at my house we immediately went into action and started planning how were we going to film all the necessary shots with this different environment. We pulled up our storyboard and visualized where we would place all the furniture, props, camera angles, etc. Fortunately, we were able to gather up all of the props that we had missed during our first shooting such as the calling card, the ramen cups, the newspaper, and the half-empty water bottles. After setting up all of the scenes we started filming.

Protagonists Scene

We were originally planning on finishing up on the shots for the antagonist's scene but we decided that it would be better to wait until it was dark out so that we could properly have our dim low-key lighting as in my house there are two large window/doors that let in sunlight. As a result, we started filming the protagonists first and quickly realized that we needed to evaluate the type of relationship between Matthew and Oliver. We showcase Matthew and Oliver with a quick and small conversation about Matthew's girlfriend and displayed part of Oliver's character by showing him worrying about Matthew's lifestyle and obsession with the case. We displayed Matthew's character by showing him in his messy environment and clearly restless nights of working on the case, we also focused on him complaining about the fact that they had spent so much time and effort and were still no closer to figuring out the identity of Shade. We then took various different shots and variations based off our storyboard and remove shots that we considered impossible to do at the time. 

During the filming for this scene we encountered a problem early on with the realization that my partner Marat had worn the wrong costume for Matthew which caused us to redo all of the previous shots. Fortunately, it was still pretty early on so we didn't lose as much as we could've. In fact thanks to my father we actually improved on the costume design by having him wear an old F1 (Formula 1) jacket to add on references and details to pop culture outside the film. It is also very important to mention that we took several breaks every now and then to refresh our minds and to create some of the props necessary like adding the images to the newspaper and eating out the ramen so we could use the empty cups. After messing around a bit we decided to focus and concentrate for the rest of filming process. 

Antagonist

We switched from filming the protagonists to the antagonists because it was starting to turn dark outside. Before getting into it we were worried that getting the lighting right as had little to no experience with lighting. However, fortunately enough my father had a portable light that came with adjustable brightness which helped us a lot as we were able to effectively control the amount of light we would use in our scenes even with all of the lights turned off.

The filming of the antagonist went better than we expected even when one of my dogs would bark at random moments. We also had a time limit as my mom selflessly took my other two dogs who were extremely loud and talkative to a park so that we could film without any worries. (My dogs are very friendly to strangers :) Afterwards, we wrapped up filming for the day as it was getting very late and planned to come back on Monday to finish up all of the shots and retake any that we found unsatisfactory.

Conclusion 

Even though it was pretty bumpy, we still got a lot of work done with us almost finishing up filming in just one day. However, we still do need some extra shots for the protagonists' scene and we need to do some retakes for the dialogue as the friend who we had play as Oliver was sort of bad at acting and couldn't articulate specific sentences so that took a pretty long time to finish that section up.

Overall, I think that our day was very productive even though we could've been more efficient with our time and I hope that we can finish up filming on Monday and fully edit the opening.