CAP Hollywood Week One

Last week, my CAP Hollywood group focused on filming. We spent Tuesday and Wednesday filming at a gelato store in downton Takoma Park. Our earliest challenge was finding a place to film, but the gelato place worked really well with our story and they were very accomodating. In terms of getting props, we printed fake lottery tickets from the internet. We also brought a radio to replace what we thought was going to be a TV, so we wouldn't have to try to bring a TV and change the channel at the right time.

 Anotherchallenge that we faced was trying to find a time that worked for all of our group members. Instead of trying to do that, we decided that we had to have three people show up each day. One to work the camera, one to act, and one to help with the lighting and looking after Mr. Mayo's kid. We used Mr. Mayo and Ross as our two actors, although the cashier from the shop was used in some b-roll.

Our most important task while shooting was to get a variety of shots from different angles and with different compositions so we would be able to easily piece together our film from the availible materials. I think we got some really interesting shots, and varied the types, like Mr. Mayo showed us in class. We got all of our filming done within the two days. We also took some stills for the poster.

During this time, my job was cinematographer and artistic director. I organized the set and mae sure the props and cotumes were prepared. I also worked the camera and used the script and storyboard in order to figure out what shots to use. I also took a lot of b-roll on my day there, because I thought the shop was a really interesting and colorful setting for some cutaways.

Overall, our filming went really well. I think that we have all the footage we will need for this project. The only concern I have is how much film we have, but I think we'll be able to cut it down pretty easily. We just have a lot of bloopers and shots that didn't work out. Another concern I have is with audio, because I'm not sure what the quality of the sound is yet.

This week and next week my group needs to cut down all the footage into one rough cut. Since I have the most experience with Final Cut Pro, I will probably be doing a lot of the editing. I think that we should be able to have the rough cut done by the end of the week.