Production Blog: The Events of Spring Break (Camera Troubles)

Spring break has finally come to an end and it has been a while since I have updated you on the progress of my final task. In my previous blogged I talked about scheduling and how I planned to utilize the break to my filming advantage. Initially, my actors and I had set aside three dates for the filming of the movie. In the end, we only ended up following through with one of those dates over the week-long break. But before we get into the details of what I filmed, I will take this time to give you a brief recap of the week. I will mainly go over the events which led to me being able to complete the portion of filming that I did. This will include my accomplishments, setbacks, and more that I went through whilst attempting to film. To my surprise, I did not have any major problems that caused me to not be able to film at all. In my previous projects events ranging from horrible weather to one of my actors falling ill interfered with the filming process. This time around it was much simpler and easily taken care of. I had trouble obtaining the camera that I would borrow from my family member. I had arranged to pick up the camera on the weekend leading to spring break so that I would be able to start filming the following Monday. As my family member was preparing the camera, she realized that the camera battery was not holding a charge well. Due to the fact that I really wanted to utilize the camera to film my movie, I decided to wait a while to see if the problem could be resolved. This in itself caused me to lose one of the dates I chose to film on. I felt bad that I had to cancel on the people I am working with, but my actors were very understanding of the situation. With the camera refusing to stay charged, my family member offered to give me another camera to film with. The only downside to this was that it would have taken her toward the end of spring break to have it prepared due to her busy schedule. I would be able to get the camera by the weekend of the break which was not a time slot that my actors and I had agreed upon nor could do. This is when I had to make the decision of whether I wanted to start some of my filmings with my phone or wait for the camera which would push the start of my filming back to the next weekend. I decided to elicit my backup plan and use my phone and sister's tripod to begin filming. I chose to do this because my actors had already put aside the time to be in the movie and I wanted to respect that. With the time wasted from camera troubles, I had one pre-planned date left to use to film. I used that date to film the beginning of the movie and I am happy with how it came out. In the next blog, I will talk more about this first day of filming. I'll see you soon!