Production Blog: Continued Filming & Wound Makeup

Over the extended weekend, I was able to film more scenes for my movie. In my last blog, I explained my first day of filming along with what I planned to accomplish over the weekend. Filming had gone relatively smoothly and I am a couple more days away from being done. But during the weekend, I did run into one weather problem on Saturday. The sky was quite dark which gave off a gloomy atmosphere and this is the exact opposite of what I need for my movie. I decided to wait a while and see if the weather would get better but unfortunately, it did not. It even began to drizzle which confirmed the cancellation of my filming. In my refusal to let the day go to waste, I decided to work on the wound makeup that will be needed for the upcoming scenes of the film. I went on Youtube, watched different tutorials, and practiced on myself. At one point I was considering purchasing fake wounds out of all my trial and errors. But in the end, I was able to create the realistic wound makeup looks from the videos. Although the weather prevented me from being able to film on Saturday, I was not upset since I was able to practice the wound makeup and capture great shots the day prior. On that Friday I got to film more of my outdoor scenes. This included combined shots of Jayden and Alexsia along with solo shots of Jayden as he rides back to his home. Unlike the first day of filming, these scenes did not require as many retakes. These scenes were recorded so effortlessly that we were able to proceed ahead of our schedule and advance further in filming. We filmed the screen where Jayden comes home and his mother inquires about his day. Even though this encounter is fairly simple and could be freestyled, I still had prepared a script for the mother. Since she is older than my other actors, I did this in hopes that she wouldn't feel nervous or overwhelmed performing her part. But to my surprise, my actor was extremely calm and collected. She even added her own touch to her lines which made me happy. After filming the encounter between Jayden and his mother, I need the filming day with the shots of him preparing for his nap. My actor did feel a little self-conscious about his acting during this part since he wanted to appear as natural as possible. This resulted in many retakes, upon his request, until we reached our end time for the day. We did not get the perfect shot for that scene yet, but this is okay since we have more days which we are planning to film. I can't wait to film and complete my filming this week. I hope that I will be able to recreate the wound makeup that I worked so diligently on!