Filming Day 2- Title shot

 

Filming the title shot

As I've mentioned we wanted the title of the film to be in the actual film itself then to rather be at the beginning or in the end for the credits. Hence, the importance behind the painting. And funny thing, the other painting that has the heart flower was already hung on the fridge when we got there. But I decided to keep it because one symbol that's importance in this film is love and the words "I love you". So, it was kind of perfect that that painting was there.

Elena was meant to be leaving for a party when the title appears. So, when she opens the fridge, the audience catches a glimpse of the title but when she grabs what she needs and closes the doors that's when the camera will focus on just the painting and people watching can make that connection. 

Filming Day 2- Flashback with present moment

 

Elena discovers the necklace

At this moment in the scene Karnia and I thought it would be best if we had a voiceover of Maria (Valentina) reading the letter. For example, we can time it up perfectly to when Valentina tells Elean "You always had a smile on your face..." and it cuts back to the present moment of Elena being at the museum with a smile on her face. And there is more moment in the letter then we match up with certain clips of the film.

                                                                                                                                                                     

Elena examines the necklace

 This is the part of the scene where Elena goes to her mother dresser and discovers the angel necklace. When she discovers the necklace, she examines it closely and decides to put it on. And when she puts it on it cuts back to Elena being the museum clutching the necklace. Our goal is to sort have the present and past moment going back and forth between each, so it matches up with what Valentina says in the letter. 

Filming Day 2 (Bedroom scene)

Setting up the camera 

We decided to work a little backwards for this shot. Liked I mentioned since we wanted to start in the bedroom, and we had problems occur but when Brendan finally solved it, he didn't want to mess with the lights and just leave them alone. So we did the shot of Elena laying down on the left side of her mom bed, while the letter and urn was placed on the right. We had that side of the bed undone to give the indication that someone was there, but it hasn't been touched since. 

Shooting from a different angle

We shot this particular part of the scene from different angles to capture different viewpoints. Because for the first couple seconds of this clip, Elena is looking up to the celling but then looks down to the right.  And I also wanted people to grasp the idea that the letter and urn is significant to Elena and connects with her. 

Filming Day 2- Lighting Issues

Trying to fix the issue

 The very first scene we shot was the bedroom scene, which is one of the last scenes that collabs with the scene we filmed at the museum. In this scene, we wanted to create this sort of warm and comfortable environment. Since this scene Elena is in her mother bedroom, we wanted the mood to be soft and warm-like but also keep it a little dark because Elena did just come home from her mother funeral. But a problem that we unfortunately ran into was that one of the lights didn't want to work. To be more specific, the exposure was way to be bright and it had this blue color tint to it. We wanted a yellowish color and not blue since the walls of the room were already yellow. With the blue lighting it kind added this weird shadow in the back which we didn't want. We even tried to use some sort of yellow blanket or towel to throw over the light, but it made it too dark. But while Brendan was trying to assess this issue, I continued to read through my lines and map out how the scene will look. This ended up pushing us back almost 2 hours. Our goal was to start filming at 5:30 we didn't start until 7:12. It did make me a little frustrated since it wasn't my home we were filming at but actually my aunt's house. And it made me feel bad that she couldn't be in her own bedroom, but we ended up getting the problem solved and we started shooting. 

Rehearsing before filming (Day 2)

 Filming day 2 has finally arrived! So, before we even started filming, I wanted to mentally prepare myself and really put myself into my character because I knew it was going to be a long day. In total we spent 8 hours filming. And the thing that made it a little tricker was that the weekend before we started, we only filmed about 2 scenes. But on this day in particular, we had 6-7 scenes to film. As someone, who's never done that much it definitely was tiring but I'm glad with how things came out. 

As Brendan was sitting up his lighting equipment, Maria and me (Valentina and Elena) did a read through. I was trying to get into character since I knew that the scene in the bedroom was going to be shot first. And for that scene I had to really put myself into character since it's a sad scene. Also, I thought it would be a good idea to do a read through so Maria can have a sense of what's it like to be like Valentina. I already shared the script with her earlier in the week, so she can become familiar with her lines and the storyline. 

One thing I would like to mention is that I told Maria to not memorize all her scenes all together word for word because I've watched interviews of other actors and they've said that they memorized the content of the story, like the main points and they've memorized the scenes they were only filming at the moment. It makes sense to do this because, I feel like if you memorized everything all at once, your brain will be fried and when you are filming your mind just goes blank. And personally, it didn't matter if we didn't say everything word for word as long as we got the main points and the general dialogue for the scenes. 

The Title

Painting for the title 

The whole idea of making this "painting" is to make it seem that when Elena was younger her and her mom made a heart painting made out of their hands, and Elena wrote a little saying. But that saying is actually the title. It's a little hard to tell with the lighting but for Elena I decided to do pink for her because I think pink represent innocence and youth. And I decided to do Blue for Valentina because I think it contrast well with the kind of mood she's in throughout the film. You never really see her happy and you just see her in this sad and somber mood. And with for the actual title I did purple because it represents this sort of mystery sense because when we show the title in the film the audience won't know yet if Valentina lives or dies. We want people to linger with that idea. 

Filming Day 1 (Raw Audio)

While Brendan and I were filming, Bailey and Karnia were trying to record clips of them walking, or just the noise that was happening inside the museum. They wanted to capture the raw audio because since Bailey is our sound designer and Karnia is our editor, they want to be able to use these sounds to make the scenes have a bit of background noise, then just pure silence or the characters speaking. 

 

For example, Bailey recorded a video of Karnia taking steps on the carpet inside the museum. They did this because for shots of Elena and Valentina walking around, with the actual camera you can't pick it up as much as if you were to record the audio separately.

And they decided to do the same thing for the wood floors since the sound is different. 

Recording the TV audio

For one of the shots there was this tv that audio playing through a pair of headphones. As Elena was walking around and she came across this she decided to put on the headphones. The tv was playing some sort of gaming music. So, I told Brendan to record the audio so Karnia and Bailey go back to edit when Elena puts on the headphones, you can hear the audio that is being played and can match up with the shot. 

Filming Day 1, (Inside the museum)

Elena walking around the museum

 Filming day has arrived! For the first 30 minutes of filming our cinematographer, Brendan was recording Elena walking around the museum. But we had to film backwards because this scene is actually the very last scene in the script, but as I've mentioned we decided to film at the locations that aren't close by first. So, as Elena walked around, he filmed from different angles to vary the shots. Some were close ups, some were OTS, and etc. 

Younger Elena and Valentina walking around

Since we are going to have flashbacks in this film, Brendan pretty much did the same thing with Valentina (the mom) and Elena (younger her). He got clips of them walking around and have their moments togethers. 

Flashback and present moment transition.

For this shot, we changed things up a bit. Since there is this long walkway, we had younger Elena walk down, then turn left into this corner, and as she disappeared behind the wall, older Elena came out the other end. We thought it would've been a cool transition to indicate that the flashback scenes are over, and older Elena is now back here again. 

Low angle shot. 

 This was another shot we thought would look cool. Since this piece of art has that reflection with the blue and white lighting, we decided to have Elena stand in front of it and look down while Brendan shots from a low angle. The lighting kind of emphasizes on that feeling and mood of sadness and somber. Obviously, she is still grieving her mother deaf but is trying to move one with her life. 

Filming Day 1 (Outside)

Brendan setting up

The museum opened at 11 a.m. on Sunday's so our crew, (Brendan, Karnia, Bailey, and me) all decided to get there by 10 a.m. so we can film the exterior shots first. And we got really lucky, because it was a beautiful day out, but the sun was super-hot. So, when we were filming outside the sun wasn't directly on us and it didn't create a problem with lighting. And while I was getting ready, Brendan was setting up his camera. 

Filming for the first scene

This is actually the opening shot for our film. I was in class one day I was thinking to myself "what if we do something in the beginning of the film to throw off people". I wanted to throw off the audience in the beginning to make it seem like it's something it's not, which is something we are doing with this scene. We are going to make it seem like Elena graduated from high school, but her mom is still alive. So, they are here taking pictures before graduation. And basically, when the camera "flash" goes off when they take the photo a white screen will appear transitioning it to the 2nd scene of Elena crying in her mom's bedroom reading the letter. 

Car scene 

This was one of the very last scenes that we decided to shoot on this day. We almost forgot to film this shot, but luckily, I remembered. Moving on, this scene is actually one of very first scenes too. This scene consists of Elena driving to the museum. And when Elena arrives, she fixes her rearview mirror, and when she centers it, older Elena would go out of focus and younger Elena will come into focus. 

Recording raw audio

This is Bailey, our sound designer. She is recording a video of where we filmed the first scene. She wants to record a video of the raw audio because she wants to use this audio when she works with our editor Karnia. The point of raw audio is so when we are editing, instead of just hearing pure silence or minimal sound in the background, you can hear the water running, cars passing by, and people talking. It gives it more of that natural effect and makes it more realistic then just hearing the dialogue or monologue that's happening in the scene.  

Going back and forth with the script

 

Alternating between both scripts 

In the scene where Elena is in the bedroom, and the shots jump from past to present moment, I had to remake that scene from scratch. Like I've mentioned in the original script we weren't going to bring up the letter again, but we decided against that. So, I had to completely remake this part of the script and make two separate documents because I was confusing myself. I would say this was probably one of the hardest things to do because I was trying to have it make sense for not just people, but our group and cast. I had to keep going back and forth to make sure it made sense and also for the mapping of the location to be right. And the thing that made it harder was that certain thing that Valentina tells Elena lines up to certain points in the scene. I was trying to make the script very basic and board to just make it easier, but with this I had to go into depth so whoever is reading it wasn't confused. I also had to make these indications of where Elena and Valentina were exactly so we can tell the difference between the present and past moment. It almost like those two shots were fighting with each other.

Another thing I would like to mention is that through making the letter, I also had to keep in mind to not make it too long because this is all happening within a span of maybe a minute. I didn't want for half of the film to just be this. So, I had to keep reminding myself to keep it short, but also include the points I want the actors to read. 

The letter

The letter written to Elena from her mom.

At the beginning of making the script, I didn't know how exactly wanted this letter to be written or say. The only thing that I knew for certain was that I wanted it to have the last line say, "to my little angle". I remember when I was making the letter, I had to mention not only the fact that Valentina was sorry for everything that didn't go right but also for the things that have happened before so people who are watching can make sense of what certain shots or scenes mean in the film. For example, in the letter there is a point where she says "But I know the museum did. You always have this big smile on your face every time we were there. That place was like a Disney for you." And this is the part where audience can make that connection on why we emphasized so much on specific location. It was a place for them where they were at ease. 

Another thing with the letter is that, when I was writing out the script this was something that I had to go back and keep changing because, the original script was going to not incorporate this letter whatsoever, but then me and Karnia, our editor said it was kind of pointless to mention or even bring up the idea of a letter if we were not going to bring it up again. So, for the last scene I had to make changes in order for the idea of the letter to make sense. 

And it's kind of hard to tell in this photo, but the letter isn't exactly perfectly written either. There are minor imperfections and mistakes in there, which I did on purpose because I want to give off that impression that Valentina wasn't perfect, and that she had flaws. I also wanted it to be handwritten because I think it just gives it more of that personal touch then if it was typed out. If it was typed I feel like it would've been more "professional" which was something I wasn't really aiming for.