First day of shooting!
Today was my first day shooting my documentary. There’s no better way to appreciate the mastery of veteran filmmakers than to try to make a film yourself. Those really cool shots filmed from a vehicle driving along side a bicyclist - looks easy, right? Hard. Especially when your vehicle is not a motorcycle like ESPN uses, but is a Ford Explorer driving through tiny suburban streets.
It’s been an interesting day. Being a crew of one is much more of a challenge than I had thought. Trying to make sure the audio is good, while moving the camera to track the people I’m filming and still have an interesting shot, while trying to remember which questions I’ve asked, while thinking about how this scene will edit together with other scenes, all while trying to be engaged and relaxed with the people in the film so that they remain relaxed and spontaneous, it’s overwhelming. I’m still thinking about too many technical things - like suddenly remembering, halfway through a scene, that my camera’s viewfinder shows a bigger area than a TV will, so my tightly composed shot will have heads lopped off when viewed on a TV. But, I’ll get used to this over time. That’ll free me up to do the other 4 jobs more easily.
A part of me wishes that this were my 3rd or 4th film so that I’d have all that experience under my belt and could really do what I want with this. But, you’ve got to have a first film sometime, and this is mine.
The cool thing is, I’m still having fun.
Updated: Added a pic of the first completed tape of the project. Now, I really must sleep.
