April 1st

So i'm quickly realising that the footage i've captured already isn't good enough, and here's why:

It's overexposed: everything is much too bright and a lot of data was lost. I blame this on the inaccurate screen of the camera, but in fairness I should have used the zebra lines display function. The next time I film, i'll put more effort into proper setup.

I didn't think: Turns out that most of my shots are just nodal pans, I need to factor in LOADS more parallax to get more 3D matchmoves. When I next rent a camera, I won't be taking out a tripod at the same time, the tripod is mostly useless for creating parallax. I managed one shot which I should really upload. I'll do that when I get home. I did that by putting the tripod on a tray and getting somebody to drag that along the floor while I held the camera steady. That makeshift solution wasn't very practical at all but it did work. There might be some more clever ways I could use to get the shots really smooth, so maybe I should consider that while planning shots, and take the tripod out if needs be... Then again, it's nice without a tripod because it makes it much easier to transport the equipment, which is a plus for motivation. Still, the quality of the final film should be a bigger focus than whether I can be bothered to carry equipment.

They look really cheap: I think I've aimed my film too high as far as production values are concerned. I don't think I can emulate the kind of thing i'm thinking of in my head. The problem is, I was thinking "epic" for the film, but in order to achieve that i'll need permission to film in university at night, i'll need actors. Combine that with the possible need for multiple shoots and I think we've got a problem...

It might be possible to go to the university when it gets dark and film somebody walking up to the door, to set the scene. They might need to run towards the door so maybe security would be suspicious of that, but the worst that would happen is that we'd be asked to leave, so potentially no biggy.

I was thinking I might change the direction of the project to look more "amateur"... So instead of changing the setting and actors, i'll just put them in a situation with amateur looking footage and ad-libbed reactions. That way it would look like a home movie, kinda like Cloverfield I guess. I'm as tired of Cloverfield clones as everybody else is, but I've gotta get a project together right?

That's the lazy option, but with a bit of clever planning I might be able to pull together something a bit more pro looking. I'll definitely try that.

Also I REALLY need a much more solid idea of exactly what shots will go where in the film. For this, i'll need a proper storyboard, shot list, which shots will use VFX, how long that will take, see if any adjustments need to be made. I should have done that from the beginning I guess, but I didn't, so I've got to do it now.

I've also got the option of maybe taking some Steadycam shots next week... With the possible new direction of the film, that wouldn't work very well at all, but this could factor in very nicely if I wanted to make it look more professional. The outside shots would need to be at night BUT I could film some inside shots with artificial light while using the steadycam. Perhaps I could look into a day to night shot? These are all things i'll be considering over the weekend and updating the blog with my thoughts.

But I've got to go now because the room is being occupied by animation students.