The camera (sort of) loves me: First day of filming

I can say in all honesty that I almost gave my life to this project. As in, I just about drowned during my first dalliance with the camera. Here are a few clips from the excruciating experience (note the pained expression):

 The things we do for art.

The rest of the filming was far more fun, even with the occasional mishap (i.e. that time when I accidentally kicked a shoe into Elanna's face).

 

One thing I  definitely did not anticipate was how many shots the most insignificant shot would take. For a millisecond shot of me turning on the faucet of a bathtub, we did three different takes. For a measly shot of me taking a (fake, of course) swig from a bottle of rum, we tried four different shots at different angles.

And of course, these were among our simplest shots. More complex sequences took even longer.

Continuity was another matter to contend with. As a viewer, I always took it for granted that in each shot a character would be holding a bottle in the same hand, or that they would be standing in the same exact spot. While staging theses scenes, we had to shoot and reshoot and reshoot, pouring over our footage to make sure we didn't commit and grievous from faux pas.

The most interesting aspect of our filming was that we were afforded with the opportunity to use a mirror in our shots, lending itself to creative frames and compositions (however, not without the added challenge of concealing the camera from the mirror). Here are a few of my favorites:

Overall, I'm rather proud of our finished product. Here is a tentative version, sans post-production effects, music, and finer editing: