Filming Blog: At the Beach

   On Sunday night, I filmed at Keating Beach. The beach was, as expected, fairly empty. The weather was suitable for filming. There weren't too many problems that came up initially. As time went on, though, I realized the biggest issue with filming at night: it's dark. I expected this to be an issue while planning, but I thought it wouldn't be as dark as it was. While I could see fine, the camera barely picked up anything. My faith in school provided technology was my downfall. I wouldn't let this stop me, though; at certain points, I decided to use a flashlight for lighting. This added a dramatic and tense mood, which matches the convention of an apocalypse movie. But, it went against the convention that apocalypse movies use natural lighting. I'm not sure if I'm going to re-shoot scenes that utilized a flashlight. Ultimately, I'm going to have to think about which matters more: lighting or mood.

   In addition to the lighting issues, I was not able to implement some aspects that I am planning on having in the final film. For example, I wasn't able to get the drone in time, so I couldn't film the bird's eye shot. I also couldn't get the poster board to construct the spikes props. However, this is only the first draft of the film. I will be able to re-shoot at the beach at a later date. Hopefully, by then, I will be able to get what I need. If not, I have replacements in mind. For the drone shot, I will replace it with an extreme wide shot, panning to the side. I may just simply remove the black spikes entirely, leaving only the yellow tape.

  While not something I filmed at the beach, I recorded my voice over on Sunday. I decided to change the script slightly after much deliberation to sound more ominous.