The Setup

I had a lot of fun filming my film opening, but it took some work to get things the way I wanted them to be. As I mentioned in my last post, I needed my house empty. I also needed my street empty. However, I did have to do a couple things I did not anticipate for while planning my film.

The boy notices a clock in a scene with the time 12:00 PM on it. I couldn't change every clock in my living room, brother's room (his has more space than mine so I used his), and parent's room so I just turned them on it's face to cover the time. If you look closely in my parent's room and living room, you can see the digital clocks all turned over. I also turned off all fans and the A/C. Those are set manually and without any people, how can they be turned on? Needless to say Alec and I were pretty hot, pretty quickly.

As far as decoration goes, I asked Alec to wear all white (he wore black socks so I gave him a pair of white ones). I did this to represent a heaven-like presence. Alec's character thinks he is the last person on Earth, but he will learn at the end of the movie that he is actually the one dead and is in a stage of limbo. That is why he wears white. Www.empower-yourself-with-color-psychology.com says white can represent "the end of one life and the beginning of another, moving forward to a new life." Many movies use white to represent heaven, as I address in my blog post The Research.

I mentioned my addition of the breakfast table in my last post. I included things normally seen on my breakfast table in the mornings. I placed a label-less Gatorade bottle and a half-empty breakfast bowl with a fork, a used napkin, a cup of coffee, a water bottle, a plate with a half-eaten piece of bread with peanut butter, a jar of peanut butter, and an open math textbook with a pencil and paper. Again, I tried to mimic my breakfast table because that's what I was most familiar with. Reaffirming my choices was BBC News, saying that most modern Americans breakfasts feature a drink of choice (Gatorade) and a quick, simple meal (bread with peanut butter), among other things.

The trickiest thing about setting up the table was making sure no logos or brands were pictured. While nofilmschool.com says I didn't have to, I probably should hide or remove the logos just in case.   For example, I ripped off the Gatorade wrapper on the bottle. I also turned the Skippy jar around to face away from the camera, and did the same with my mom's San Diego Zoo coffee mug.

I actually really enjoyed filming this and setting up my "set". It made me feel like a professional director, and I hope it looks professional when the film is finished. I leave for Anaheim tomorrow for my national tv competition, so now I must film the first section of my film.

"The Color White." Empowered By Color. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Mar. 2017.

Siegelbaum, Debbie. "What Does America Have for Breakfast?" BBC News. BBC, 15 Aug. 2014. Web. 26 Mar. 2017.

Marine, Joe. "Do You Need to Remove Company Logos from Your Film?" No Film School. N.p., 16 Mar. 2015. Web. 26 Mar. 2017.