Commercial Filming Blog

Filming for the first time was nerve-racking. I was scared we wouldn't have enough time to get all of the takes we needed, or all of the takes would turn out badly. In retrospect, my anxiety over it seems a little unnecessary, but it didn't seem like it at the time. I haven't watched the footage yet, so there may still be a problem, but for now I feel somewhat confident. I worked in my own group, but I used two friends from other classes (Amelia and Luc) in my film when they were available. First, I checked out the equipment (the camera, a tripod, and a SIM card). Then, I had to walk to another building, where the two people that were going to be in my commercial had their class. We had already asked their teacher beforehand to make sure it would be alright with her, so that I could prepare in case I needed to find new actors. We had to hurry then, because we had lost ten minutes getting together to begin filming. They were less patient, as they had lunch next and didn't want to miss it.

I had Luc play the exhausted subject, while Amelia was the speaker/narrator character. I played the friend who brings Luc coffee, as I didn't want to have to ask anyone else to help on such short notice. Amelia had the most lines, as her character was almost entirely the only one who spoke. She did a good job, but sometimes spoke too quietly for the camera to pick it up well. Luc was fine, since he mainly just sat and looked exhausted. I don't think I did very well, since I can't act, but I didn't have lines anyway so it's probably fine. I'm still nervous to go over the footage, but I think we shot enough for me to put together a relatively good commercial. We didn’t get as many takes as I would have liked, as Luc and Amelia were in a rush and we only had less than an hour to get everything done. We'll see how well I did when I watch the footage and begin editing.

Dumping the footage wasn't as confusing as I expected. Unfortunately, I didn't have my notes on how to access the SIM card on my computer with me, so I was a bit panicky before I asked a classmate to borrow their's. After that, dumping was quick and easy, and I was finished by the time the bell rang.