Shot Changes and Troubles With Shooting

 I was going to start with the shot changes, but I just changed my mind. I figured I got easily segue into the shot changes because of my experience "filming" (I'll explain why that's in quotations in just a second) and how visiting my planned setting is how I actually thought of my shot changes. So here goes:

Florida is weird. Florida cannot make up its mind about whether it's going to be sunny, or cloudy, or windy on any given day (and sometimes, it changes its mind halfway through the day). I went off on this tangent because Florida randomly decided to be really windy the day I went to my setting to film. This filming was mostly going to be done as prep, as these were going to be the introductory shots that establish the setting. They ended up establishing that Florida is very windy sometimes. I filmed maybe one or two shots before realizing that I would not be able to use these. The surrounding foliage clearly showcases how windy it was, and my actual filming of the characters (which I'm doing soon) is hopefully not going to be on a day as windy (hopefully there will be no wind). The discrepancies between footage is going to be bad, and I want it to be as professional of an amateur film piece as possible. 

The footage pretty much looked like this (even though this is a bit of an embellishment)

So, long story short, I did not get the shots I wanted. But, it did lead me to developing some more shots for the introduction and completing my storyboard (I now have pretty much all of the shots picked out).

These are the updated intro shots. Again, I'm not the best at drawing, but I think I did manage to capture what I want out of the shots. Like in many dramedies (and as told by Lulu Wang in one of my other blog posts), there are times when there does not need to be camera movement, the movement of the objects within the shot captures the attention of the audience and makes for a great shot. That's why I wanted to focus my establishing shots on the movement of the waves in the ocean, the breeze gently sweeping past palms and tall grass, and the small movements of the buildings along the beach (many are older, and look more working class but have interesting designs). I also wanted a pan of a bird flying past, but that all depends on if I get a bird to go flying past (I'll just ask my partner to scare some birds, I'm sure he'll be fine with it). This opening sequence is going to last maybe 10-15 seconds (including the shot of Maya or Dallin stomping on the water), so as not to take too much time away. I still think the setting is really important, but I want to be able to focus on my characters as soon as possible. 

These are the illustrations of the final shots of the opening. I just wanted to create a smooth transition of them getting into the car, turning on the music (with the song being diegetic at first), before using the sound transition back to the ball floating on the water. I also put the title card there hesitantly (I might have also figured out which font I want for it, but that's going to be decided later). The list at the bottom is so I remember the costumes and the props. I've already mentioned it, but I'm going to be filming soon and I'm really excited, but I also want to be prepared. That's all for now, my next blog will probably be on an exciting piece of equipment I'm getting for filming, so stay tuned.