Behind the Scenes

 This is the behind the scenes section for our documentary written by Jasmine.

24th August, 2024: Day 1

On this first shooting day, we didn’t record much as we didn’t really have our script and storyboard finalized. We decided that it would be best if we just took the day to scout through the area and become more familiar with it so that we would be able to accurately create the scenes and avoid misunderstandings when it is actually time to shoot the scenes. Previously, we had made a plan to add a river scene to the script, however after looking through the location, we decided that it was too dangerous due to the environment and made adjustments to the script to remove it. 

31st August, 2024: Day 2

In this session, Jocelyn and I (Jasmine) aimed to just experiment and make mocks of the interview scene as well as the recreation scene for scene 2. When I arrived to Jocelyn’s house, I made a quick storyboard sketch in a couple of minutes as seen below:

Although it was super rough, it helped me share my vision with Jocelyn so that she could direct the scenes with what I had in mind. After that, we tried to actually act out the scene. To record this since it was just a mock and so it wouldn’t take too long to transfer the files, we just used Jocelyn’s phone to record the scenes.

After trying to act out the scenes based on the storyboard I made, Jocelyn and I realized that there were a lot of flaws. These flaws will be further explained in the storyboard development page, however since we identified the flaws by doing the mock, we decided to adjust the storyboard accordingly after.

After that, we went ahead and did the mock for the interview scene in Jocelyn’s room again since we wanted to experiment with angles and practice the script as well.

After filming this mock interview scene, we came to the conclusion that having the medium shot angle as well as having the scene shot straight-forward seems a bit too stiff and premeditated. After filming this scene, we decided to watch videos of crime interviews online and decided to use a phone camera next time with a close up shot to make the quality worse and make it look more spontaneous like a live TV interview.

Below is the image from the video we found most inspiring for our final interview shoot:

Live interview with Stephen Mcdaniel after the death of his victim.

(During these scenes recorded with just me and Jocelyn, it was a bit hard since the other’s were unavailable and it was just the two of us so we weren’t able to get as many behind the scenes shots.)

3rd September, 2024: Day 3

On this day, we recorded what we thought was the final recording for scene 1. Recording for this scene was a bit tough due to the neighborhood people that would walk by the road in a way which would disrupt our recording. Other than that, there were also problems with motorcycles which would also be a disturbance once in a while and also quite dangerous. In the end, there were birds in the background whose sounds made the recording sound really nice so we planned to use the sounds in the background of the scene. However, ultimately we decided to change actors so unfortunately, we had to scrap this recording of Christopher’s scene with Thompson.

7th September, 2024: Day 4

 

Tripod setup with the camera and angle we planned to use.

On this day, Jocelyn and I prepared to shoot scene 2’s interview scene. At first, we tried to shoot outside on the street, however we changed our minds because it was too bright and hot outside which caused the shadows to become too harsh and the actor (Jasmine, aka. me) couldn’t open my eyes because the sun was way too bright. In addition to that, since we were shooting pretty early, there were more motorcycles than usual making it dangerous to shoot outside. Instead, we decided to change the narrative to make it so that it seems like the TV interviewer asked Harper to get an interview on the side of the road or somewhere indoor. When we recorded with the camera, we realized that the quality was way too good.

Instead, we decided to use Jocelyn’s iphone so that the quality is not as good as it would’ve been with the camera. In addition, we also thought that the shadows were still a bit too harsh. To combat this, we lightened the side of the actor’s (Jasmine) face where the shadow was cast by using my iphone’s flashlight. In the end, I think that we got our final shot and all we need to do is edit it in post production to lower the quality just a bit as well as add the live TV elements such as the logos, etc. In addition, I was sweating so much because of the heat but I think that this gave it a better effect of looking nervous for the interview so it all worked out!

8th September, 2024: Day 5

Behind the scenes pictures taken by our actor, Devasya.

This day was used to solidify and record the final cut for the recreation scene in scene 2. We used Rachelle as the actor acting as Harper as she looks similar to me, Jasmine. Following the guidelines set from the test recording we made when I acted out the scenes on day 2, the vision was made simpler. However, this didn’t make things a lot easier as recording this scene took a lot of attempts and retakes. Our cameraman and editor (Jocelyn) decided that she wanted to try out other concepts for the scenes just in case so she can pick and choose which clips would look best while just experimenting. Obviously, since the actor was also different, she naturally had to take time to adjust to the demands of the scenes and made her share of blunders. 

In hindsight, we should have photographed behind the scenes footage for Christopher’s (Devasya) scenes too. However, since we were all focused on the recording of the scenes and helping around with directing it completely passed our minds. As usual, there was the problem of motorcycles obstructing the production of the video but in the end, we managed to record a solid version to use for the opening. We were really glad that Devasya was able to help us act because it was a really last minute decision that none of us could have predicted but it ended up being all well!

11th September, 2024: Day 6

This day, our editor (Jocelyn) uploaded the interview scene with Harper onto youtube to record scene 4 where the interview scene (being on live TV) would be playing in the background. It was a bit tricky to execute this scene since the actor had to be perfectly timed with certain scenes in the interview to make it look seamless as a transition in the final version of the opening. The lighting was also a problem as we had to race against the time as if we took too long to record, it would’ve been visible that the time had changed since the lighting would be darker. We wanted the lighting of this scene to be similar to the one used in the interview scene with Harper as we wanted to make it seem like Harper just came home from the interview, becoming panicked as she is scared of being found out.

13th September, 2024: Day 7

Jocelyn’s camera set up on the staircase. I, Jasmine was tasked to look through the window in order to notify Rachelle when she should come out on time because we had to match it with Harper’s interview scene recording audio.

Here is what the entire set up looked like.

Today we reshot scenes 4 and 5 due to the unsatisfactory results of the previous attempt. The first notable improvement was the sound quality of the “TV” as instead of using the original TV audio like last time, with her help we decided to use Vina’s phone set on the max volume which made it so the audio was loud and clear, sounding like an actual TV. Another change was that the lighting was bright as this time, the weather was sunny. The last time we recorded this scene, the sun was hidden behind clouds so it was dark, causing the lighting to be different, disrupting the continuity of the scene, something we had predicted in the location scout and risk assessment. .

Ignore the weird positioning but I looked through Jocelyn’s camera to pick the most suitable picture to use for the thumbnail after taking the pictures earlier in school. I discussed it with Jocelyn and we decided to use the picture where there was only Christopher (Devasya) surrounded by a lot of classmates instead of Harper being on the thumbnail because that would just spoil the plot twist.

Reflection

Throughout the entire thing, I had helped take pictures of some of the behind the scene pictures while in others, we had to make Devasya take the pictures for us. A problem we encountered was forgetting to take behind the scene pictures at some filming dates or only taking very few pictures, which lead to us only having very limited options for pictures to choose from which may not look the best, as seen from the picture of Jasmine looking through Jocelyn's camera. Next time, we should definitely set up reminders to take behind the scene pictures.