Where Currents Meet THE SHOOT
The much-awaited Where Currents Meet shoot was upon us and even though I had a week and a half between shoots it barely felt like enough time to gather myself, my thoughts and everything I knew I needed to bring together what Bethany wanted in the film. I was much more nervous going into this project because I feel less confident in camera than I feel in sound. I don't know what it is but my imposter syndrome strikes me with this every time. I think part of it could be the organisation aspect and getting to a point where I can see a shot in my head can take a lot of time to immerse myself into.
The shoot started off at Craiglockhart kit stores as usual where I went through equipment and organised it by department. Sadly I only skimmed it and there were some major issues I missed, this was in part due to being in a bit of a rush as I hoped to stick to the planned schedule of the day. Alex arrived after a previous engagement and helped me load up the car. I was very impressed by how he packed the car. Usually, I like to do this by myself but this time it was a pleasure having someone else who appreciated packing a car nicely too. We headed off and made our way to Broughty Ferry.
The next couple of days of shooting had to shift around quite a bit due to the weather. We were so dependent on ensuring that our ocean shoot day would be in the best possible conditions.
On the first day it was pouring so we filmed the bedroom scene (scene 7), which was our only indoor scene. This was quite the disaster because all of the dedolights were broken with frayed snapped cables. This was something I had missed in my quick scan of the equipment so instead of a three-point lighting set-up with a bounce fill, I had to use just two lights to do it, one of which was Tom's mini LED. At the time I was convinced we needed to reshoot it up until the last day, when I realised I had to let it go because it would not have been a logical thing to do. I was really happy because we redid the overhead shot that we had done in the test shoot and this time it made the cut.
That evening Tim and I, my 1st AC for a big part of the shoot fashioned a waterproof camera housing for the camera. It was more of a splash-proof housing but it ensured that I could keep the camera completely dry throughout the shoot. Only on the last day I filmed without it and this was a clear day on the beach where we only shot scenes outside of the water. Sadly I don't have any photos of us constructing the housing but this can be seen in detail in the photos above where I write about the fourth day.
On the second day first, we shot the scene in the woods (scene 5) where Iris trips. This went pretty smoothly and just about how we wanted it. The only thing was that it was raining so the camera housing stayed on. This meant the camera was safe and we could shoot regardless, but the reflections of the Polly Bag were difficult to see through at first. Later on that day, we filmed the bus stop scene (scene 3) and the pavement scene (scene 4). Both had different factors that were issues for us. For the bus stop scene, we had to make sure no one else was at the bus stop so we would have to wait and shoot around the bus schedule and the timings of people waiting at the bus stop. This worked out in the end. For the pavement scene, our main issue was continuity and lighting, the sun kept changing whether it was out or not. When it was out I embraced the flares as I knew Bethany would like and this ended up making it into the final edit. I was a little worried about continuity here but there was nothing we could do as the sun was going down quickly.
The third day was the big day. Here we shot our water scenes. For the first half of the day, we shot the opening scene (scene 1) where Iris is on her board in the water and Kallie is on the shore. This was really hard to shoot because we were running against the time of the tides, even though I believe this had been factored into our schedule we had to move set after every shot and it just wasn't attainable. We tried our best but Iris ended up being even more in the shallows than we had planned, which was good for camera and sound would not have made it further into the water. We tried to make this work for us as best we could and I don't think it is clear in the final film just how shallow we were. For the second half of the day, we had the second half of the final scene (scene 8) which is where Kallie and Iris are in the water. We had to shoot this very quickly because one of our actresses was very cold and was clearly reaching her limit but not admitting to it so we decided to call it a day even though we had a whole other scene in the water that we were going to shoot. Sadly the final scene that we did shoot did not make it into the final edit because the others felt the actress looked too cold in that shot to the extent that it took away from the scene.
On the fourth day, we shot our scene at the river and then at the bridge (parts one and two of scene 6). The river scene went pretty well, although, after three days of handheld, I was beginning to feel it so I struggled a bit with this scene as there was a segment where the actresses sit down and I tried to track this movement down. Otherwise, this scene went smoothly. We then shot the bridge scene which again went relatively smoothly even though it had a pretty complex choreography. When we were making the storyboard, Bethany and I had planned this through precisely so we knew what we were doing and Bethany knew exactly what she wanted. This went well and we managed to finish early that day.
On the final day, I removed the plastic protection, it was a bit frazzled and the forecast was no rain and little wind so the equipment was safe that day of course we were extra careful and I still had my protective lens filter on the lenses. That day we shot scene 2 which we had had to rewrite over the previous two days because we did not want to put that one actress in the water again. Instead, we made it look as if she was coming out of the water so we would spray her between takes. Again she got quite cold so we did not go on for very long, but we got everything we needed. I was happy with my shots here. Then we moved onto the first half of the final scene (scene 8) and I think I got my favourite shots of the whole film here. We had to filter the sunlight on their faces but I feel this worked really well in the end.
I have to say my camera team was super helpful and without them I would not have managed to do it. Tim was very meticulous and this was really helpful at times to get things correct. Tom was also really helpful, especially with his LED that saved the bedroom scene's indoor lighting set-up. Cal was my star and my rock in the camera department, he made me feel at ease and calmed me down with his presence when I was stressed. He was always helpful and had something positive to say, I'm so glad to have had this experience with him as we never worked together until now.
Here are some photos from when we wrapped:
Overall I felt the shoot went well and we got some good material. It was a big learning curve for me because I did not find it easy navigating some things amongst some additional crew and others, but I have learned to be more resilient and firm when it needs to happen for the benefit of my group members as well as myself. I'm also proud because I remember this time around in my third year I was considering repeating a year and feeling like I would never DOP again, and this year I have done it on a grad film that I feel suits me very well.
