Shooting process!

Hi there! In this blog post I’ll share my shooting process for my project, how we set up the setting and props, and also some behind the scenes videos. 

First, me and my parents set up the home lab at my kitchen countertop with the lab equipments that we bought on Amazon. We filled each beaker and lab tub with water, since we would add food coloring inside them. Here are some pictures of my dad organizing and filling them up: 

We started filming the lab scenes that will appear in the middle of my opening first because we thought these were the easiest and most fun scenes to film. One thing that we had to think about when filming these lab scenes was the lightning. I wanted a more yellowish color tone to make the environment more comfortable, since the scientist was working at his personal home lab. So, we decided to close all curtains and turn all house lights off and only leave the yellow floor lamp at the living room on. Honestly, it was really easy to film these scenes because it didn’t require any acting, since I mainly used close-up shots of my dad’s hand doing the experiments, and it was really fun to record also. Here is a short video that my mom recorded of me during the process of filming one lab scenes: 

After that, we filmed the scene that comes right after the opening scene (which is my dad just entering the house). This is one of the first scenes of the film and it shows my dad sitting at his chair and opening the FBI folder. I couldn’t film the scene with the FBI folder yet because the prop that I ordered will only arrive next week. So instead, I decided to film the scene of the extreme close-up shot of  my dad’s eyes, showing him reading the files and crime reports. Here is a BTS video that my mom recorded of me filming this scene: 

And finally, we filmed the last scene of my opening. It was a medium shot of my dad receiving a phone call of an unknown number to tell them that he found the evidence needed about the suspect through his DNA tests. I used my dad’s old phone to call his original phone because I was using my phone to record the scene, and my mom used hers to film the behind the scenes video. Since I was the one recording, my mom was the one in charge to call my dad’s phone. Here is the BTS video that she did:

I finished recording the majority of the scenes over two days, I’m just missing 2 short scenes that I’ll record next week because I couldn’t do it this week. The first one is the quick flashback scene of the crime and the other is the scene showing the FBI folder with the crime report because I ordered the folder online and it only arrives next week. Other than that, I finished all major scenes and will start editing shortly!

Overall, it was really fun to shoot these scenes because my parents worked really well and they helped me a lot. Also, I could really feel like I was a real life director, so it was really nice to create something like that!