15th Feb 2020 ( Re-shoot of the Actress)

×  According to Maria and leena it was a beautiful day, I wasn’t available on this weekend as i had another Project to be a part of which was my friends Travel and tourism final on which she will be graded on. I had already told my team 2 weeks ago in the end of January but they didn’t cooperate and told me they were running out of time and couldn’t wait for two more days. They only needed my equipment anyways as leena as the videographer but after the incident with the lens on Production day 2 my dad didn’t allow me to give the camera nor the lens if im not going to be there, i was pretty sorry but i think its how anyone would do being in a situation like mine.

Anyhow i did deliver my gorilla pod along with the lens and reflector i had borrowed from school at 11pm at night. So Maria and leena called one of our mutual friends to borrow a camera Canon 70D. I also texted the sister of the one who gave her camera to give extra supplies like batteries and lens and also the actress of our shoot ( shes a friend of mine) to take extra equipment with her on the shoot. I wished her luck and texted Our media sir being sorry for the inconvenience caused by me.

×  Hearing from my team, the shoot was great i was watching the stories and updates everyone was posting on the social media while i was on my way to another city. My team had utilized the location and had already set up the decor as was done before. They waited for our sir this time so he could give proper guidance on recording, handling the camera and how to cooperate with each other. I wished i could have been there so i would have learnt something new.

×  With the help of our Sir they completed the scenes marvelously, i was super proud of the outcome. I love Maria’s sense of aesthetics as she captures appealing photographs with her phone she really does work her way best with iphone. Where as Leena is actually really careful about rules and angles she keeps perfection her first priority which i admire about her.

(the videos that i shared are from maria’s youtube)

×  Moving on they didnt needed my art directions as last time they pretty much did everything on their own. This time finally everything was shot according to the shotlist and as per sir salmans instructions. Our actress did get lousy by the end of the shoot as she was extremely tired.  They had a 30min break in which they ate food and rested.

× Coming to the end they did tweak a little with the shot list with a certain key scene where we had first thought to put a key under a book but sir and my team felt it would look better if it was hanging on the wall.

as i mentioned of maria’s amazing photography by phone here are a few pictures maria captured during the day.

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Critique:

As i wasn’t really there i dont have first hand experience neither can i fully criticize. But hearing through my team, Its actually a blessing having given some guidance by someone who is a professional and has experience of working with beginners. Also that everyone on set should be coordinated and should communicate so they have a better understanding. Getting agitated and being bossy/ mean to fellow partners would only cause the whole team disturbance.

12th Feb 2020 ( Shoot of the Actress)

◊  It was another shoot day, thankfully we all had discussed props and gathered our items a night before. A major update was that we had to change and finalize our roles again, this time i was the art director and i also had to help my team with the equipment as they weren’t familiar with my camera and the gears.  I was getting ready at home while maria and leena where at our own school they also had to pick the actress up after her classes. We thought to shoot at maria’s house as she had a servant quarter but leena did a quick survey and didn’t really feel like it would suit our video so She consulted her mom to get permission from Naqsh again. Our actress changed her clothes at maria’s before leaving

 

◊ After reaching Naqsh around 12 pm with the team members we took some photographs for BTS. As we were about to set our location the principal totally bailed on us and refused to let us shoot in the school, moreover she started mocking us and wanted us out of the school, we did panic as we had no grownup with us, Leena called her mom and asked her to reach Naqsh, Leena’s mom being very thoughtful she understood and got a written permission letter signed by the owners of the School made while maria asked the assistant of the principal to get us a room which looked vintage. With our luck there was a house right beside the school which was actually used for shooting in lahore, the owners of the house were so kind they allowed us to shoot easily.

◊ The room we chose was quite dark and smelly we opened all windows to let in light and get rid of the smell, Good thing this time we had my ring light for extra light, we all made the room look neater i got rid of the sofas that were coming in the way leena got rid of other items that weren’t needed. I took out my equipment and changed its settings took out both tripod and gorilla pod. Changed the lens of the camera and gave the camera to leena after teaching her how the buttons on the camera works.

◊  This time we actually followed the shot list, i took pictures of my team working with a cool filter that i found on snapchat it made them look like a VHS recorded clip. I actually found being the Art director much comfortable as i could point out what could be added to bring out the best of the production. Moreover Leena was actually better at recording a clip as she makes sure a scene is shot with perfection but it was also a major downside as she wouldn’t let go of a scene until shes satisfied it took us a lot of time to shoot this time too. Further into the shoot Me and maria has a disagreement on whether the Actress should wear a shawl or dubatta (veil), from my point of view we were showing a little less modern time than now where females used to cover herself with a shawl on her body and and a dubatta (veil) on her head.  The shawl was supposed to be regular old shawl not a fancy one that we had planned for the end. Maria wasnt getting my view and thought we would ruin the meaning of the fancy shawl that was supposed to be used later. Anyhow we sorted out by calling our sir on the phone he asked us to do what seems better.  Overall our shoot was better than before.

◊   The mirror scene was the most hectic as it was the last scene for today it was almost 5pm we wanted to shoot the sunset scene but we were too tired and the camera’s battery was almost dead ( we didn’t have a spare battery pack). I was supposed to carry the light everywhere as well as the equipment. Whatever i wanted to do Maria and leena used to handle it themselves again taking my role away. We all were the Art Directors basically as we all agreed to the decorations done by all of us.

while shooting the scenes the battery died, we had no choice other than to packup, maria got permission from the owner to shoot again next time after we consult our videos with Sir. We left the School at 6pm.

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Critique:

This shoot was way better than the last one, we followed the shotlist we discussed what looks best, what i didnt like was Maria and leena being incharge of what i was supposed to do regarding the fact they had their own jobs assigned. Also again this time we still didnt have enough equipment neither helpers/friends who would help us set up lights and reflectors.  There was a mishap with one of the lenses where maria accidentally knocked down a camera lens and it hit my foot and rolled on the floor, luckily it didnt break.

Here is another video i compiled and uploaded through youtube.

9th Feb, 2020. (shooting of the Male Actor)

⇒  We all had decided a night before to assemble at Maria’s House, I came at 8am sharp as we had planned to leave early in the morning but unfortunately leena came around 9:40 giving us the news that the place where we had to go,” Naqsh School of Arts” opens around 11am.  We picked our male actor on the way, took some behind the scenes pictures from our phones and for our Social media. In our way we stopped at McDonalds for breakfast for some yummy wraps and continued our journey.

⇒  So we reached at naqsh around 12 with some major traffic and also since we were locating the place through GPS. I took out all the Equipment from the car and we all carried different items as everything altogether was too heavy. At first we took a mini tour of the place to select the perfect setting and light for the Shoot, we also had a conversation with the teachers of the school regarding what they teach.

⇒As it was our first time shooting for our final project we all were tensed we all wanted it to be perfect as we had planned it to be. After finalizing the area where we were going to shoot I took out all the gear attached lens changed the settings of the camera according to our needs, maria then did some test shots where she checked the frame while leena was helping Noor (our Actor) to memorize the lyrics. The camera was finally ready we gave noor instructions on how to move and pose as leena played the song on her phone which was connected to my Bluetooth Earbuds (one given to noor and the other to leena) as we weren’t allowed to play loud music.   After shooting each video clip, *which wasnt done by only me but both my team members* as each of us wasn’t organised to do what we were appointed to do so we watched it, re-shooted if needed and then finalized what we thought looked acceptable on the camera screen.

⇒  The reflector helped us a lot creating smooth tones at first then i later changed its cover to gold for some warm tones. We didn’t really have a ring light at this shoot since i had ordered it online and it wasn’t delivered yet. Furthermore coming towards the shoot, we tried to shoot according to the shot-list for a while as we all switched our roles whenever other felt the video wasn’t perfect. Maria and leena thought to shoot whatever that looks better in the frame at the moment, going against what our sir had explained.  This is the major reason why it took us hours to complete one scene and caused us great exhaustion.

⇒With the passage of time and fatigue from shooting all day we finally came to our last scene with the actor which was pretty fun. We had to spread rose petals light up mini teacup candles and the dias ( pots that burn on cotton and oil)  provided by the school. We all decorated the floor discussed what we needed and shot the scenes which too was done by all three of us separately. We all gave our 100% on our first attempt to shoot our final project.

On Monday’s class we sat down and showed RAW clips on the laptop we could actually see all our mistakes like jerking movements, bad framing, clips not matching the soundtracks and actors lip-sync wasn’t matched at all.

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Critique:  Starting with the equipment we lacked basic items like backup camera a few lights, a good camera support gear like a gimbal or slider. Only i had provided my team with equipment as i had bought everything during A1 project. Furthermore we were too disorganized to realize we were wasting time during changing our roles and not following the shot list. I kept telling my team that we were supposed to shoot according to the shot list but i guess as we only had one day during sunlight they thought to shoot as many extra scenes as possible.

             Here is a Video i put together of different BTS clips and uploaded through youtube.