The Curtain = Filming ...and the Curtain is on Fire

     Unfortunately, filming hasn't been going how I wanted it to be going. I had planned to have most of my footage done by this time, but due to scheduling conflicts and life circumstances it has been difficult to do so. It's even more difficult that the film requires daylight to be coming through the window as it takes place in the morning because by the time I was home most days after school and other events and activities, I only had about an hour of sunlight. Luckily, the universe seems to be on my side and is giving me a helpful hand to allow me to complete my filming, and that is that the clocks are changing an hour ahead due to Daylight Savings. Hopefully, I'll be able to complete all my filming and get back on track with my schedule soon.

    Having unforeseen extra time before the start of filming, luckily, gave me some more time to perfect the props and work on the audios for the film. First, I found the perfect photograph of a young boy's soccer team (belonging to my family) that will help build the context of Alejandro's skills with soccer. I think it's important to show various aspects of the character's life and personality, like the soccer team photo and the Star Wars figurine, to increase Alejandro's relatability. Relatability is important to a coming-of-age film, and I also wanted to emphasize how Alejandro is a well-rounded category who had life going extremely well for him. This is what makes his mother's death that much harder on him because he is broken out of his "perfect" life and can't find the way back. I have also decided to definitely add some piles of clothes over the hamper to create the sense of disorder, symbolizing how Alejandro now feels about his life. I also found this old cube that belonged to my older brother which contains baby photos of him with my mother and my father. I thought a cool shot could be to show the cube at an angle where both photos can be seen, acting as another symbol of how his youth represented the perfect days of his life and how that has now been lost.

                                 

    On a good note, I was also able to record two versions of the mother's voicemail. First, I talked to the actress on how I want the tone and words to sound. Luckily the actress is my own mother and I asked for her to embody a motherly nature as if she were actually leaving a voicemail to one of her kids. After practicing a few times and going over the script, we tried a few different recordings of the scene. As only her voice is required, she was able to read from the script directly, which helped with her lack of memorization. At the start, we had only been recording the audio as a normal video to get used to it. Then we moved on to actually leaving a voicemail on a phone to be able to get the exact distortion and sound that comes from a phone call. I was sure to get a satisfactory audio from each method of recording because I'm unsure if the sound will be clear in the final product of the film.