We had a rocky start with our extras. I had told everyone to be there at 8am. There were supposed to be 12 or 13 there (I can’t remember which). By 8am, there was 1. EEK!
There were numerous customers already in the place, so I had a quick flashback of Detroit and ran off with release forms. After getting everyone in the room to sign one, I had Allen go start filming people drinking, reading, checking e-mail, etc.
Afterward, we set up some lighting, but we were forced by the owner to put a softbox on it, as she complained it was too a)bright, b) hot. *shrugs* once we adjusted the f-stop it actually looked better with the softer light anyway, so it worked out well.
It just so happened that a couple of the customers were actually people who came to be extras in my movie. I’m not sure why the video camera wasn’t a clue that they should come speak to either me or Allen to let us know… but I didn’t find out they were with us until I asked them to sign the release form.
Along with geting permission to film customers, some of them gave me business cards too. Includding a multi-media company, a resale shop (the woman who gave me the card is the owner and offered to let me film in the shop sometime), and a home construction company (who the owner mentioned he might be able to build me a small set/flat sometime!)
The extra who had a speaking part FINALLY showed up at like 8:40. *frowns* No excuse. Just “sorry I’m late”.
We ran lines (lead and the two small bit parts). The guy who had been late seemed VERY nervous giving his lines… and all he had to do was order food! On a whim, I had one of the other extras read the part (the one who got there EARLY). He was great. Very natural sounding. So, I transferred the part from one extra to the other.
We went over the simple blocking and got to shooting at about 9:15. All the angles took between 5 and 8 takes to get right. Except for two… each of those only needed two takes. I was happy.
Even WITH having to stop every now and then so that a new customer could get served, we wrapped on the filming day at 5 to 11! Rock on!
Bought everyone food, and we all went home.
There were a couple of small snags… a few small clashes of ideas (which me and my lead talked about because it DID get slightly out of hand when even the Boom Operator and one of the extras threw in their 2 cents each.)
All-in-all, with the exception of once again having a lack of planned extras, we mannaged to avoid murphy’s law (and I really hope I didn’t just jinx myself by saying that!).
Tomorrow we have day 3. It’s a short scene tomorrow… very easy blocking and framing. Only problem is the lighting. The scene tomorrow is at night… in a darkened restraunt… with what’s supposed to be moonlight streaming through the window. It’ll be tough, but I think we can figure it out!