Now "Panel" take two

So we asked Caleb and Fox from the panel of guys to come back and do another shoot with us. Zoë's friend Katie Mac joined this time, the first real girl's perspective we've gotten on this film - besides our vox pops which we need to sort out...
We filmed at Dig and Dive, a bar in Wilmington - initially to be outside but it was absolutely freezing, we did not want to subject our subjects to that.
The shoot went beautifully. Seriously. It was awesome.
We had two cameras fulling functioning, with white balanced, like it looked awesome.
Okay, actually I forgot that sound gave us immense trouble, and it took about an hour and a half to sort out - the loss of the boom mic and one lav as a result. But we miked up Katie and then taped the other working lav to the table in between where Fox and Caleb sat. Their voices were obviously lower then Katie's but still carried rather well. The other part of the sound situation was that I had to actually sit underneath the booth for the length of the shoot (45 mins...) to be able to adjust the levels and use the H6N to record sound as well, as back up. But despite that, the conversation was perfect, humor still intact, questions and responses flowing freely, I don't think Zoë had to interject more than 3 times in 45 minutes. Our 3 subjects played Mars's cards game, and Michelle got beautiful B-roll of the cards and our players' hands. I'm actually geeking out cuz I'm going to have so much good looking footage to use for the first time in this whole filming process. I also, think this footage will serve as our connector between Mars and the first panel because we bring two of the guys back, and we have the card game this time, so it's pulling elements of both segments. It could work out okay I think!

Not much to talk about...

So after our last shoot with Mars I'd say we're a little dejected. All our plans keep falling through, we wanted to set up a tinder date between one of our panel members and a girl he matched with on tinder, but unfortunately I left halfway through the weekend and did not return until later on monday and he wasn't feeling comfortable to do the date without me being there (since he's my friend) and then everyone's school schedules then got in the way during the week so that's where we ended up... no tinder date, no new footage. I did start doing some serious editing though. I cut the panel how I felt was amusing - being that the guys were each pretty humorous. I used title cards to organize the responses, and also be able to cut out a lot of the rambling. But it is very rough to say the least. Some severe color correction needs to happen, and possibly some smoother transitions between the thousand jump cuts I have - but that's not crucial cuz I feel like the jump cuts are an ode to reflexivity which is kind of what the panel is anyway. Zoë and I both think this topic of film deserves a reflexive approach, especially given that all our subjects thus far are commenting on this topic rather than portraying it (aka the date we did not get). But after having edited Mars's interview in its rough state, and now the panel, I'm not quite sure how to connect them just yet. Like I said, our plans for new shoots keep falling through, so there goes this week's hope for cohesive footage. We're not giving up on that date though, I think that might be our saving grace.

Mars Take 2

So we scheduled a second "interview" with Mars over the weekend of Cucalorus. He was going to be back in town, so we wanted to get some footage of him out and about, socializing, and hopefully trying to pick up women ha. We filmed at Bombers downtown - which turned out to be a really bad idea. The space was great, the owners as well, but the lighting was way way too dark, and the music too loud despite not really being loud at all. Mars had brought a lady friend with him - he had actually found her on Tinder and she is one of the profiles in his card game. She was super chill and down to earth. Their conversation was great, he kind of repeated himself a bit - from what he had spoken about the first time we met with him, and she had great remarks to his stuff. Unfortunately, and this part really sucks, but we are probably not going to be able to use any of this footage, because it is too dark and you can barely see anything. The two subjects sat at a table and played Mars's card game (which he let us keep so that was probably the most successful part of this shoot), but in the footage, you could not even see the cards so we had to make the decision to scrap it.
This project has not ceased its mission to test our sanity - I know everyone deals with issues on set, but we have yet to complete a shoot without a major hiccup, so I'm not really sure what the universe is trying to tell us with that. So without this second shoot with Mars, we only have two main segments, the panel of guys - which in my last post I said was very questionable...and then we have Mars's first interview. We shall see why we can accomplish next.

Panel of Guys

This shoot took place in my house in Carlton, with four friends of mine - we had some last minute cancellations from guys on Tinder that we were originally suppose to use.
Set up for this shoot definitely took a toll on us, we could not for the life of us color balance the shot. My light cream walls looked vibrantly yellow - this will have to be something we fix in post.

Sound turned out pretty good despite our complications with the lavs. Originally each panelist was to wear a mic, but for some reason we could not get the receiver to match with the transmitter so we had to go with the camera and boom mic, which sounded pretty clear through the H6n (I was in charge of sound). One of the panelists however, had a very loud laugh that kept peaking, so I continuously adjusted the levels on the H6n which hopefully will not come back to haunt me.

The panelists themselves were great. They carried on conversation effortlessly, Zoë only occasionally had to ask a question to steer them back on course a bit. Each panelist had a unique personality, which became very evident on camera. Caleb lead most of the conversation, being the only member still using tinder, and he was perhaps the boldest source of humor. Fox was the older panelist who knew nothing of tinder so his questions about the app were answered by Caleb. Peter was the wise one on set, applying the psychology behind tinder, and Zach was the innocent one who offered his very sincere thoughts about tinder, a gentler type of humor.

Once every was finally set up, the shoot only lasted about 30 mins. It was pretty efficient. All hands on set were very helpful - Zoë and myself obviously, but Michelle our dp as well and Symone who assists with sound. We're hoping this panel will serve as a strong male perspective of tinder, one that will coincide with Mar's interview - being that he is also a male. We're thinking this is a unique approach being that we are an all female crew.