The Shoot - Day 3

Today was due to be the last day of shooting but Sai, the actress playing Anita, is unfortunately unwell so we had to omit her scenes from the shooting schedule which will need to be rescheduled for a later date.

We were shooting in Aisling’s family home, which acted as the Mittel household. With Sai’s scenes postponed the scenes we filmed today were - Paul’s arrival at the house to pick up Anita’s remaining things; the awkward moment in the kitchen when Manoj makes tea for him; Paul making his decision to go and speak his mind to Manoj; and the scene in Anita’s empty bedroom where both men meet before coming to an understanding.

We shot the bedroom scene first which from a cinematography perspective, I found to be both a satisfying and rewarding experience. For the shots in which Paul and Manoj acknowledge each other’s presence we utilized a full-length mirror. We filmed full and mid shots of each actor’s reflection in the mirror as well as corresponding direct shots of them. This way we can alternate each shot to best effect in the edit. Creatively I thought the result worked really well and I am generally interested in the inventive use of mirror reflections in shots because it can create a whole new visual perspective in terms of depth of field and the use of hard/soft focus. We also filmed my wind chime passing trick shot, which seemed to work fine.  All will now depend on how well it connects with the impending corresponding shot.

The remaining shots in the kitchen went well and were relatively straight forward to film. I arranged for the primary establishment shot of both Paul and Manoj at the kitchen table to be shot from a good distance back by placing the camera in the adjacent dining room and shooting through the adjoining doors. I based this decision on how they shot the family dinner scenes in the film American Beauty (1999). In that film the effect is that the audience feels almost voyeuristic watching a dysfunctional family unit from a certain vantage point and I thought that effect would work well in enhancing both men’s discomfort in each other’s presence.

The last shots of the day covered Paul sitting at the table drinking tea before deciding to man up to Manoj. We got a lot of coverage of this scene because it’s all action and no dialogue and we’ll want a few different options to make it work well. All in all a good day’s shooting.