I haven't got much filming experience, but today's is by far the worst one I have ever had.
I always have the assumption that filming a documentary is easy - just bring a light camera to site and film whatever I can get. However, it is so much more than that.
Today I finally learned the risk and real challenges involved in making a documentary, especially when we were filming outdoor (or very far away from where we got the equipments) and when we have to rely on public transport. Cab has been our great mate today.
Weather was not the same though, even my back-up plan did not helped. When I checked the weather report this morning, I realized that shooting outdoor is definitely not going to work. Thus I immediately went down to my apartment (Concept Blue)'s front desk to book the meeting room. After hiring the equipments and moving all of them to my place, the building manager told me that it is impossible for us to film in anywhere of the building. I was quite irritated then because my friend filmed in the same apartment last semester. Plus, our interviewee Caroline said that she is driving a truck, which is 2.5 meters in height but my apartment's height clearance is only 2.1m. But there was nothing we can do.
So we had to go back to our original plan, which is to shoot at Royal Botanic Garden. Esther has acquired a permit for us to shoot at the Central Lawn of the garden but the problem is, we have to carry everything to the location. We planned to take tram initially, without knowing that the equipments are extremely heavy to be carried on hand, hence we hired a cab to get to the location.
When we arrived at the Royal Botanic Garden, it was still drizzling. We headed into a rest house and set up our equipments there. While we were setting up and waiting for Caroline to be there, I realized that we forgot the tapes and the mixer. It was so distressing I felt like canceling the shooting session. There were not much time so Esther and Leo had to go back by cab to take the stuffs. As waiting for them to return, Caroline called and she could not find the right entrance to the car park. The phone line was pretty disturbed which contributed to bad communication. I had troubles hearing her words. She then sounded extremely aggravated and was practically screaming into the phone.
I apologized and things resolved when she finally found the gate. At that point, Esther and Leo returned. So with fear, Leo and I went to meet her at the car park. She turned out to be a nice lady. We then led her and her dogs to our shooting location. We almost got lost (the park is very confusing and our map was all wet) but she was quite patient with it.
Apart from us, there were a bunch of school kids in the garden. Unfortunately, Caroline's dogs cannot tolerate kids. Caroline almost got into an argument with a school teacher because one of the kids provoked her dog. She then shouted something like "You better behave or I'll let her off!". The school teacher was very protective and fought back saying she will report her. The quarrel created a rather stiff atmosphere but we managed to continue with our shoot accordingly.
Weather was not as pleasant throughout the shooting process. That resulted the shoot to be done in the rest house. It was totally out of plan and I just learned how changeable a documentary can be.
Even so, it is still important to do research and know answers to the question you ask. For example, if we don't know that animal communication is about telepathic, we would not prepared what we need to ask for more details on that topic.
Even though today's shoot is said to be the most challenging and wearing filming experience, but it is undoubtedly a meaningful, memorable and enlightening one.
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