Adapting on Set

Expect the Unexpected

On our second day of filming, I had a discussion with my group on how we have to work efficiently since a majority of the production should be nearly completed by the end of the day. But, the weather again had other plans! When we headed out to our location, it was nothing like how it was the first day. The sky was dark and cloudy, and rain began to drizzle as filming went on.

I decided that we should push through and continue filming, but apply the same principle used on the first day of filming; take advantage of the weather to film shots that relate to the atmosphere. The focus here became the losing scenes, where our 'chess expert' suddenly faces a turning point in the game, so, grey and gloomy weather fit perfectly. My film crew's sound designer and I worked closely on developing shots in the shot list that could work with the murky weather, adding ones we felt would act as smooth transitions between the storyline's progression. Having to adapt to unexpected circumstances outside, I learned the significance of reviewing film progress before and during production days as the director. Knowing what we have accumulated was important for me to suggest the direction for what scene should be filmed next or exactly how the shots should be done to reduce inconsistency between the filming from each shooting day.

Utilizing Filming Tools

Initially, we planned on filming the chessboard pieces being moved by the actors in close-ups parallel to the board, but to increase the dramatic effect the close-ups have, we decided to angle them slightly towards the player whose turn it is and blur the background around the chess pieces. This isolates the movement and clarifies who out of the two players is having their turn. Using Adobe Premiere Rush allowed us to control the intensity of the blur and shortening the legs of the tripod created a leveled and stable closeness to the chessboard to get amazing shots.

The tilted close-up of the chess pieces as our actor begins to make his move.

Full view of the tripod's position used to achieve chess board shots.

Moreover, we agreed to add various angles to the chessboard gameplay, including aerial shots to add points of interest. It took us some time to learn how the tripod should be positioned on the table without being seen. Our instructor suggested that we change the height of the legs, extending the back one out to support short legs in the front to avoid tripod visibility in the shot. After this explanation, we realized how we overthink too much! It was a simple solution that gave us really nice shots in which we lined the board up with the rule of thirds. Being director has 

The wrapping up of our chessboard aerial shots of gameplay.