Day 2 of Shooting
Now all that was left was to shoot the final scene where Musfirah wakes up and is snapped out of la la land into her reality. The shots were pre-planned however I had to figure out our lighting setup on spot.
I wanted to clearly contrast the two sequences of our film opening through visuals and thus the lighting of both is rather juxtaposed in various aspects such as temperature, colour and contrast in sources with the former sequence's visuals featuring warm, natural and bright light to emphasise upon the dream aspect of the plot and the latter sequence featuring a mix of cool and warm tones through being lit artificially with LED light strips, a Hello Kitty lamp, sunset lamps and a heater (I'll explain this in a second).
The mix of cool and warm tones served as a symbolic bridge between her dream and reality. Warm tones usually imply comfort and a sense of security as her dream did to her. I initially planned to use the Hello Kitty lamp on my side table for these tones however it was not bright enough to light Musfirah's face well enough so I used motivated lighting by putting an electric heater in front of the lamp which reflected light on Musfirah to make her visible and add to the visuals of the shots.
The cool tones here imply the presence of her reality and how it stands between her and her dreams of being an actress. These cool tones within the lighting mix are created through the LED light strips and sunset lamp being set to purple which also connote the time period as being between 2020-2024. This is implied to the audience as such lighting set ups are used by Gen Z in their rooms usually being inspired by 2020's TikTok trends.
Set design was rather simple as the room already had rather Gen Z looking furniture and decor such as the polaroid wall above the bed and the cartoon lamp upon the nightstand. However to add depth to the set I put some books, airpods, nail polishes, a coffee mug, candle and basketball-shaped purse on the nightstand. This served to give the set some character which reflected our protagonist's actual personality to the audience which now has material to make guesses upon her personality such as her perhaps being a multifaceted person who enjoys a mix of practical (coffee mug) and leisure activities (books, airpods). She may keep their space organized and might be a night owl. The specifics of the items (book genre, music taste, polish colors) offer clues to her interests - creative, sporty, enjoys learning, etc. Thus the nightstand serves as a tool to foreshadow the protagonist's character and the rest of the film which will follow after the opening.
After setting everything up, it was time to grab my camera and shoot. I wanted multiple angles of the same final shot as to mimic a multi-cam set up (which we did not have). So I had Musfirah re-do the scene multiple times and each time I shot from a different angle according to the shotlist as to get a good mixture of overhead, wide, close-up and insert shots so that the scene is visually compelling for the audience. Here production ended and we moved on to post-production. Here is a time lapse of us shooting.
