“GIT OUT”

Now that I am done filming, I can safely say…that’s a wrap. This time shooting went by pretty smoothly. The only sorta hiccup is that it just took way longer than I thought it would, but everyone pushed through so that we can wrap up filming since Saturday night was the only time everyone could.

We started off with the gas station scene with the homeless man. Before that, I called the gas station that I had in mind just to make sure that everything was good to go. I really should have called sooner but I didn’t think it was a big deal since I was just filming outside and not inside the actual gas station, so I called the day of, and when I explained the situation and said I was a high schooler doing a project blah blah blah, they just hung up on me. I sorta freaked out but I know that my friend Santi, who is currently doing AS level, filmed at another gas station near me, so I called them hoping they’d let me film too. He also just filmed outside, so I assumed it would be fine, and thankfully they said it would be fine. 

Anyway, we got to the new location and began filming chronologically. First with the boys finding out the gas station is closed and then heading on to the back. Filming the first part was a little annoying since they’re were usually people coming in or out or there were loud ass cars in the back or trucks going in reverse, etc etc. But once we got that done, we moved to the back to one of my favorite scenes.

I honestly am really grateful that the other gas station hung up on me, because this one was actually perfect. On the side of the building where the homeless man would be was a grass path and a single, ominous light shining down on the perfect spot for the homeless man to be sleeping. My friends and I immediately reworked the scene to fit this and made the homeless man be sleeping and suddenly awake as the boys passed by him. 

This was so much fun to film. Like I thought, my brother was perfect for the role, I think he killed it. And the boys had pure fear in their eyes throughout, it was so amazing. My favorite part is probably the shots of the boys running back into the car, cause the way Andre starts freaking out is so so perfect and so funny to me, and then my brother Derek banging on the windows is just a great touch throughout the scene. 

When we filmed the other scene, it was just in the car for the most part, with Bryan tweaking out and concluding that he’d go poop in the woods, and then finally him coming back from the cult member. These weren’t hard scenes to film, they just took time to film cause I had to light each person for their scenes, and then have some shots outside the car, come back, light the scene again and so on and so forth. We were also all just tired because we had just filmed the homeless scene beforehand and it was getting very late. But we did eventually finish.

Filming this piece has been so much fun, not just because the script is ridiculous and I’ve been getting to film with my friends, but because I’ve been successfully, with some bumps here and there, able to make my script and idea come to life. It’s been a great time and I’m excited to put everything together and edit. I’ve been roughly editing the scenes I’ve filmed, the cult and first scene, but I haven’t touched sound design or really refined the cuts. So I will be getting to that.