Today was our scheduled day for filming our documentary. Everything we did today was according to our pre-production planning last lesson. Yesterday we also did a final online conversation to make sure everything was prepared in relation to filming. We made sure that the questions were translated from English to Chinese for a smoother interview. We confirmed our meeting place, the locations we would film, and how much time we would spend there (including lunch). Therefore, we would immediately know what to do tomorrow without wasting anytime to stop and think. One main problem we had was that we weren’t able to borrow a microphone because of some issue. We were very worried since the whole topic was about Sound Design. However, my camera seemed to pick up a lot of clear quality sounds when I tested it the night before. Although we weren’t able to borrow a microphone, this didn’t stop us from filming the next day.
We met at the Shau-Kei Wan MTR station at 9:30 as planned. Once everyone was there, we headed to the first location on our plan, which was the market. Fortunately Kazia was able to bring her father to help us get more interviews. Also, Robert knew the whole district pretty well because he lived there. When we got to the market, we filmed some footage of people buying flowers and chicken/meat. However, a problem we faced was we realized a lot of the stall owners were very busy serving their customers; therefore they wouldn’t want us to interview them. We tried to wait until a stall had no incoming customers, and then we would approach and inquire. Through this method, we were able to film one interview from a friendly florist.
Around 10:15, we realized that there was nothing important to film anymore at the market because everyone was so busy. Therefore we decided to go to 2 nearby temples before the cemetery. Filming there was little bit difficult because we couldn't bring our cameras inside, and it was also disrespectful. However, we could secretly stand outside and film people inside. The problem we faced was that we couldn't use the tripod, as it captured a lot of attention, therefore we had to use free hand movement. I had to hang the camera around my neck and try to walk as smoothly as possible. Hopefully these clips will add an effect of "reality" to our documentary.
We then headed to the Chai Wan's Cape Collision Cemetery on the mountain nearby. There, we unusually encountered a lot of people actually coming to pay their respects. We then realized that this sort of backfired our entire issue, but there were some solutions to showing the positive and negative sides. In the cemetery, I was able to film a whole lot of footage. I filmed footage of people climbing up the mountain road, people bowing down in front of the tombstones, people cleaning the tombstones and people burning offerings. Fortunately at times there were many graves where people came early and left the food, incense and offerings. This gave me the opportunity of secretly filming close-ups and get a better view of the whole situation. For the interviews, we thought it was disrespectful to approach someone while they were paying their respects to a loved one. Then, Robert encountered someone he knew at the cemetery, therefore earning us another interview. Also, someone else saw us filming and even offered to pose for us (such as pouring the Chinese wine, and showing us the fake money). Fortunately, she spoke reasonable English, and was able to answer the questions when we asked her. One obvious mistake was that she was standing against the light so there was a little snippet of just her silhouette. This helped us learn on how much light is important and how we should always check before filming.
We then headed to the Chai Wan's Cape Collision Cemetery on the mountain nearby. There, we unusually encountered a lot of people actually coming to pay their respects. We then realized that this sort of backfired our entire issue, but there were some solutions to showing the positive and negative sides. In the cemetery, I was able to film a whole lot of footage. I filmed footage of people climbing up the mountain road, people bowing down in front of the tombstones, people cleaning the tombstones and people burning offerings. Fortunately at times there were many graves where people came early and left the food, incense and offerings. This gave me the opportunity of secretly filming close-ups and get a better view of the whole situation. For the interviews, we thought it was disrespectful to approach someone while they were paying their respects to a loved one. Then, Robert encountered someone he knew at the cemetery, therefore earning us another interview. Also, someone else saw us filming and even offered to pose for us (such as pouring the Chinese wine, and showing us the fake money). Fortunately, she spoke reasonable English, and was able to answer the questions when we asked her. One obvious mistake was that she was standing against the light so there was a little snippet of just her silhouette. This helped us learn on how much light is important and how we should always check before filming.
We were at the cemetery from 11:45 to 1:15 on time. After taking a rest and reviewing all the footage we had, we decided that we didn’t need to go to the Peak. We felt that we had enough footage to support our issue because when we started, we noticed some traditions in Hong Kong are not changing.
Our documentary needed to show two sides to the issue, a positive side and a negative. Our positive side was showing that some traditions in Hong Kong still haven’t changed, and people are still coming to pay their respects in some order. They still follow some of the ancient traditions and cultures of the festival, such as the incense and the food offerings. Our negative side showed how people didn’t follow one tradition of the festival, which was hiking up the mountain. Instead, people preferred to wait in line for the bus to come and drive them back down. Hopefully, through our archival footage, we can compare the difference between people actually walking up a mountain, to people taking a bus.
When I re-watched the footage at home, I was very relieved to find out that the camera in fact did pick up a lot of the sound recorded. There was sometimes even too much of the sound, as there was a lot of our whispering in the background. Hopefully we can reduce the decibels or cover the clips with suitable soundtracks.
Overall, I felt today was very productive and I’ve learnt how important pre-production is. I was really happy with our time management skills; we weren’t distracted and were very focused. Although this practically took up the whole day, I was assured that I wouldn’t have to film during the mid-term break. Even if we faced various problems, this helped us strengthen and improve our knowledge on better filming. I really hope that when we edit the footage, our documentary will convey the right message through all the camera angles, sounds, tones and editing techniques. Right now my next step is to find the right archival footage and soundtracks.
This is the clipboard that held all our planning. From the locations, times and translated questions! Please click on the photo for a closer image.
This is the clipboard that held all our planning. From the locations, times and translated questions! Please click on the photo for a closer image.
This is us at the end of all our shooting. It was a very productive day and I really loved working with my group!
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