Filming and editing: 2/23/09 - 3/10/09

On the 23rd of February, we completed the scene set in Julien's apartment. On the 24th, we tried filming the conversation between Sinclair and Julien on the rooftop, but it took too long so we went to Cyberport cul de sac to film the scene where Sinclair, playing as cop 38, is shot by the Button Man. On the 3rd of March, we completed the rooftop conversation between Sinclair and Julien, and then we re-filmed the tracking shot where Sinclair and Julien head towards the Button Man's whereabouts. On the 4th, we shot the last scene of the film, the scene in which Julien meets the Button Man (played by Chris). Between the 5th and 10th, the film was edited.

We filmed on weekdays. There wasn't an option to film on the weekends because Julien, the main character and cinematographer of the film, went to Japan from the 27th of February to the 2nd of March - shooting opportunities for Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday gone. It was irritating shooting on weekdays, as it took a long time and it usually ended at midnight. Going home took another hour. I didn't particularly enjoy my birthday on the twenty-fourth; I attended school and did homework in Julien's apartment and filmed for hours and got home and slept at half-past one. Shooting the film took a long time because everything wasn't particularly well planned.

Time wasn't wasted shooting the interior scene, the first scene set in Julien's apartment. There was just a couple of close-ups and dollying to be shot. It was almost dialogue-free. Time wasn't wasted when shooting the almost dialogue-free scene. Time was wasted in all of the subsequent dialogue-heavy scenes. No one memorized their lines and shots were not planned. I can't really blame the actors for this, as they are anything but full-time professional actors. They, like me, are students who agreed to star in a film. This I respect. They, like me, have lots of work. They probably don't have the time to look at the screenplay and memorize their lines. This I forgive.

But still, it greatly annoyed me. Imagine planning to film the whole rooftop scene on my birthday, but ending up with more than thirty takes of actors forgetting their lines on tape. And also in between the mess-ups were the trivial conversations and phone calls. I, as the cameraman, had to also think on the spot and improvise a little, as there was no storyboard to follow. All that thinking and improvisation were eventually shoved away - I didn't even have to film from different angles of the same scene because the thirty takes of mess-ups were spent on the establishing shot. Having wasted so much time on the rooftop, we planned to shoot that scene at another time. We went to the Cyberport cul de sac to shoot the third scene, as there were less lines for the actors to memorize. As it was getting late, I improvised shot the first-half of the third scene in a single tracking shot because I didn't want to spend too much time on it. The second-half of the scene didn't take a long time. I had planned shots in my mind, while Julien, the cinematographer, also gave me a couple of suggestions which I followed. I had to deal with the grumbling when gravy with red coloring was applied onto Sinclair's forehead. I was accused of not telling the actor about it, but I actually did. He just forgot about it. As a director, I accepted the flak that was directed solely at me. Anyway, good job Hannah for making the fake blood. (Filming was done. Exhausted, I went to the MTR station to get a ticket as I left my wallet and Octopus card at school. I bought the child ticket to Admiralty. Bad karma; I wasn't supposed to buy a child ticket - change fell from the ticket vendor onto the floor and disappeared. Wrong decision; I was supposed to head to Tsim Sha Tsui to be picked up by my parent, but I bought a ticket to Admiralty. I had to crawl through the ticket barrier at the Tsim Sha Tsui station. It was my birthday.)

When Julien got back from Japan, we re-shot the scene on the rooftop. They memorized their lines this time and I okayed Sinclair's suggestion improve upon the blocking, which he had planned in mind prior to filming. There was still no storyboard to follow, so I really had to improvise. With Chris and Raphael setting up the lighting the same way as last time's, the whole scene was shot from different angles. It turned out sophisticated blocking does not work well for films but only in plays, as we found out later on during editing. As a result, the cinematography of that scene isn't particularly strong when compared to the cinematography of the last scene, the confrontation between the Button Man (Chris) and Cop 22 (Julien). After filming the scene on the rooftop, we went down to the cul de sac to film the tracking shot again, because the shadows of the boom operator and the cameraman could be seen in the tracking shot that we first shot on the twenty-fourth. It was actually my decision to film it again because I am a harsh critic of inadvertent shadows. They ruin the professionalism of a film.

Fourth of March. There was still no storyboard to follow, as the cinematographer, back from Japan, was busy catching up with homework. Taking note of the rooftop scene's mediocre cinematography due to a lack of planning and complicated blocking, I storyboarded the last scene. I wanted it to be interesting, so I included shots which broke the fourth wall. Also, I included shots in which the camera panned back and forth between the two actors, which would heighten the tension of the scene. Filming was smooth compared to previous shooting days given that the blocking was less complicated, but was again hindered by actors who did not have their lines memorized...ended up sleeping at one again.

I supervised the editor, Hannah, when editing the film. I taught her about editing during this process and did some editing myself. I knew I was not supposed to edit and was supposed to only supervise and teach the editor; but the deadline was near and precious time could be wasted on teaching an incompetent editor, so I had to take up the role of the editor at times to complete the film in time for the screening. (This also means that I'll have to supervise and educate editors in future projects, even though I won't be a director anymore, as we switch roles. Something that I'm obliged to do, but am not particularly looking forward to.) Cutting the clips did not take a long time; we would find a point to cut (usually a match on action), select the next shot and mark the in and out points so that two shots go smoothly back to back. When inserted, we would adjust it so that the continuity was smooth. After cutting, I created the closing credits and also the color correcting and contrast increasing. I felt extremely narcissistic when creating the closing credits, as my name was almost in every single slide. I shouldn't have done that. People would smile and shake their heads at it. Well, they did during the screening.

I brought in some sound effects which I found on websites that offer free sound clips. Raphael recorded Julien's opening narration and mobile phone sound effects. Tampering with the sound effects was not necessary, as they were already well done. But I had to create two ambient tracks - one for interior scenes and one for exterior scenes by tampering with various sounds and compiling them together in the free program Audacity. Going over the film in Final Cut Pro, I noticed the background noise in scenes with conversations was different between cuts. This was very distracting (and disorienting: when checking for continuity errors, we would mute the sound); it was also unsurprising to me because the shotgun mike would pick up background noise which would be different because noise varies in between shots as footage was shot at different times. For example, we may cut from a shot with airplane droning in the background to a shot with wind blowing in the background. Because of this, I exported the audio of the last scene and went home to edit the sound using Audacity. I made sure the dialogue audio levels stayed the same as the shotgun mike's distance from the actors varied in different shots. I minimized the background noises and added in an exterior ambient track to run in the background so that the overall audio would sound seamless in between cuts to different shots. This worked out well at the end.