Construction: Shoot#2

So we had to shoot two scenes today instead of one; scene 1 and scene 3, since both were to be shot at the same location.

We shot scene 3 first because we had to wait for our second actor to get back home as he was out. The scene was shot smoothly since it did not require any technical shots nor was it difficult to direct the actor.

Mahnoor directing Moeez

Mahnoor directed the actor while I stood by the tripod/camera outside recording and checking the composition of the scene throughout. The scene was shot smoothly, however, adjusting the lighting settings was a bit difficult tricky since the sunlight was too harsh and the entire frame was blown out.

Adjusting lighting and composition

At the time of of scene 1 things, unfortunately, did not turn out to be the way they had to; our actor CHANGED!  The kid we had planned to work with, on the last minute, backed out and refused because he said he was too shy! For minutes Mahnoor and I were blank, had completely no idea as to what we were supposed to do now. However, luckily, the area we were in we found many children willing to act for us, so after auditioning a few of them, we selected Aftab.

Aftab on the left

Enthusiastically, he understood the entire scene and, fortunately, acted it out really well too. Though Mahnoor had to direct him a few times, but, nonetheless, I think he did a great job given that he was illiterate and had no sense of acting.

There were technical areas of this scene as well, during shoot of which we faced a lot of difficulties. The scene where the protagonist runs, we had to pan the camera to capture his movement. To do so, at first we tried panning the camera while placed on the tripod but it just did not work. I was trying shooting this scene but found it immensely difficult to juxtapose character's feet at the same position in the frame during panning therefore Mahnoor tried it too, but couldn't do it correctly either.

After trying panning shot#1; scene2

Therefore I just sat down on the road with camera in my hand and tried panning it myself, without the tripod. It was difficult, and not perfect either, but it was atleast better than what we tried with the tripod thus we used this technique and shot the scene. 

Rest of the shots for this scene were quite simple; one shot required the camera to be kept on the road while Aftab ran over it. I shot this scene by keeping the camera on the road, still holding it though. As for Aftab, Mahnoor told him when to start running and how to jump over the camera when he came near it to show the effect that he kept running.

We wrapped up the shoot of this location by doing a photoshoot of Atftab, as Ali Hamza, for the poster. We had the idea in our heads, and knew how to keep the composition of it as well so it did not take long.