This Feels Wrong (Filming Part 1)

Today was essentially a weekend school day. We knew that we were going to need as much time as we possibly could, so today we decided to start really early, at least for weekend standards. So the night before you basically agreed to go completely off of school time 9 to 5 core. I woke up at 6:00 in the morning (it was really really hard to do this on a Sunday) snooze my alarm a few times because, it's a Sunday. Got ready and with no breakfast immediately headed to pick up Nicole.

But after I picked her up we kind of had a realization that we should do something that deviates from the plan we plan before. The night before I was gonna pick up Nicole and then manuela and then we were going to come back to my house and then we were gonna go film. However as I was picking up Nicole we realized that the park that we were going to go film at was right next to Nicole's house and it would have been a whole waste of time would have deviated to then go pick up manuela. So what we decided to do instead was me and Nicole went right at the right at the park opened at 8:00 in the morning and went to the bathroom and measured the wall, so that then we could go back home pick up manuela and cut out the wall the fake wall to the exact dimensions of the real wall. As you're realizing this I immediately asked Nicole check for a tape measure at her house. She had one!

Then we went to Vista I awkwardly stood outside stayed outside in my car as she went into the girl's bathroom and measured it up she measured it inside and out I was outside there waiting for 10 minutes we got door dimensions second door dimensions everything and anything even the mirror. Then after that little detour which I thought was a really great choice from us since it allowed us to optimize our time better we went back and picked up manuela and then came back to my house and made the mesons on element. We weren't really sure before if we were going to make it in the car, in the bathroom, or at home. But, since me and Nicole we're able to measure the wall we're able to cut it up to the exact dimensions and then make the whole wall at home. This is a really good change since it allowed me to contribute it to it too since if we would have done it all the drawings on the wall itself only they would have been able to do it. But, more on that in this prop creation post. 

 

After making the prop at around 11:00 in the morning, which was really good time since the last time we met up to do our location scouting even though we said we were going to meet up at 11 in the morning we actually ended up meeting up at 1:00 PM, so I think it was really really good of us to meet up so early in the morning as it allowed us to really optimize our time well. We then headed back to the park and got the actual bathroom scene itself. Getting this scene was a big relief since it was the scene we were most nervous of doing, since it was a very odd scene to get…

Filming this bathroom scene has been by far the weirdest logistics I've ever had to do for a project. Basically what we're doing is since I'm a boy and we have two girls and we need to film in the girls restroom. Nicole and manuela are going into the same stall and doing the scene and filming it. And then I'm standing outside in the car watching the girl's restroom, and waiting to see if anyone comes up to go use it. If anyone does come up I have them on speed dial and I need to dial them expeditiously and then they need to drop everything they're doing and get into two different stalls so that it doesn't look weird and so that we don't get reported to suspicious activity in the park. There's nothing technically wrong with this but I said a lot of things today that have made me second question second guess what I'm doing. “okay so I'll be watching the girls restroom and seeing if anyone comes in or out and then call you guys if something happens period”.

At first Even though I called them, it was too late, someone came in while they were filming and it was really odd. So then after that little odd situation, I stayed on call with them, that way I could warn them the second anything happened. It would have been really nice if we would have had walkie talkies, but since we didn’t this was the best we could do. It felt very spy, as I am writing this blog, I am just sitting in my car, watching the bathroom, and being ready to report anyone who steps close.

Then after doing that for a whole hour… Nicole realized she forgot the sd card…AHFOIAHIOSFHIAFHIOIOHFIHOAFAFIHASFIHOAFHA.

So what I had to go do is I had to leave them there while they watched over stuff that we had already set up and I went as expeditiously as I could towards back to my house. Got the SD Card and headed BACK to the park for the THIRD TIME. This park isn’t free entry, you have to pay, but if you keep your receipt you can go in and out, and everytime I came in the guy that checked me in was the same guy it was lowkey really awkward and embarrassing.

But I was back, gave Nicole the SD card and went back to my post as bathroom watchdog. And then… our greatest challenge yet. The Evil Karen Boss Fight. I felt so bad I’d be pissed too if some rando was nuking a bathroom for 20 whole minutes and she was dedicated she would not budge. This Lady waited for the bathroom for 20 MINUTES for our stall. But, we had already put the wall up, and taking it down and putting it back up would not have been feasible. There was also the small but very big problem that two girls were in a bathroom together. If she saw them coming out, it would have been really odd and we might have had to dip on the whole filming in case she called someone about it since that’s kind of suspicious. I panicked, I wanted them to dip, I was lowkey scared that they were gonna get security called on them because the lady went outside, and was waiting and went on her phone. And in the park bathroom, there’s a thing that tells you to report suspicious behavior.

BUT THEN, I saw the evil waiting boss (a poor innocent lady) walk away and start going to the other bathroom in the park and I started to rejoice. After that incident we had a few other “code yellows”, but for the most pare it was pretty green for the rest of the way. But, after that frightful experience I did feel like a nightguard at five nights at Freddy’s.

What I felt like watching that bathroom

Nicole and Manuela got done with the rest of it in an hour where I anxiously waited and called out when someone came. And after a somewhat stressful and the weirdest filming day ever we headed back to my house to check through our footage and start editing.

“Record, go again” – Nicole and Manuela 2025 while that poor lady was in the restroom waiting.

 Then we went back home and finished getting the other few shots we needed, which ended up being pretty hassle free. Just a few shots in the living room and in my room. and we were doneeeee with filming. 

Small Detour in the park

Shots in the living room

On the writing question

Let's address the elephant in the room period the one thing through this whole project that we've kind of been grappling with is it's kind of illegal to write on the bathroom wall. So logistically we've kind of been really stuck on how we can possibly film this. Through this whole time we've had a few possible solutions.

Possible solution 1: the first thing that we had thought about is either making some type of artificial wall or basically not doing it on a real bathroom wall.

Benefits:

-       We wouldn't be doing anything illegal

-       we would have infinite time from the comfort of our home

Negatives:

·       continuity

·       Realism

Possible Solution 2: actually draw on the wall. We would do this with washable markers instead of permanent markers, so that we could wash it off.

Benefits

·      Best looking

·      Real bathroom wall

·      Most realistic

Negatives

·      Potentially illegal

·      Morally dubious

·      What if we cant wash it off?? That would be real bad

·      We would have to spend a really long time inside a bathroom, graffitiing a whole wall

 

Possible Solution 3:  during one of Nicole’s group meetings Emma recommended that we used clear tape to write on a real wall. I don't know how we had thought about this option before but it's really ingenious comma and fixes a lot of the traditional problems that we would have with the other two options.

Positives:

·      Quick, we could prepare it before hand and then bring it to the bathroom

·      Not illegal!

·      Still allows us to film in the bathroom

Negatives:

·      Glare

Out of all of these options we gathered that option 3 was the best possible option. However we didn't really know which plastic or clear thing we would use. So we started looking for a few different options. First option we looked for was Saran wrap, however we decided that drain wrap was a little bit too sticky and it was also a one time use you can't really put on Saran wrap and then take it back off, so I take off a lot of the benefits of having that material.

We decided Saran Wrap was too sticky and would be too hard to move if we needed to re-use it

The other option was the clear tape but again this has a lot of the same problems Saran wrap and it also won't look as good since there's going to be a bunch of different edges and it would look a little bit incongruent since some bits would be clear and then some bits wouldn't. So the option that we ended U going for was having the whole door covered so that you couldn't really see any incongruencies, we thought this would be the most realistic option and also the option that allowed us to work from home and then quickly put it on and put it off.

The material we ended up going for

We went to Walmart and we bought this material. It ended up being  of being really long, but we laid it out and started doing some spot tests on it. We found that the sharpie looked really good on it, and in the right lighting you couldn't even really tell that there was some material over it. It was a little glossy however we didn't really think that this was a big problem and after doing this that test we were pretty sure that out of all the possible options this was the best one, period since it was still pretty realistic but it also prevented a lot of the potential downsides of the logistical problems that would come with actually writing on the wall.