Machinery of the Human Heart
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Filming some fun things!
🕑 Added 2025-11-07 05:28:16 +0000 UTCAll of the DIYs I've been working on are for a short-form video shoot. I met the videographer through a dear friend, and she was so professional and fun to work with! Also present was one of her friends who helped to give me super fun and creative acting directions.
I stayed up late the night before and woke up early day-of to finish the two clothing DIYs I had been working on, and also finish blocking timestamps. I'm super proud of them and can't wait to share them with you!
We met up in the parking lot of an outdoor location in New Jersey. I had first visited the place with my ex boyfriend, though I had seen videos about it on social media before then. Back when the videographer and I had a zoom call about the shoot, I mentioned two possible locations - one two hours away, and one 30 minutes away, and we chose the latter for ease of transportation.
We couldn't have picked a more gorgeous autumn day to film. 65 degrees and sunny, with light pouring in all around and turning the edges of leaves and trees almost invisibly bright, illuminating and accenting the wild messiness of nature.
The first thing we did was take a look at two sets of scenery on either side of the path. We chose one side that had an interesting place for me to sit while acting out the first segment we had planned.
We started with the calmer one of the two sets of shoots we had planned. I have never acted or performed specifically for a video before, so it took a few tries to become comfortable with acting out specific feelings in front of people I had just met!
The videographer (whose name I will absolutely openly promote and disclose once the videos are posted) brought a changing tent, which I was grateful for, though I came prepared by wearing a small tank top and shorts under my clothes in case I needed to change in the car.
I tapped into my inner Grand Scream rage for the second set of shoots. I turned corners, chased the camera, crawled, pointed and glared at, even 'argued' with who I imagined to be any unsuspecting viewer that might stumble across the finished videos. I have no idea what I looked like while doing so, but I knew even with the glare of the sun dominating half the screen as I watched the playbacks that everything was very well-shot!
After the shoot, we carried our items and equipment back to the parking lot on a 10-minute walk. I thanked the videographer and her friend as they left and then sat there in my parked car, decompressing after giving my everything to the past two hours, and googled food options.
I ended up ordering online for pickup from the most uncanny valley fast food place I've been to in my entire life. It had major Omega Mart vibes. It had a large neon sign in front, though the storefront appeared to be bare until you went around and entered through the back, revealing a sterile eating area with no one there. It masqueraded as 10 different restaurants/cuisines in a trench coat, except the ten restaurants were being very obviously puppeted by a single company in a way that was so uncomfortable and thinly veiled it was insulting. There was a clear plastic rack holding pamphlets on the wall for all of the different "restaurants" that had been very obviously designed by a singular graphic designer creating distinct brands for each, all printed with the same exact paper and finish. When I went to throw out my sandwich wrapper at the end, there was no recycling option, but a singular trash can labeled "landfill". The whole thing read as "We know you're not convinced, but just play along, okay?" Afterwards I immediately texted my friends who would appreciate the liminal space I had found myself in.
This is all for now! Thanks for reading about the video shoot and for tolerating my rant about weirdly corporate food experiences, can't wait to show you what I've been working on visually!
