The show must go on

There are two basic ways to film a movie or television show: using sets, which are built in studios to look exactly how the director or producer wants it to look, and filming on location, which requires crews and actors to go to a real-world place to film and move to another real-world place to film a scene in a different area.

"West Bancroft Side Story" is filmed on location, which presents a number of issues to the production crew when we have limited time with an actor to film.

We planned to film one particular scene in the Student Union Building Saturday that leads up to a musical number. In the scene, Marky (Gage Howell) picks a fight with Greg (Nick Bellmyer), making Greg so angry he "want[s] to burst into song."

All lame musical jokes aside, the production crew – consisting of producer Carina Cornieles, cameraman Larry Williams and myself – had a few issues to deal with when we headed to the South Lounge to set up the filming.

Foremost of the issues: during this past weekend, from Feb. 18 to 20, UT hosted an annual event called BASHCon, a gaming convention hosted by the student group dedicated to gaming of all kinds, BASH.

Ordinarily, an organized event would be no cause for problems, except that there were too many people walking around dressed like pirates for Carina's taste, and we had to scout another location at noon – which meant we had only an hour and a half to shoot before Bellmyer had to leave.

Our conversation very well may have gone like this: "Come on, guys. Where can we film that's nearby, a public area that the characters are likely to see one another in, but without large crowds of people on a Saturday?"

"Why, the Memorial Field House, of course."

That said, we shifted gears and headed to the second floor of the Field House near the elevator and central staircase.

As most film students can probably explain, the location a scene is shot in adds specific dynamics to the filming. The Field House gave us an opportunity to film the scene in two places at once.

Since the scene started with Marky wanting to fight with the Quads for fun, we set the Ottawas on the second floor of the Field House overseeing the lower floor, where the Quads could walk.

The filming then took an interesting turn because of the wide range of camera angles available. Since we shoot on location – and many of the locations are smaller spaces, such as inside dorm rooms – the places we can safely stow a camera, boom mic and crew members are not exactly numerous.

Inside the Field House, though, there were many camera angles to choose from: first-floor angles to follow Greg and the other Quad actors, second-floor angles for Marky and the other Ottawa actors and even angles on the staircase during a part in which Greg's girlfriend, Jaleeah (Sarah Fatemi) confronts Marky.

Working around the larger movements of the actors was tricky, since we work with only one camera. Howell had to move from one end of the Field House halfway around the wide opening to get to the other side, and Bellmyer walked across the lower part of the Field House and back.

It wasn't all good news though; one scene in particular posed numerous difficulties to the crew. Quads 1 and 2 (Brian Purdue and William Toth) hold back Greg so he won't start a fight, but filming a scene in which one actor struggles to break free can be hard.

One of the best clips to film was a clip of Jaleeah and Marky on the stairs.

The stairs in the Field House are broad and open, so we were able to film the same clip from several angles: from the top of the stairs, from the bottom of the stairs and on the landing the actors were standing on to deliver their lines.

Overall the location had a huge effect on the look and feel of the scene.