Production - Editing Part 3: Designing the Title Card

Getting to the title card stage felt like we were finally close to the finish line. After everything, having something as concrete as a title card to work on was almost a relief. But I also knew going in that it wasn't going to be as straightforward as it sounded. The title card is one of the most important frames in the whole film and it's the moment the audience gets confirmation of what they're watching, and in a rom-com especially, it has to do a lot of tonal work in a very short amount of time.

Nicole took the lead on the actual design in Canva but I was involved in the decision-making the whole way through, and a lot of the back-and-forth over what was and wasn't working happened between the two of us.

Why Canva Instead of Premiere Pro

When I was doing my earlier research into rom-com title sequences, one thing that stood out to me was how much the typography in these films communicates genre before anything else. Anyone But You uses clean, confident lettering that immediately signals something light and fun is coming. That kind of intentionality is hard to achieve when you're working inside an editing timeline; you end up making compromises based on what's technically easy rather than what looks right.

Inspired by Anyone But You

Using Canva gave us the freedom to actually experiment. We could test fonts side by side, adjust sizing, play with color combinations, and figure out what read clearly against different backgrounds before we committed to anything. Once the design was finalized, Nicole would export it as a PNG and we would import it directly into Premiere Pro as an overlay. It would keep the workflow clean and would mean we weren't fighting with the editing timeline to get the typography right.

The Font Decision

From the beginning, Nicole and I both agreed the title had to be hot pink and bold. That wasn't even really a discussion, it came directly out of our genre research. Romantic comedies use color as a signaling system. The brightness, the warmth, the slight over-saturation, all of it tells the audience this is going to be fun and light before a single line of dialogue plays. I wrote about this in my earlier post on genre conventions, and it was one of those cases where the research made a decision feel obvious.

The harder part was finding the right font. The ones Nicole and I had both been drawn to during research weren't available on Canva, which was frustrating because we'd been picturing something very specific. We ended up testing a lot of options that were either too decorative, too generic, or too difficult to read at the size we needed.

Eventually we landed on Norwester, and I think it was the right call. It's bold without being aggressive, clean without being boring. There's a sharpness to the letterforms that gives the title some energy, which matched the tone of the film; Audrey is precise and competitive, and something about Norwester felt like it had that same quality. It also held up clearly against the background without needing any additional styling to make it readable, which mattered because we were layering it onto footage rather than a flat graphic.

The Question Mark and Character Representation

This is the part of the process I found most interesting to think through, even if it was also the most time-consuming. Once the font was decided, Nicole started experimenting with ways to make the title more visually specific to the story. One early idea was replacing or modifying the "O" in "Competitive" with a soccer ball, since the ball is literally the inciting incident of the film since it's what rolls between Audrey and Mattias, what they both scramble for, what sets the whole collision in motion.

However, he Norwester O is slim and narrow, and no matter what we tried, fitting a soccer ball shape into it without it looking messy just wasn't working. Nicole even tried drawing the black pattern marks onto the O manually, but it came out looking rough. It was one of those ideas that made complete sense conceptually and just didn't survive with reality.

What did work was the question mark. The title is "Competitive, Much?" and that question mark is already doing something because it's playful, it's rhetorical and it has a tone to it. Nicole had the idea of transforming it to represent both characters, using objects that connect to who they are: books for Audrey, a hockey stick for Mattias. When I saw the direction she was heading I thought it was clever, because it takes something decorative and makes it meaningful. Instead of just a stylized punctuation mark, it becomes a tiny piece of visual storytelling. The audience might not consciously register it, but it's there.

This was the kind of thinking I'd been reading about during my research into title sequences. The best ones don't just announce the film, they do something. They set up a visual language, introduce a theme, or hint at character relationships. Getting our title card to do even a small version of that felt like a real success

Production - Editing Part 2: Sound Design and Music

 Sound was the last major element to come together, and it was also the thing that made the single biggest difference to how the film felt when everything was assembled. Going from a rough cut with no music to the same cut with the score underneath it was striking because the genre became readable in a way it hadn't been from visuals alone, and the emotional weight of every scene increased significantly. Sound is not decoration in film, it is structure.

Finding the Music

From the very early stages of planning, Nicole and I knew we wanted a soft indie instrumental for the opening sequence. The tone we were going for was warm, light, and slightly romantic without being heavy-handed and established the rom-com register without announcing it too loudly. We had a specific reference in mind: Slow Dance by Clairo, whose sound is exactly the blend of upbeat and relaxed that we felt matched Audrey's character and the energy of the opening sequence.

The problem was copyright and Clairo's music could not be used in Premiere Pro without significant restrictions, and the legal and technical complications of using commercially licensed music in a student production made it an unrealistic option. We needed royalty-free music that captured a similar quality.

We found what we were looking for on Pixabay, which has a strong library of free indie instrumental tracks. The track we settled on has the light, contemporary feel we were looking for as it builds naturally toward the title card moment. It is not Clairo, but it serves the same narrative function, and sourcing it from Pixabay meant we could use it without any copyright concerns.

How the Music Enters

One of the more considered sound design decisions was when and how to introduce the music. Our initial instinct was to bring it in while Audrey is still in voiceover, but when we tested that it undermined the intimacy of her narration. The voiceover is the audience's first real contact with Audrey as a character, it's where she establishes her voice, her personality, her interiority, and laying music underneath it too early pulled the focus away from that.

Adjusting voiceover on montage

The solution was a fade structure. Audrey's voiceover fades out as she finishes speaking, and the music fades in as that fade completes. The transition happens at the moment she leaves the house and the film moves into the park running sequence. This creates a sense of crossing a threshold from her internal world into the external world of the story and the music entering at that exact point reinforces that shift. The music then comes back in more fully and warmly during the falling scene, where the emotional register of the film reaches its highest point.

The Record Scratch

The record scratch was my idea, and I felt strongly about including it. In the crash scene, during the moment where both Audrey and Mattias suddenly crash into each other and then realize who it is they crashed into, I inserted a record scratch sound effect, a classic comedic device borrowed from the language of comedy editing, which signals the sudden tonal shift from aloof to surprise in a way that is both funny and visually clean. It tells the audience that what was happening has paused, and something new is about to begin.

I found the record scratch sound effect on Pixabay for free, the same source as the music. It sits at exactly the right moment in the cut and lands with the comedic impact I wanted. Small sound design choices like this one are what distinguish a film that feels considered from one that feels assembled, and this particular choice is one of the ones I'm most happy with in the finished product.

https://pixabay.com/sound-effects/search/sudden-stop/

The Audio Cleanup

The wind noise from the park filming day was one of the most time-consuming problems in post-production. Outdoor dialogue scenes are always vulnerable to wind noise because wind sits in the same frequency range as speech, which makes it difficult to remove without also affecting the dialogue. I used the Enhanced Speech tool in Premiere Pro to clean up the worst of it, which significantly improved the clarity of the argument scene. I also made manual frequency adjustments to reduce the harshness of the wind in sections where Enhanced Speech alone wasn't enough. The goal throughout was to make the dialogue sound as though it had been recorded cleanly while not making it sound processed.
 

Struggling to clean up audio

The Small Details

Beyond the music and the record scratch, I layered in ambient sound throughout the park sequences  background park noise, distant sounds, the texture of an outdoor environment. These details are invisible when they work. Without them the park scenes would feel like they were filmed in a vacuum, which would undercut the realism we built through location scouting and careful framing. The sound of Nadia's string headphones being knocked out during the collision, the ball on concrete during the scramble sequence, these are small additions that ground each moment in physical reality. Sound design is largely the art of adding things the audience doesn't consciously notice but would immediately miss.

Links Used: https://pixabay.com/music/search/indie/ https://pixabay.com/sound-effects/search/sudden-stop/ https://nofilmschool.com/how-to-reduce-wind-noise-in-premiere-pro https://www.masterclass.com/articles/sound-design-guide

Production - Editing Part 1: Importing, Organizing, and the Rough Cut

After everything Nicole and I had put into filming, the weather delays, scheduling around Tampa, the reshoot days, all of it, actually sitting down to edit felt like a completely different kind of challenge. I went into post-production thinking the hard part was done and I was dead wrong. Having footage is not the same as having a film, and the distance between those two things is where every real creative decision gets made.

Importing and Organising

The first thing I did before touching a single clip was set up the project structure in Premiere Pro. We had footage from two locations, Nadia's house for the intro sequence and William B. Armstrong Dream Park for everything else, across multiple filming days, with multiple takes and angle variations for each scene. Going into that without a clear folder system would have made finding anything a nightmare.

I created separate bins for each scene called alarm, clothes, salad and shoes, running, crash, argument, ball scramble, falling moment and labeled every clip before I started cutting. It added time at the beginning but saved significantly more time throughout the whole editing process. I didn't understand why organization mattered this much until I was the one trying to find a specific take of a specific angle at 11pm with a deadline approaching. However, I did not remember to save my workspace and one day I had clicked something and lost all of my bins. I did not lose any of the footage, and was able to find them and drag to the timeline same as always, but it just wasn't labelled, so it was a very confusing setback. 

Building the Rough Cut

The rough cut is where you find out what you actually have. Some shots that I remembered as looking great on the day didn't work in context due to reasons like the pacing feeling wrong, or a cut between angles was jarring in a way that wasn't obvious until we saw it in sequence. Other shots that I wasn't sure about during filming turned out to be exactly what the edit needed.

The argument scene required the most work. Editing dialogue is fundamentally different from editing action because the timing is tied to performance and to the specific rhythm of how Nadia and Evan delivered those lines on the day, rather than to movement or visual action. I went through multiple versions of that scene before the cuts felt natural rather than mechanical. The rule I kept coming back to was that the cut should happen where the audience's eye is already moving, not where it's convenient structurally.

Opening montage

The opening montage was the section I found most interesting to edit because it's entirely visual, with no dialogue at all, just images and music. That meant the decisions were purely about pace and rhythm, about how long each shot needed to breathe before the next one. Too fast and the audience doesn't register what they're seeing. Too slow and the energy dies before the film has even started. Finding that balance took more passes than I expected.

The Grey-to-Color Decision

Color-graded grey running scenes

                                                              Golden hues to show contrast

Side by side comparison of research on color grading and how I used it in my film.

One of the most deliberate visual choices I made during the editing process was keeping the running sequence before the collision in muted, slightly grey tones. This was intentional from the beginning of my post-production planning. Audrey's running environment before she bumps into Mattias is controlled, routine, and neutral, showing that she is running her usual route, she is in her own head, everything is exactly as she expects it to be. The desaturated tones reflect that and they communicate stability, containment, normality.

When they crash into each other, the color shifts. The warmer tones I built throughout the rest of the film's color grade come in, and the image feels more alive, more present, more charged. That shift is not something the audience needs to consciously notice, especially because it works below the level of explicit awareness, but it reinforces the emotional meaning of the collision without any dialogue or exposition having to do that work. The moment they meet, her world changes. The color grade reflects that.

This kind of purposeful use of color as a narrative device is something I researched during the planning phase. In my analysis of rom-com cinematography conventions, warm color palettes are consistently used to signal romantic possibility, and cooler or more neutral tones are used to establish the character's emotional state before that possibility arrives and I applied that research directly to this editing decision.

Production - Argument & Falling Scene

After the ball rolls into frame and stops between them, the scene shifts into the most physically demanding sequence in the opening. Nicole and I had choreographed and rehearsed this during our park sessions, but filming it for real with the camera rolling was a different experience, and there were adjustments we had to make on the day that we hadn't fully anticipated.

How the Argument Builds

What I find most interesting about this scene structurally is that it starts with a moment of almost accidental cooperation. Both Audrey and Mattias see the ball at the same time, there's a brief pause, and for one second it looks like they might just handle it normally. Then they both say "I got it" simultaneously and the whole thing unravels. That beat was important to us because it shows the conflict isn't inevitable, they choose it even when they don't have to. That says more about their dynamic than any line of dialogue could.

The argument builds in two stages of verbal first, then physical. The verbal stage is quick because neither of them is going to out-talk the other and they both know it. The physical stage is where the scene gets its energy, and it required the most direction during filming. We needed it to look genuinely chaotic and competitive without looking dangerous or choreographed, which is a harder balance to strike than it sounds.

Two Shots Throughout

For most of the argument we kept both characters in the same frame rather than cutting between them. This was deliberate because the whole point of the scene is that neither of them can get away from the other, and cutting to them separately would have broken that feeling. When they're both in frame simultaneously the audience can see how close they are and how neither of them is backing down, and that proximity does storytelling work without us having to underline it.

The Physical Contact Moment

One specific moment that came together really well on the day was when Mattias grabs Audrey's arms during the scuffle. It was in the script but the physical choice of him actually taking her hand while delivering the line developed during filming rather than being planned in advance. It changes the energy of the scene completely because the argument stops being about the ball and becomes about them, and the shift is visible on both their faces. Audrey pushing him off after that and falling into his chest is what leads directly into the falling scene, and having that arm moment right before it means the transition feels perfect. 

What the Ball Represents

Looking back at this scene, the ball is doing more narrative work than just being a prop. It's the thing they're both refusing to give up, but neither of them actually cares about returning its owner, they care about not letting the other one win. It's a small, slightly ridiculous object that becomes a symbol of everything they've been competing over since ninth grade. The comedy comes from how seriously they're taking something so petty, and the romance comes from the fact that they're both so invested in each other that even this matters.

The Falling Scene

This was the last scene we filmed, which felt appropriate because it's the last moment in the opening and in a lot of ways the entire two minutes builds toward it. Everything before, from the intro, the run, the argument, to the ball, exists to make this moment land. That made filming it feel like it carried weight, and Nicole and I were both very conscious of needing to get it right.

How We Wanted It to Feel

The conversation Nicole and I kept coming back to during planning was that this fall shouldn't look romantic in the traditional sense. Audrey is not a graceful, soft character and we established that in the first seconds of the argument. If she fell onto Mattias in some perfectly composed, cinematic way it would contradict everything we'd already shown about her. The fall needed to feel like her; slightly abrupt, a little chaotic, and not at all what she planned.

So the physical action itself is deliberately unpolished. She steps on his foot, loses her balance, and the momentum takes them both into each other. It's not elegant. But the moment that follows it is, and that contrast is what makes the scene work. The fall is funny because it's messy. The pause after it is something else entirely.

The Pause

After the fall both of them freeze. Audrey looks up at Mattias and there's a beat where nothing happens, with no dialogue, no movement, just two people who were arguing thirty seconds ago suddenly very close together and not entirely sure what to do about it. That moment was the most important thing to get right during filming because it's the emotional center of the entire opening.

What Nadia brought to that beat was really specific. The confusion in her expression, not quite embarrassment, not quite awareness, somewhere between the two, is exactly what the scene needed, and she looked very endearing to the audience.  Instead of it being a moment where Audrey realizes she has feelings for Mattias, it's a moment where she doesn't know what she's feeling, which is much more honest and much more interesting. Evan stayed completely still, which was the right instinct as any movement from him in that beat would have broken it.

The Focus Shift

Once we had the fall and the pause filmed, the final element was the focus shift, the camera racking from them in the background to the ball sharp in the foreground. Getting it to look intentional rather than accidental required patience. We tested the distance between the ball and the actors several times to find the right depth of field separation. When it works, the ball coming into sharp focus while they stay soft in the background feels like the camera makes the joke land about the whole situation because it's drawing attention to the ridiculous object that caused all of this while the two of them are still standing there not moving apart.

Why Filming This Last Was Right

By the time we got to this shot, Nadia and Evan had already filmed all of their more active dialogue-heavy scenes together, which meant they were fully comfortable with each other and with the physical proximity this scene required. The comfort level in this scene compared to early rehearsals was noticeably different and I think it shows in the footage. You can't manufacture that ease because it comes from time spent working together, and by this point in production we had done exactly that.

Production - Ball Clips

The ball is the most narratively important prop in our entire opening, and filming it turned out to be one of the most problem-solving and intensive parts of the whole production. What looks on screen like a simple spontaneous moment required a surprising amount of trial and error to actually achieve.

Why the Ball Matters

The ball entering the scene is the pivot point of the whole opening. Up until that moment Audrey and Mattias are having a verbal argument, which is engaging but contained. The ball introduces a shared physical object that both of them immediately and instinctively want to control, and that instinct tells the audience more about their competitive dynamic than any line of dialogue could. It's also what causes the fall, which is what causes the romantic moment. A single rolling ball does a lot of narrative work.

The Kicking Problem

To get the ball to interact with both characters in a convincing way, we needed someone off-screen to kick it accurately into frame. Nadia's cousin happened to be visiting with some friends during filming, and since they were around we asked if they could help. The assumption was that they'd be able to kick the ball in a controlled direction without too much difficulty.

First Take

6th Take

That assumption turned out to be wrong. Getting the ball to land in a precise spot consistently proved harder than any of us expected, and we went through a lot of takes where the ball went too far left, too far right, or completely off course. It added time to the shoot and required patience from everyone involved.


How Camera Positioning Solved It

The real solution came from a camera angle decision rather than from fixing the kicking. I positioned the camera at a very low angle, lying on the ground to get the shot, which created a ground-level perspective that looked cinematic and immersive — almost like the audience is at the level of the ball watching the action happen above them. What this angle also did, practically, was make it very difficult to tell exactly where the ball was going relative to the characters. In one specific take, the kicker's leg blocked the view of the ball at exactly the right moment, so on camera it looked like a clean connection even though the ball had actually missed. Cinematography solved a performance problem, which is something I found genuinely interesting about this situation. The framing created the illusion of success even when the
physical action wasn't perfec

The Title Card Shot

The original plan for the ending of the ball sequence was to have it roll to a complete stop right in front of the camera so the title card could appear directly on it in a controlled, clean way. In practice, getting the ball to stop at exactly the right distance from the lens every time was nearly impossible. It either rolled too far or stopped too short, and trying to force a perfect stop was costing us take after take without guaranteed results.

The decision we made was to stop fighting the ball's natural movement and let it roll freely toward the camera instead. In post production we planned to slow the footage down in Premiere Pro as the ball approached, which gave us control over the pacing of that moment even though the physical action wasn't perfectly timed. The ball rolling naturally into the camera with a slow motion effect actually ended up feeling more organic than a controlled stop would have, and then transitioning into the title card and fading to black gave the sequence a clean and satisfying ending. The fade to black is a conventional rom-com transition that signals a shift in tone, and it worked thematically here because it mirrored the spontaneity of everything that had just happened.

Production - Script Changes

Between the read-through with our actors and the feedback we gathered during rehearsals, Nicole and I went back to the script with a clearer picture of what needed to change. The read-through surfaced things that simply weren't visible when the script was just words on a page, and some of those things required more significant revision than we initially expected.

The biggest area was the voiceover. Multiple moments in Audrey's narration were describing things the audience could already see happening on screen; the green smoothie being the most obvious example. If we're filming her making a smoothie, she doesn't need to tell us she made one. We ended up not even using the green smoothie.  The voiceover should be adding information the visuals can't convey on their own, not narrating what's already visible. Cutting those self-explanatory lines made the voiceover significantly shorter and significantly better as it trusts the audience more, which I'm realizing is always the right instinct.

The workout section of the intro also had the same problem. The visual montage was doing all the necessary storytelling work, and having the voiceover running over it explaining what was happening made it feel redundant. Pulling back the narration in that section let the images breathe.

The other major change was to Mattias's energy in the first part of the argument. The line "you're doing that thing where you're mad at me for something I didn't do on purpose" was too familiar and personal for two people whose relationship is primarily competitive tension. It sounded like something you'd say to a close friend, not a rival. We decided to remove it entirely, and although we were initially nervous, it ended up being a blessing in disguise as we struggled getting our opening to be under 2 minutes.

Production - Dialogue Clips at Park

The dialogue section of the park sequence is the longest continuous stretch of the opening in terms of performance, and it was also the most technically demanding day of filming. The argument between Audrey and Mattias needed to feel like a real conversation between two people with history, and getting that on camera required solving problems both on the day and in post.

The Wind Issue

The biggest challenge we faced during this section was completely outside our control; it was an extremely windy day. Wind noise in outdoor dialogue scenes is one of the hardest problems to deal with in post production because it sits right in the same frequency range as speech, which makes it very difficult to remove cleanly without also affecting the dialogue itself. We couldn't choose a different day because every other available window had either been rained out or unavailable due to scheduling, so we had to work with what we had.

In Premiere Pro we used noise reduction tools including the Enhanced Speech feature to clean up the audio as much as possible. It didn't eliminate the wind entirely but it brought the dialogue to a point where it was clear and intelligible, which was the minimum we needed. It was a good lesson in the reality of outdoor production and how you plan for everything you can control and adapt to everything you can't.

Two Shots

For most of the argument we relied on two shots, keeping both Audrey and Mattias in the same frame rather than cutting between them. This was a deliberate choice rooted in what the scene is actually about: how neither of them can get away from the other, and cutting between them separately would have broken that feeling visually. When they're both in frame simultaneously the audience can see exactly how close they are and how neither of them is backing down, and that proximity communicates the dynamic without us having to underline it with anything else.

The two shot also meant that Nadia and Evan had to stay fully present and reactive throughout every take, even in the moments between their own lines. Some of the most interesting footage in the argument section is the reactions rather than the speaking, which the two shot made possible.

Close-Ups

Close-up shots were used primarily to capture Audrey's emotional responses during the argument. These shots work specifically because they isolate her face and let the audience focus on the smaller details of her expression like the moments where she almost laughs, the moments where she pulls herself back into frustration. Audrey is someone who presents as composed and confident, and the close-ups are where that composure shows its cracks, which adds depth to her character. Without them she'd read as one-dimensional.

Over the Shoulder Shots

Over the shoulder shots were used to establish the spatial relationship between the two characters and to create a sense of visual continuity through the dialogue exchange. We combined this framing with a slightly lower boom angle for Mattias's shots, which made him read as slightly more physically imposing in the frame which was a subtle visual reinforcement of the dynamic between them without making it heavy-handed.

Arc Shots

We incorporated arc shots at specific moments to add movement to the scene and prevent it from feeling static. Moving the camera in a curved path around the characters reflects the shifting energy of the conversation of the way it escalates, de-escalates, and then pivots into the ball moment. The key was keeping the movement smooth enough that it added to the scene rather than drawing attention to itself, which required careful pacing of how far and how fast the camera moved.

Links Used:
https://www.studiobinder.com/camera-shots/framing/two-shot/

Production - Running Clips and Crash Scene

These two scenes are closely connected in the sequence as the run establishes Audrey in the park and introduces Mattias, and the crash is what brings them together, so it made sense to approach them as a unit during filming even though they're technically separate moments in the script.

The Running Clips

The first visual idea we explored for the running section was a ground level shot starting on Audrey's feet as she runs, with her shoes gradually coming into focus as the camera tracks her. The intention was to create an immersive opening to the park sequence that put the audience into the motion of the scene immediately. When we tested it, the focus wasn't working consistently; the curve of the sidewalk was affecting the camera's ability to lock in as she moved. Repositioning the shot to a straight path fixed the problem and the clean focus we wanted was achievable from there.

We also had to reconsider Audrey's behavior during the run itself. The first version had her running with a very focused, determined expression with eyes forward, fully aware of her surroundings. The problem was that if she was that alert and in control, it wouldn't make sense for her to run straight into Mattias without seeing him coming. Adjusting her behavior to make her more distracted by her earbuds in, slightly in her own world, made the collision feel more believable and also made her feel more like a real teenager rather than a perfectly composed character.

For Mattias's introduction we used a slightly different approach, as the camera follows him as he moves and then lets him exit the frame rather than tracking Audrey's entry. This contrast in how the camera treats each character subtly communicates that they're coming from different directions and different worlds, building anticipation for the moment they cross paths without spelling it out.

The Crash Scene

The crash itself required more direction than any other moment in the film because of a very specific problem. Nadia and Evan knew it was coming, and that awareness showed in their reactions. Instead of feeling genuinely surprised they looked slightly prepared, which took the authenticity out of the moment. We gave them more specific direction asking them to stay completely unaware in the lead-up, to play clueless right up until the impact rather than anticipating it. That adjustment made a significant difference in how natural the collision read on camera.

We also made a camera angle decision during this scene that helped the environment feel more present. Some earlier test shots had the background too generic and it looked as it could have been any outdoor space. Adjusting the angle so the park was clearly visible behind them grounded the scene in a specific location and gave it more character. The world of the story felt more real once the setting was readable in the frame.

We also tested push-ins and more controlled camera movements during the impact itself to see if added motion would enhance the chaos of the collision. When we watched the footage back those movements made the scene feel more staged rather than more chaotic especially as they drew attention to the camera instead of the action. Keeping the camera more natural and less controlled during the crash was the right call. The slight rawness of it actually helped communicate the unpredictability we were going for.

Production - Scene 3: Walking, Salad, and Shoes

This section covers the final few moments before Audrey leaves for her run, like the walk downstairs, making the salad, and putting on her shoes. By this point in the sequence the audience has already gotten a sense of who she is through the alarm and the outfit, but these scenes add another layer to that characterization and complete the picture before we cut to the park.

Walking Down the Stairs

The staircase moment required us to decide early whether the camera would stay still while Audrey moved through the frame, or whether it would follow her. This sounds like a small decision but it directly affected how the audience would experience her presence in the space. We tested both by filming each other as stand-ins first and the difference was clear. A stationary camera made her feel like she was passing through the frame. A following camera made her feel like the center of it, which is exactly what she needs to be.

We went with the camera following her, which also helped maintain the faceless framing we'd been building throughout the sequence. By controlling the angle carefully we could track her movement without revealing her face before we were ready to. That reveal comes later in the kitchen, and earning it properly meant holding it back through every shot before it.

The Salad

The kitchen section is built around close-up shots of Audrey making her salad; cutting lettuce, tomato, cucumber from multiple angles. The close-ups were intentional because they force the audience to focus on the precision of what she's doing rather than just registering that she's making food. Every cut and every movement is deliberate, and the camera being that close to her hands communicates that without needing to say it.

We also made sure to vary the angles throughout to keep the montage visually interesting. Staying on one angle for the entire salad sequence would have made it feel static, so we shifted between left and right, over the shoulder, and direct close-ups to give it movement even though the action itself is contained.

The reveal of Audrey's face happens at the end of this section, timed to the moment she finishes making the salad. We used a boom shot that gradually reveals her face as she completes the action, which ties her identity directly to what she's been doing. After the reveal she sits and reads something on her phone while eating, which adds one more layer showing she's disciplined and health-conscious, but she's also just a teenager eating lunch and scrolling, and that balance was important to show.

The Shoes

The shoe moment is the last beat before Audrey heads out, and we spent more time on it than you'd expect for something so simple. We tested two versions, one where she puts them on quickly and roughly, one where the motion is more careful and deliberate. The deliberate version was the right choice because it adds something to the characterization that the rest of the sequence had been building toward. Even something as small as how she laces her shoes tells you she's mindful and composed in her actions. It's a quiet detail but it's consistent with everything else we'd established about her.

Production - Scene 2: Clothes

After the alarm shot the sequence moves into Audrey getting ready, and this section required significantly more creative problem solving than I anticipated. The goal was to establish her visually through her style, her routine, the way she moves through her own space  while keeping her partially faceless for as long as possible. Holding back her face was something Nicole and I had discussed early in pre-production as a way to build a sense of mystery before the reveal, and this part of the shoot was where that idea got tested against reality.

The Wardrobe Issue

The first setback we ran into was a wardrobe problem. The original shirt we had planned for Audrey got damaged during production, which meant we had to find a replacement that still fit the visual we were going for. The shirt needed to read as clean, athletic, and simple, nothing that would distract from the character or clash with the blue leggings. We found an alternative white shirt that worked, and once it was on camera it held up well. It's a good reminder that productions adapt constantly and the plan you start with is rarely exactly what ends up on screen.

One detail I'm glad we kept was having Audrey start in oversized pajamas with slightly messy hair before she changes. This was deliberate. Audrey is put together and disciplined, but she's also a real teenager, and showing her in a relaxed imperfect state before the transformation into workout gear makes that shift mean something. The contrast between pajamas and athletic wear is a visual shorthand for the shift from rest mode to go mode, and without that contrast the sequence loses one of its most interesting layers.

The Outfit Selection Shot

The most technically challenging part of this scene was the outfit selection moment, where Audrey holds up two hangers,  a white shirt and a black shirt, deciding between them. Nicole and I wanted to use an arc shot moving around her to give this moment some visual energy while keeping her face from being fully visible. Getting that to work took more trial and error than either of us expected.

The first approach was moving the camera physically around her in a circular path. Even small shifts in footing introduced shakiness, and the floor made noise during movement. Both of those things showed up in the footage in a way that was too distracting to ignore. The shot needed to feel smooth and intentional, and the physical camera movement wasn't delivering that.

The alternative we landed on was keeping the camera still and having Nadia rotate slightly instead. This gave us the arc effect without the instability, and when we tested it, filming each other as stand-ins before involving Nadia,  the difference was immediately obvious. The rotation version was cleaner, more controlled, and still created the visual movement we were going for. It's one of those solutions that seems obvious in retrospect but took genuine testing to actually arrive at.

The Pants Shot

The other element we spent a lot of time on was how to suggest that Audrey changes into her workout clothes without directly showing it. The solution was focusing on her pants coming off, specifically the moment they fall to the ground, as a way to imply the change without showing it explicitly.

This took more attempts than I want to admit. The first versions looked staged since the pants didn't fall naturally, the motion was too deliberate, and it read as choreographed rather than casual. We went through multiple takes testing different ways she could step out of them, eventually landing on a version where she steps forward after sliding them off her feet. That version had the most natural momentum to it and translated best on camera. Some earlier attempts became bloopers, which at least gave us something to laugh about between takes.

Production - Scene 1: The Alarm

Production: Scene 1 - The Alarm

When Nicole and I first started thinking about how to open Audrey's home sequence, the question we kept coming back to was how to establish her character visually before she says a single word. The voiceover handles some of that work, but we wanted the images themselves to be doing something independently, and the alarm shot ended up being the answer.

The detail we settled on is that Audrey sets a 4:00 PM alarm for her after-school nap. On the surface that's an ordinary thing, but what it communicates is specific; she doesn't just fall asleep and hope for the best, she built rest into her schedule the same way she builds everything else. She recharges, but only within a structure she created for herself. When the alarm goes off and she's immediately awake and moving, it tells you everything about her without dialogue. That was the goal of the entire home sequence from the beginning, to let her actions do the characterization work so the voiceover doesn't have to explain everything.

Filming the Shot

Getting this shot to actually look clean on camera was harder than I expected. The original plan was to physically zoom in on the phone with the camera to bring the notification into focus cinematically. When we tried it the footage came out noticeably shaky because without a tripod the zoom introduced instability that made it look like a mistake rather than a deliberate choice. We watched it back immediately and it was clear it wasn't going to work. The shakiness pulled attention away from the screen itself, which is the only thing that matters in that shot.

Although we figured it out in the end, and it proved to be a learning experience, it was still scary. It reminded us that although we planned it out great, we still don't know exactly what we're doing, which means our timing may be very different than what we have planned. 

Production - Finding Angles

Once we finished the read-through, Nicole and I moved straight into testing blocking and camera angles at the park. This was the part of production I had been most curious about, because there are certain moments in our script that I could picture clearly in my head but wasn't sure how to actually execute on location with real people and a real camera. Testing angles gave us the chance to figure that out before filming day, which is a lot better than trying to problem-solve it in the moment when we have a limited window to shoot everything.

The scene we focused on most was the ball sequence, specifically the fall, because that moment is the emotional and comedic centerpiece of the entire opening. If it doesn't look right, the whole ending falls flat. So most of our time at the park went into figuring out exactly how that sequence was going to work.

Testing How Audrey Falls

The first thing we needed to figure out was how Audrey's fall onto Mattias should physically happen. This moment is the turning point of the scene, where everything stops being an argument and becomes something else entirely, so it needed to feel natural and have the right energy. We tested two main versions to see which one worked better in practice.

Option 1: Back-First Fall

The first option we tried was Audrey falling back-first onto Mattias's chest. This version ended up being our preferred choice for a few reasons. It looks more controlled on camera, which actually makes it feel more cinematic rather than less, and it positions Audrey's face so that her expression is still visible to the audience during the moment. It also turned out to be significantly easier and safer for Nadia, which was something we were actively thinking about throughout the whole testing process. Since Nadia and Evan are friends and not romantically involved, we wanted to make sure whatever we settled on felt comfortable for both of them and didn't put anyone in an awkward or physically risky position.

Option 2: Face-First Diagonal Fall

The second option was a face-first diagonal fall where Audrey's body twists slightly and lands closer to Mattias's chest at an angle. This version had a more chaotic, comedic energy to it which wasn't wrong for the scene, but it felt harder to control safely and the camera angle that would make it look good was more complicated to set up. After trying both a few times, the back-first version was the clear choice. It gives us the rom-com moment we're going for while keeping the blocking clean and manageable.

How the Ball Causes the Fall

Once we settled on the fall itself, we had to figure out what actually causes it, because the ball is involved in this moment and we needed the connection between the two things to make sense physically. This took more testing than I expected because the obvious solution didn't actually work when we tried it.

Option 1: Audrey Trips Directly Over the Ball

The first thing we tried was having Audrey trip over the ball itself as they're both going for it. On paper this seemed like the most logical setup, but when we actually tested it the whole thing looked forced and a little clumsy in the wrong way. The ball is small, and using it as a realistic tripping hazard required Nadia to exaggerate the fall in a way that broke the naturalism of the scene.

Option 2: Audrey Steps on Mattias's Foot

The version that actually worked was having Audrey accidentally step on Mattias's foot during their scramble for the ball, which destabilizes her and causes the fall. What's great about this is that it keeps Mattias as the reason she falls, which is more interesting narratively than her just tripping over an object, and it lets the ball roll off to the side naturally rather than needing to be used as a direct tripping prop. The physical comedy of it also feels a lot more grounded because it comes from the two of them being in each other's space rather than from a convenient prop placement. After testing this a few times it became the obvious choice, and it also happens to work really well with the back-first fall we had already settled on.

The Ball and the Title Card Shot

The other major thing we needed to figure out at the park was the title card shot, which in the script has the ball in sharp focus in the upper right foreground with Audrey and Mattias blurred together in the lower left background. This is one of the most visually specific moments in the whole opening, and we knew from the start that it would require some problem-solving to actually pull off.

Our original idea was to have the ball spinning in the air while the two of them are blurred behind it, which would look amazing if done the way I imagined it but turned out to be extremely difficult to execute in practice. Timing a spinning ball mid-air while also keeping the actors in frame, hitting the right depth of field, and making the whole thing look intentional rather than accidental requires a level of equipment and control that we don't have access to. We tried it a few times and the only way we managed to get one photo where the ball was in sharp focus with a slightly blurred background was when I held the ball with my hand and it looked exactly as cinematic as we'd hoped. But getting that same result consistently in video with moving actors is a completely different challenge.

Option 1: Ball in the Air (Original Idea)

The mid-air version looked incredible in that one test photo, and I don't want to dismiss it entirely because it genuinely captured the visual we had in mind. But the practical reality is that recreating it on filming day with any consistency would be extremely time-consuming, and we already have a tight window to get everything shot. Relying on a single difficult shot that requires perfect timing, angle, and height every time is a risk we can't really afford.

Option 2: Ball Rolling on the Ground

The alternative we landed on when the is rolling the ball along the ground and comes to a rest while Audrey and Mattias remain blurred in the opposite corner of the frame above it. This keeps the same compositional idea intact of the ball sharp in the foreground, couple soft in the background and is dramatically easier to control and repeat. We tested this version at the park and it worked well. The visual concept reads clearly, it's achievable with our equipment, and it doesn't require us to perfectly time a mid-air object while also managing two actors and a camera. After comparing both options honestly, the ground roll version was the right call for where we are in terms of skill level and resources.

Reflection

Going into this park session I knew the ball scene was going to need the most work, and that turned out to be completely true. What I didn't expect was how much the solutions would come from just physically testing things rather than planning them in advance. The stepping-on-the-foot idea wasn't something either Nicole or I had written into the script, it came from Nadia and Evan actually trying the scene in the space and finding what felt natural. That's exactly why this kind of testing matters and why doing it before filming day is so important.

I also came away from this feeling a lot more confident about the title card shot specifically. It was the element I was most uncertain about from a technical standpoint, and knowing we have a workable version that we've already tested and that looks good is a real relief. The next step is getting everything locked in terms of the final shot list and making sure Nicole and I go into filming day knowing exactly what order we're capturing everything in so we don't lose time making decisions we should have already made.

Production - First Read Through

With the script as close to finalized as it had been throughout this entire process, the next step for Nicole and I was to actually test it with our actors. Having a script that reads well is one thing, but hearing it performed out loud is a completely different experience, and it's the only real way to know whether the dialogue lands the way you intended it to. That's what this week was about; getting everyone in the same space, going through the script together, and figuring out what was working and what needed to change before we got anywhere near a camera.

 Script Ready to Share

Before the read-through, Nicole and I did one more pass on the script to get it to a place where we felt comfortable sharing it with Nadia and Evan. We're treating this version as our final rough draft, though we knew going in that a read-through almost always surfaces things you didn't catch on paper, so we stayed open to changes.

One thing worth mentioning is that we didn't print physical copies, which was a purposeful decision. There was a weather warning for rain on the day we were meeting, and we didn't want to risk printed scripts getting damaged or wet. Instead, we kept everything digital and shared the script through our media studies project group chat so everyone could access it ahead of time on their own phones. It ended up working just as well, and it meant our actors could read through it in advance and come into the session already familiar with the material rather than seeing it cold.

Sharing it early also just made the read-through more productive. Everyone showed up having already read it at least once, so we weren't spending time on basic comprehension and could get straight into actually discussing the scenes and how they should feel.

How We Ran the Read-Through

For the actual format of the read-through, we sat in a circle and went through the script together as a group. That might sound like an obvious choice, but we are all in the drama program, and a circle read-through is exactly how we do it in theater whenever a new cast list gets released. It's a format all four of us are already comfortable with, which meant it felt natural and collaborative rather than stiff or formal.

Because we were all used to this kind of exercise, the session moved well. Everyone stayed focused, and sitting in a circle made it easy to look at each other while reading, which actually helps with the conversational scenes more than you'd expect. It also created an environment where people felt comfortable stopping to ask questions or share thoughts as we went, which is exactly what we needed.

After finishing the full read-through, we went back through certain parts of the script that needed more explanation, specifically the moments where the stage directions describe something visual or physical that doesn't fully translate just from reading the words. One example was the soccer ball moment. In the scene, a random kid kicks the ball toward Audrey and Mattias, and it ends up stopping in front of them during their encounter. We talked through how that should look physically, how the ball would interact with both of them, and how it would leave the frame and cause Audrey to trip onto Mattias. Making sure Nadia and Evan understood the intention behind that moment meant they could perform it confidently instead of just guessing at what we were going for.

  

 

          

Feedback and Script Critiques

After the read-through, we opened it up for honest feedback, and I'm really glad we did. Even though this was our final rough draft, having Nadia and Evan respond to the material as performers gave us a perspective on the script that Nicole and I couldn't get from just reading it ourselves. I also took my own notes during the session on things that stood out to me, and between everyone's input we came away with a really clear picture of what needed refining.

The biggest area of feedback was around the voiceover in the opening section. What came up during the read-through was that some of Audrey's lines were explaining things the audience could already see happening on screen. The specific example that stood out was the line about making a green smoothie; if we're already filming her making a green smoothie, she doesn't need to tell us she made a green smoothie. The voiceover should be adding something the visuals can't show on their own, not just narrating what's already visible. We also felt that some of the voiceover lines came across as overly personal and self-explanatory, so we're planning to trim it down significantly and let Audrey's actions in the montage do more of the storytelling.

Notes I took down from their feedback

The other main piece of feedback was around Mattias's energy in the first part of the argument. The general feeling was that he could be more cocky, specifically in a way that contrasts more sharply with Audrey's frustration and makes the rivalry dynamic land harder right from the start. The line "You're doing that thing where you're mad at me for something I didn't do on purpose" felt too personal and familiar for two people who are supposed to have more of a tense rivalry than a close friendship, so we're taking that out. Instead, something closer to "You're always so focused on me and I didn't even do anything" captures the same beat but with the confident, slightly dismissive energy that Mattias needs in that moment.

We also found a few other lines to revisit, including the "We're both competing for the same award" exchange which needs to be reworded so it flows more naturally out loud, and the "Okay yeah, fine, it kind of is" moment which we want to expand slightly so Mattias has a little more to work with before the scene moves on. The workout section of the intro montage also came up as something we wanted to make sure it moves fast, since some of those visual moments are self-explanatory.  And for the collision itself, we talked about blocking the reaction in three clear beats, first shock, then recognition, then the anger setting in, rather than having it all happen at once.

Taking all of this in was actually a really good reminder that refining a script isn't about adding more to it, it's about deciding what to cut and what to trust the audience to understand on their own. Every note we got pushed the script in the direction of being more visual and more character-driven, which is exactly where it needs to be.

Reflection

Getting through this read-through felt like a real step forward in the production process. Before this, the script existed mostly in Nicole's and my heads, and now it's something that four people have sat with, tested out loud, and given genuine feedback on. That changes the relationship you have with the material in a way that's hard to describe but very noticeable.

What I found most useful about the whole session was that the critiques weren't discouraging at all. Every note pointed toward something specific and fixable, and most of them were things that would have been much harder to catch if we hadn't done this step. The voiceover issue especially, since that's exactly the kind of thing that looks fine on paper and only becomes obvious when someone actually has to say it out loud in context. That's why the read-through matters.

From here, Nicole and I are going to make the targeted changes that came out of the session and lock the script for real. Any adjustments after this point will only be the kind that make the lines easier for Nadia and Evan to deliver, not changes to the story itself. We're close, and after this week I feel ready to move into filming.