I really don’t know where to start here, so I’ll start by thanking my group. It was really a blessing to have a great team. Looking at the video, all I can say is wow! I can’t thank each team member enough whether it be for painstaking memorization, grueling editing work, and worse of all dealing with me asking to retake scenes that even I will tell you turned out prefect at the end haha (sorry for that but, better safe than sorry right :P).

I gotta say however that there are many frustrations I must point out, starting out with the play itself. I really didn’t and still don’t like the play for several reasons. 1. the cursing (and yes Meriam I agree with you 100% I was gonna show my mom, but then when I warned her about the cursing, she was like I don’t want to see it, so yea thats kinda a bummer). The second was the layout. Short. Choppy. Lines. Can Kind of. Get. A Bit…Annoying. If..you know. What? I mean. Even though I wasn’t acting with Arlene, Rachel, and Steven, I can feel your pain. As a result, I really could not really grasp what was going on. I feel that had Garces portrayed a more realistic play in which characters act and think strategically rather than reacting emotionally to a distressing situation, that our full acting potential would have been showcased. Breaking the script down piece by piece was a rather scary feeling. Will this thing fit together at the end? It just like going on a road trip with the GPS telling you information for the next 1/3 mile. God knows if when you reach half a mile you have to take the exit, and you just so happen to be in the farthest left lane.

Thankfully however are highly trained professional group fixed that problem. Arwa primarily edited and put the tiny pieces together as we filmed. Mistakes were caught early on and all our brains worked collectively and highly efficiently.I can’t tell you how much I love efficiency. Everything working all at once and in synchrony. Just like a race car engine with thousands of computers monitoring air flow, gas milage, heat, etc.. Assembly-line production. Before I start talking Karl Marx, lets just say everyone did their part without que, a job well done.

As the cameraman, my biggest struggle was the fact that we were kind of confined to a small area. Room to move was limited, and I worried that it might seem rather boring at the end. Rachel’s wonderful idea to incorporate the pictures in the background helped not only give some life to the walls, but later became important as scenery when the C and S came in at the end. Lighting was another challenge. Filming at day and night differed, and we kinda had to adjust the lights accordingly. A last pet peeve of the job is the zooming. Who do i zoom in on, for how long, and when? It kind of came naturally at the end, and of course with superb editing, came out looking great.

Perhaps the hardest thing of all, that we can all attest to was fatigue. Chem Tests and sleepless nights studying before filming didn’t really help either. The funny thing is that there always seemed to be a mood we all shared. It could be:

a) Yes! Lets get this film done Whoooo!!!

b) Laughing Historically and can’t stop

and c (which is the funniest when I think back) Let me get the heck out of here, my stomach is growling, my eyes are drooping, and all I want is to sleep

It was really a physically demanding and time-restrained situation. As much fun and laughs I had, I did not expect the overwhelming feeling of exhaustion that set in towards the end of each session. One trick I learned to boost morale (Arlene’s especially :P) after this production, just mention Dunkin Donuts coffee. I think imagining the coffee stimulates more than the actual drinking haha.

I don’t think this experience affected my view of actors. I don’t think the difficulties we faced can be compared to a professional movie production. Pay me a million bucks, have an assistant follow me around wiping my sweat, bringing me cheese cubes, and a $5 million camera with my lines right above the lens and perhaps we can call it even. Of course that with professional stunt sets, fancy cars, and airbrushing my already beautiful face until its no longer Waseem also may help.

At the end of the day, definitely an experience. Mission Accomplished! I wouldn’t want to repeat or relive it though.