Production day March 4th 2026 for movie opening of MATCH3D!

 Reflection on production day

    I am Samantha Stanton, the actor for Nova and co-director on the film opening for MATCH3D, I am working with my partner Charles Shoemaker. We filmed on March 4th, 2026, so I wanted to give a reflection on how production day went. The production setting was at a large house on Turtle Beach in Sarasota, Florida. I chose this setting because I wanted to give Nova a rich/elegant vibe, and this house added to that assumption about her. I had to set up lighting in the home since the sun had already set. I had gone to the house a few days before just to make sure all the lighting would be good. I also had to set up the props; we used Champaign glasses, sparkling water, knives, and a vitamin c pill, so I went to the house a little early to get all the props in place so production could go smoothly. I also had to do my makeup and give the other his outfit for the opening scene, so I laid that out for him, so it was prepared. I had a lot of roles on production day and to get ready for production day: 

• - I set up a planning calendar for all of the important dates and sent this calendar out to anyone involved in production day.

• - I made the script for the opening scene of MATCH3D.

• - I gave advice on camera positioning to help Charles if needed/what I thought would look good.

• - I did research on what our camera settings should be at to get the best quality while filming. 

• - I did some filming before Charles had arrived, shots of the house and sunset.

• - I talked to homeowners to make sure we could film at their home and kept in contact with them to update them on times, dates, etc.

• - I made and sent out permission forms to chase to make sure he was okay with being filmed, the homeowners to ensure that we could use their home in our film, and myself to make sure it was okay with being filmed.

• - I made a risk assessment to ensure that if anything happened, we would have a plan to keep the situation controlled. I sent this to everyone involved in production day.

• - I was acting as Nova, the main character in MATCH3D.

• - I was the costume director, I bought my outfit to match the vibe we wanted to portray, and I picked out the outfit for Chase, our other actor.

• - I was the setting director; I scouted this location and talked to the owners about using it in our opening film. 

• - I did a lot of the behind-the-scenes camera work. I set up the camera and recorded it while we worked.

    I checked out two pieces of equipment for Mr. Z, including mini microphones and a gel light for the red lighting. I didn't end up using the mini microphone’s because Charles thought he had left them at home instead we talked loudly and did many tests to see in the sound quality would be bad. I used the gel light in the last clips; the red color was used to show uneasy and give off creepy feelings to the audience. Not having mini-microphones was a challenge at first because the sound quality was very poor. I switched the sound setting on the camera and did a lot of tests to get the right quality. This ended up being fixed and was easy for the rest of the production day. The day was really fun because I was with my good friends Chase and Charles. As you can see in our behind-the-scenes video in all the clips, we are laughing and making the most out of the day. The night kept getting funnier because chases bothers were coming home, and we got food to end the night right (we got Chick-Fil-A of courses)! Filming was pretty quick, it was done within two hours and I had estimated that it was going to take about three hours and told that information to the homeowners so we were all pleasantly surprised that we could all go home early. I was very happy with the quality of the camera work, and overall, with how smoothly the day went. Although I am super excited to put it all together, something’s that I would do differently if I were to do it again would to make a physical list on paper of what we need to do on production day just to be a little more organized and efficient and I really wish Charles never took the mini microphones out of his car, but we handled the production day very well and I am happy with how all the clips turned out! Now all I have to do is edit so be ready for some more posts about postproduction!