VLOG: 4th Day of Filming // Flashbacks, Bowing, Dinner, Tattoo scenes

ACTORS:

• Child version of Kaya Maki - Venice Anonuevo 
• Child version of Kazuo Maki - Tyresse Anonuevo 
• Young Kazuo's Karate teacher - Raymond Pham
• Tattoo artist - Ranch Clemeno
• Kaya Maki (protagonist) - Chantelle Anonuevo
• Kazuo Maki - Marcus Francisco
• Kato Maki aka Head of the gang and Father - Francois Francisco  
• Kaya's bodyguard/henchman - Chandler Idos 
• Kazuo's bodyguard/henchman - James Tuano

SCENES: 

• Childhood flashback scene of Kaya Maki tending to the bonsai tree
• Childhood flashback of Kazuo (Kaya's older brother)
• Present day Kaya tending to the bonsai tree
• Tense dinner scene
• Bowing to head of yakuza scene
• Tattoo scene

PROPS:

• Bonsai tree
• Plates
• Cutlery
• Glasses
• Marker pens

2 weeks prior to filming, we asked our friends: Nina and Patrick, for permission to film at their houses. Coincidentally, both of them owned bonsai trees though we favoured Nina's bonsai tree over Patrick's. Venice doesn't own a kimono so we asked Chantelle to dress her up in a dress; we picked the middle dress. 

We decided to film at Nina's house first because it is closer and we anticipated that the time taken to film the shots with the bonsai tree in her garden would not take as long as filming the acting at Patrick's house. 

Our child actor, Venice, is the younger version of Chantelle's character. Venice wore a gold dress to project the wealth of the Yakuza. Jasmine and I worked together to film this scene at different angles so that the flashback would seem realistic once we piece together the footage during the editing process.  

After we filmed the flashback scene in Nina's garden, we took a train to Patrick's house. The majority of our day consisted of filming there because his house is adorned with oriental ornaments and elaborate furniture. 

We all took turns filming different scenes, Jasmine filmed the dinner scene to showcase the tension between the siblings, James filmed the tattoo scene, I filmed the bowing scene where Chandler and James bow to Francois to establish power and authority, while Chandler filmed the flashback karate scene.







Unfortunately, Francois had to leave early and Marcus arrived after he left so we had to schedule another day to film Francois.

Other than the bowing scene, I was tasked to draw the tattoo on Chantelle's back so we bought some permanent markers from the 99p store and I Google searched some images of existing tree tattoos for inspiration so it stays relevant to 'The Bonsai Tree'.

A lot of the tattoos were accentuated with Kanji - Japanese writing so I decided to include some. The Japanese characters on her left side say 'Loyalty' (I used Google Translate to copy the characters) which is a key theme in our trailer. 

To establish tension and conflict between the two siblings, we arranged to film a scene where a negotiation between Kaya and Kazuo goes wrong during the start of a dinner. Kaya slams her glass of water while saying "NO!" as an act of defiance.