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Lights, camera, action!

In the past two days, I have been fortunate enough to dip my fingers into the world of acting and filming by being a part of an ad campaign. Sorry if you read the first part of that line and thought I was announcing my feature in the next season of Bridgerton. Although who knows! With the ad campaign secured under my belt, my portfolio’s looking good enough to audition for a new Netflix series, or maybe Sally Rooney might need another 20-something year old to star in an adaptation of her next book. 

Anyway, the film shoot was such a fun experience – definitely not something I would’ve thought I’d be doing if you had asked me 2 weeks ago. And definitely something I was glad to have done aside from bolting myself in front of my laptop and smashing out a 2500-word essay. 

My part of the shoot started off at 8 a.m. in Rymill Park. I did a couple of scenes with another girl and spent the rest of my time having a photoshoot with one of the photographers. I’d be lying if I said I was extremely shy in front of the cameras because let’s be real, I spend way too much time on Instagram so giving my best smile to the camera was nothing new.  What was a little bit different this time though was that professionals were the ones doing the photographing and videography. Usually, it’ll just be me telling my friends to get my best angles so I was a bit awkward at first. 

Not only was this experience a great opportunity to throw myself out of my comfort zone for a little bit, I also particularly enjoyed meeting the people I had the pleasure of working with, from the other students who were a part of the campaign to the filming crew. Everyone was so welcoming and nice that for the first time, I didn’t feel the heavyweight of having to appear collected and perform well. I messed up a couple of shots and that was fine – we laughed, and we reshot it. We were just a bunch of students looking to try something new and have some fun. 

My last day of filming was set in a cozy house on the foothills. It was owned by a lovely old couple who ran a homestay for students. Since it was set in the evening to depict an Iftar scene, we got to enjoy the sunset draped behind Adelaide’s gorgeous skyline on their deck before our director yelled “Action!” The food we had was amazing and our hosts were incredible. We chatted away about our lives here in Adelaide and about their experiences hosting students from every corner of the world – which I believe made the scene more natural because we were actually talking about something instead of reading off from a script. 

Once we wrapped up and put our plates away, our host played us a couple of songs on her piano before saying goodbye. It has been one of the best things I've done recently, especially being able to share my culture with new and familiar faces.