Shooting Schedule for Thursday 03/12/09 (2)

Shooting Schedule for Thursday 03/12/09

Filming on Tuesday 1st December 09

We started out our day by heading to Sufia’s (the director’s) house where we made sure we had all the equipment we needed in order to shoot. I helped set up the tripod to the right level as it was easier to do indoors whereas if we were to do it in the park it would have taken longer as the weather was very cold. We also ensured we had all the props needed for the scene including the makeup, white sheets, fake blood, contact lenses, rosemary and the white nighty. After we got all our equipment and props sorted out we made our way to the location of our shot which was at tooting Bec Park. The area of the park we decided to shoot in was where there were leaves covering the floor and sunlight coming thought the trees. This helped us to ensure we got a nice clear shot which wouldn’t come out grainy and was of good quality overall. We chose to keep our camcorder in automatic mode as it was easier for us to work with as it gave us more confidence as if we set it on manual mode we may of left things out which could jeopardise the quality of the shot. An additional piece of equipment we chose to use was a “Hairy Harry” which is a type of microphone which picks up any noise of the slightest. Adding this mean that we could pick good sound from the wind and the rustling leaves if we wanted to use diegetic sound.

The first scene we shot was the investigation scene (mid shot) where our media teacher Mr Vargese played the investigator who comes to examine a dead body (Mariam the editor) and collect evidence. He wore smart black clothing to indicate his character as the investigator and also carried with him a note pad and pen. Zanab the camera girl filmed this scene a number of times to get the best possible outcome. We used iconography such as fake blood splattered on white sheets to show the horror genre and also the contrast between a innocent person (white sheets) and death (fake blood).

The last scene we shot in the park was the scene where I played the character Elizabeth and am getting closer to the camera. I was situated near various trees spread out around the area (long shot). We use conventions from “The Ring” which gave us the idea for this scene. This scene was a real challenge for me as there was a lot of cuts included in filming it and as the weather was cold and frosty I was getting extremely cold which meant I had to take breaks in between shots to warm up. Once we were satisfied with our shots we went back to sufia (the director’s) house to shoot the bath tub scene and the crawling scene.

When we got to Sufia’s house we made preparations to film the bath tub scene. In this scene Elizabeth who I acted as was to come out from the under the water gasping for breath. As the movement of me coming out of the water had to be fast and sudden we shot this as a close up to exaggerated my frantic facial expression. I had trouble trying to pull my self up quick enough as every time I tried; I kept slipping back down into the water. We overcame this problem by having the director, who was filming this scene to sit inside the bath tub on the edge whilst keeping her feet on top of mine so that I was able to come out of the water without slipping. The idea to shoot a bath tub scene was because in horror films such as “Carrie” and “Psycho” water is commonly used.

The final shot was where Elizabeth who I played the role of is crawling across the floor and doing a crab. In this scene I wore a white dress to show that even though the character is a murderer, she has elements of innocence to her as she is possessed due to her vulnerability and doesn’t know what she is doing. We took a number of shots for these two scenes and finally finished all the filming for the day. We all felt that we had a very good first day of filming and had a good start to our horror teaser trailer.

Our Recreation of scenes from horror movies

Our task was to recreate iconic scenes from four different horror films all of which used different camera techniques and conventions to scare the audience. We all had a chance to use the camcorders to familiarise ourselves the different ways to film a shot. I filmed the third scene in the task, which was the Halloween scene when a hand held shot is filmed to give the illusion that the audience is seeing what’s happening though the eyes of the character. In this case it was the little boy who ended up stabbing his older sister to death. When I filmed the scene, I realised that it was a lot harder then it looked. I learnt that I had to ensure that my body moved in tune with movement of my hand to get the realism in the hand held shot. Adding music to our scenes sing adobe premiere gave scary effect and enhanced the professionalism of the scene. Unfortunately due to poor lighting the quality of out last scene from “Faculty” was not clear and didn’t look as good as we predicted which made it difficult for the audience to understand what was happening. Overall this task allowed me to understand that In order to make a good scene work well, every element in important from lighting to sound effects.