Shoot Day

Our shoot day was on a Friday after school. We picked up the cameras and bought them to our location. The footage in our film differs slightly to our storyboard and to what we were originally going to do. This is because when we were filming, more/better ideas came to mind. One thing we changed was the fact that our character was a child instead of the dad. This was because we couldn't find an adult actor in time as no one was willing to do it, but we always had the idea of using a child. Secondly, there was no ball hitting the characters foot. This is because we had the better idea of using fake blood and making the character find the blood after he leaves the room. This also extended the length of the sequence. Thirdly, the evil character was not how we pictured it, and was in fact just a character with a mask with their hood up. This happened because we wanted the character to be a normal person with a mask, which would later on in the film (if it was made) get discovered as a real person and a serial killer.

In my film, the clothing was just normal. We did this to show that this happened to normal people, and we tried to make it realistic. The lighting was mainly dark - this represented the fact that it was night time as this is the scariest time of the day due to the mystery and suspense of the darkness. However, most of this darkness was edited in due to the fact that the light we were given was faulty and had to use the light of an iPhone. The actors weren't anyone special as once again, we wanted to show that it could happen to anyone. We used a little bit of fake blood on the floor to make the sequence more scary. However, we didn't use any make up on the actors as we felt we didn't need to. The props were mainly used to create danger - for example a hammer, which is a dangerous item. We also used a torch which unfortunately stopped working in the middle, so we used an iPhone light instead and we are currently in the process of editing it out to make it look like it's the torch. We also had knives on a table to represent danger even more. The film was set in a house, showing that it happens to an innocent family.

We used many shots throughout the sequence, one of which was a tracking shot. This was used to create the idea that the evil character may have been behind him, following him. This creates suspense and tension. We also used close ups which represented the fact that he was scared due to the fact that he is only a teen. We also had a high angle shot on the innocent character, showing if he were to be faced with this evil guy, he'd be helpless. This is because this shot represents his little power. There were also a couple of wide shots, to show the area and the surrounding of the character. Overall, we used all of the shots shown on the storyboard, as well as added extra ones when they were needed, which benefited our film a lot.

In our film, there will be non-diegetic music playing when the teen is searching the house. This creates even more suspense for the film and builds up tension. Many other films have this too, so it does in fact relate to other thrillers.

My role was the camera work. I was overall quite pleased with what I did, even though it took time at some points to perfect the shots. My role was extremely important as the camera is how we film!

We worked together very well - I did the camera whilst Ollie held the light and Louis acted. We all listened to each others ideas and when one of us told the other to do something, we would do it. Ollie would make one scene extra dark to create even more suspension, and would be lighter for more important shots, such as close ups to see the characters confusion etc.

Overall, I'm very happy with how it went. Although there were a few problems, we overcame them/will overcome them with the editing, and it will seem as if nothing's wrong. However, I would've filmed the whole thing at night time if I were to change anything, as there was a lot of editing to do due to this.