Friday 19 February 2010

Tuesday 26 January 2010

Film Diary - My Perspective

Monday 18th January 2010
Today we borrowed my friend's car to create the illusion of Mr Jones being a regular man getting to work by car. We filmed Mr Jones getting out of the car by two different angles, Sophie filmed him coming towards the camera. I filmed Mr Jones walking away from the camera, we decided to use Sophie's shot as it gave off a better effect.

We also filmed Katie's scene's watching Mr Jones from the school gates, we only did this from one angle. Firstly we filmed her hands then shot up to her face with a brand new shot. Overall this day went well and we got the shots within the first go, the weather also was rather dreary adding a better effect to the scenes.

Tuesday 19th January 2010

Today myself, Sophie and Jo created 'the wall' with many pictures and knick-knacks such as bus tickets and receipts. The wall was built in the spare bedroom of my house. We considered taking pictures of the wall, but then decided against this due to there being no movement. From this decision we filmed the wall for seconds at a time, slowly getting closer and closer to a picture of Mr Jones.

Wednesday 20th January 2010
As the group and Jennifer (who plays Katie) had finished school early we went to my house to film her bedroom scenes. These scenes include Katie's mother slamming the door and Katie's outburst. We tested screaming techniques, with having Jo scream whilst the door was slammed, then Jennifer herself screaming. We finally decided on having Jennifer scream, whilst the door slammed, but I would be filming her outburst. I filmed Jennifer pushing objects off of a table whilst Sophie filmed the door, after these moments we moved to continue filming Katie's outburst.

Along with these scenes, Sophie and I created fake blood for the very final scene where Katie is holding a knife. We used tomato ketchup, icing sugar, red food colouring and water to create this illusion of blood. This scene was very successful as Jennifer was very patient with the coldness of the fake blood and also the scene itself. Sophie filmed this scene whilst me and Jo helped to make suggestions along the way.

Thursday 21st January 2010
Today the classroom shots were filmed; we used a science room in school to give off the best school-like effect. All star pupil actors were asked to wear a plain white shirt, as that is all would have been seen in the scene itself. The plain white shirts would give the effect as though they were in fact students at the school. The filming for this particular scene went very well and we were all pleased with the outcome.


Friday 22nd January 2010
We filmed in the evening at my house, once again, for the scene of Mr Jones and friend. We did not follow the script for this scene as we wanted it to look as natural as possible, although it took a while to get a good shot. Overall we were pleased with the final outcome of these shots and the whole scene looked really quite natural, which we had hoped for.
We also filmed Mr Jones walking into his house in his work clothes, then him again coming out in his casual clothes. Thankfully we had filmed this scene just within time as our camera's had run out of battery due to the other scene filmed.

Tuesday 2nd February 2010
Myself, Sophie and Jo had all agreed to refilm the scene with Mr Jones and friend due to the lack of light within the shot. Compared to all our other scenes, this one did not look as sharp and clear as the others. It had looked almost as though we just put it in there for the minutes. Unfortunately I was ill for this filming, so I was not there to witness how well it went.

Props

The main prop we used was the knife at the end of the two minute film, this was one of my kitchen knives and we used it in my house for the last scene with Katie. Other props we used included fake blood which myself and Sophie created using tomato ketchup, icing sugar, water and red food colouring.

Other props included a tea towel during the beginning of the film where we had refilmed the scene of Mr Jones talking to his friend. We also used a car for our opening scene and a wall full of printed photo's throughout the entire film.

More information on these can be seen on the group blog.

Similar Media Works

For our Similar Media Works powerpoint, I contributed to slides five, twelve, thirteen and fourteen. As well as helping Jo with one of her slides. On my slides I wrote about audience expectations, what the audience of a horror film expect and what they want whilst they are watching the film. As well as doing this slide I wrote summaries of three different horror films and details of these specific films. To begin with I was only meant to create two of these slides, but in the end the group decided to create another slide on a film, I said I would do this. I chose to do 'The Blair Witch Project.'
Doing this helped create our film because we then knew that extra bit of information as to what the generics of horror were and the wide range of them.

Our Similar Media Works powerpoint can be seen on the group blog.

Filming Update

We have finished filming all our scenes this week, and next week we will start editing. Overall I feel the filming was successful within every scene we have created. Editing next week will include cutting shots, adding music and putting in transitions. I feel it will go well with equal opportunities to edit alone and together.

Shot List

I created the shot list for our film 'Peephole' whilst with both Sophie and Jo. We created the shot list by basing it on the shot list used for our horror remake, we used similar titles for each column. These included scene, shot number and also location. Whilst making our shot list we decided to film most scenes either at my house or at school, due to them both being so close and a reasonable distance to get to.

Our shot list can be viewed on the group blog.

Costumes

As a whole group, we had firstly decided that Katie would be a school girl, so she would be wearing uniform for half of our film. Outside school we decided Katie would wear simply jogging bottoms and a t-shirt, we did not want her outfit to stand out and be the audience's main focus. We wanted the audience to focus on her expressions and body language.

For Mr Jones we all decided he would be a teacher, so he would be wearing the usual teacher 'uniform'. For example suits and shirts, with smart shoes, but outside school he would be more casual. I imagined Mr Jones to be in jeans a t-shirt, as did the rest of the group.

All information on our characters costumes can be seen on the group blog.