OUR FIRST DAY OF FILMING - 12/12/11
Yesterday we managed to film 4 of our locations.
- The office for our male office worker character's back story (featured above)
- Chloe's House for our pregnant Christian teen back story
- Bullied teen walking through Churchill park
- Bullied teen introduced in the Brighton sea front location
* We experimented with lighting and managed to get a good ambient (known as available lighting on Wikipedia) effect using the windows and blinds in the office.
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| An example of available lighting where no extra lighting is used only that is provided naturally |
* We originally were going to use some electric lights that we had hired out for this scene but decided when using them that it made the small room much too bright for for the mood we were trying to portray.
* In terms of costume when I played the role of the office worker I wore a cream office shirt and tie as these would connote the area of work my character was in and also alongside the desk connote my sense of power and authority my job held. These clothes were also as plain as possible so they may depict the look of a stereotypical office worker.
* In terms of props we used the computer and stationary already in the office to also depict the environment my character worked in.
* In terms of continuity editing we filmed several shots from differing angles where my character is moving down to open draws and look out windows. This means that when it comes to the editing stages we are able to cut these differing angles together to produce a successful match on action (this is a link to an Internet glossary of media terms) of me opening draws and looking out of windows.
After the office scenes were filmed we filmed at Chloe's house in her bathroom to film the pregnant Christian teen scenes. (Below)
* The mirror also was used as it has a central partition going down the middle of it. This partition was used because it splits our female protagonists face in two. This can be said to represent the two options that face her, to follow her religion or to have the baby.
* In terms of continuity editing we filmed our character discarding the pregnancy test out of shot. We then filmed the test falling into shot so that audience are able to establish her fear of pregnancy. This meant we had to make sure the test fell in a way that meant continuity was not broken
* In terms of body language our female protagonist is later positioned sitting on the floor of the bathroom. This combined with fearful facial expression connotes a feeling of desperation and disbelief.
* We decided to also use the ambient/natural lighting in the room because yet again such a small location meant that the electric lights were too bright for the room and for the mood that we wanted to portray.
* When the voice of her angry Dad asks her what she is doing we decided to have him our of shot from outside the bathroom making his voice off screen diegetic sound. This meant we could fully focus on the female character's reactions and so that as an audience we would be able to sympathise with her.
* In terms of props our female protagonist teen was wearing a Christian cross necklace that when she raises her head we see clearly. The necklace is golden in colour so we decided to use dark clothing, not only to set the mood, but also to make the cross stand out. Displaying the presence of her religion on her mind.
WE NEXT WENT TO BRIGHTON TO FILM THE SCENES NEEDED FOR OUR BULLIED TEEN BACKSTORY
* Due to our actor playing the bullied teen was only able to film on one day we decided the most practical option to get all of his scenes filmed was to film all the locations he was needed for in that one day.
* We decided to film his first shots at the sea front where our male protagonist would be sitting watching him. This would be the bullied teens shots establishing his character. (Below a shot from Google maps of the exact location on the sea front where we filmed these shots)
* We made sure for the bullied teen shots that we had several different takes of the same shot as it was unlikely we would be able to film with this actor again before the deadline. We made sure we had a many takes so that we had a lot of choice of the best shot when it came to editing.
* The sea front on a particularity cold day was very windy and we did not want our audio on takes to be drowned out by the wind getting into the microphone. We combated this by making sure the microphone was covered or sheltered so there would be minimal effect from the wind.
* This is a location we will be re visiting again and again to film the other characters in our film as our male protagonist encounters them all in the same place.
WE NEXT FILMED THE BULLIED TEEN 'CHASE' SCENES IN CHURCHILL PARK
* Stalker scenes and chase scenes are quite cliche in amateur films where a character may be followed in a park or wood.
* For our film we did not want to meet cliche's and our bullied teen appears to be being stalked in the park but however the audience are to find out he is not being stalked at all. Due to his constant bullying he believes he is being followed but this is only his paranoia.
* We used this location because the park is quite small and the compact area combined with our quick straight cuts (to be completed in the editing process) will give a claustrophobic atmosphere. This will really help to portray his paranoia and the effect his constant bullying has on him.
CONCLUSION
* In conclusion we did manage to successfully film footage that we all thought was particularily good and that we were pleased with.
* We managed to film the entirety of three back stories; Office worker, Pregnant Christian teen and bullied teen meaning we were significantly over the half way mark in terms of filming.
HOWEVER our day was not without it's faults and there were moment we thought we could have done better.
* We should have organised our day better knowing that our bullied teen actor was only available for the one day.
* Even though we did manage to get all of his scenes filmed it did mean that the filming was slightly rushed. Despite gathering good footage and several takes on each shot, if we had planned our day more we might have been able to film more efficiently.
We now are due to start filming the rest of our short film front he 16th onwards. We have loaded our rushes so far onto the network and are planning available dates to film for the coming weeks.
An informative post. This is an improvement, however, still feel you could get away from its repetitive format a little. Also sounds relatively successful re shooting footage. Really important to consider how you document the editing stage on your blog - look at my blog for advice on this.
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