Account of Shoot Day

Account of our Shoot Day

On Thursday 21st, we had our shoot day for our horror/thriller film. When we arrived at the studio we were very nervous and unsure of how our day would progress.

We set up how we wanted the set to be and Tom suggested. To create the right mise-en-scene and make the set look realistic, we added wax candles to the table and put them on nails in the floor. We also put a bit of mud and a few leaves over Alabama’s white dress and over the white bed sheets to give them an older looking effect. We created this mise-en-scene in order to relate more to our target audience of fans of the horror/thriller genre. An example of a film which gave us inspiration was ‘The Ring’.

As our actors arrived to the studio we made them feel comfortable and then I took the girl ‘Alabama Jackson’ to put on makeup to make her look pale and really tired and drained. I put very light foundation over her face and dark brown eye liner around her eyes. I also knotted her hair by backcombing it to look more realistic and as if she had been there for a couple of days. This is to reinforce the horror/thriller genre of film which we were making, as this is stereotypical of the look of this kind of film. An example of this is in the films ‘The Orphanage’ and ‘The Ring’ where they use young girl to this effect. Then we walked them through what was supposed to happen in the thriller.

The aims of our shoot were to get the shots done in good time to deadline. Also, to get Alabama Jackson to act for us, this was difficult as she had school; however we were very lucky as she could take a day off of school. Lastly, and very importantly, we wanted our group to work well and cooperate with each other as it would have been a disaster without this. Tom was the main cameraman, Storm was the main director assisted by Steph and I was on lighting and helping with Alabama rehearse as she was so young she needed additional help.

Our major location was the studio, as we thought this might create the right mise-en-scene for our horror/thriller. However we also used the interior location of Hurtwood Corridor trap door and an exterior location of Leith Hill. We used the locations to create greater suspense and as they fitted with the gothic look we wanted. The shooting during the studio was done to deadline, and in the Hurtwood trap door, it helped us create the additional level of suspense needed for our thriller.

However, by the time we had got to the exterior of Leith Hill it had got a bit darker than we would have liked. However, we are going to look back at the footage and re-shoot another evening if necessary.

Our casting went well however, on the day of the shoot we were unsure whether we would be able to use Alabama Jackson, however, this was not a problem, even though she was our preferred actress, we had a back up actress of a girl in the school. Props issues consisted of the candles burning out very quickly, therefore having to replace them with the right size candle to fit in with the sequence. Also, the floor of the set had nothing on it and therefore in order to create the right mise-en-scene required for our thriller to create suspense we furnaces our set with props suitable for our target audience of horror fans. These included, grotty carpet, candles, rope a table and some dirty sheets.

The technical equipment we used was a PD 170 camera and two batteries, a mini tape, a tripod, two rubber tracks, a monitor and a lighting booth. As a group we set up the equipment all together. Tom was the main cameraman although I filmed a few shots including the Hurtwood trap door; however, I was very nervous. I also operated a lot of the lighting, which I found difficult because I had to remember how light or dark the set was in the previous shot on our storyboard. When Tom, Storm and Steph were discussing the major tracking shot, I put the tracks down.

We did not follow our story board completely as on the day we came up with additional ideas which we thought were better, more effective and would finally be more successful. These included using the candles in the way we did. Extra candles created the right ambience and additional low level lighting that we felt would benefit our thriller as they added an element of suspense. (We were originally only going to use one for Berika to hold but ended up putting them everywhere). We also didn’t do the part of the storyboard where Alabama looked like she wet herself as we thought that this could be found more comic than a thriller and she may find it uncomfortable to do this because she is only 10 years old.

One particular situation occurred, just before finishing in the Studio, Luke decided to take the candles off of the nails they were on. As Alabama went back onto set to shoot again, she forgot they were there, ran across them and really hurt herself.

This set us back in time a lot and therefore the exterior shots of Leith Hill were hard to get as it was getting much darker and the drive there was about 10 – 15 minutes. We only spent a short time there but looking at the footage, we got the shots we needed to get. We used an establishing shot and wide shot of Berika walking up to the building as we felt that this set up the right image which was typical of the thriller/horror genre and reminded us of the film ‘The Others’ which is another thriller that would appeal to the same target audience of us which was 15 – 24 year olds, mainly working class and middle class males.

We learnt from the accident which happened and we need to focus more on health and safety next time. It was similar to our preliminary task in some ways such as it was a good experience. But in general it was very because it was much more advanced as everyone had to be on the ball the whole time and know exactly what was going it. It took a lot more planning as we had a lot to organize. I think everyone worked very effectively and we enjoyed working well as a group because everyone listened to each others ideas and contributed to make our product the best we could.