Filming- Part Three (8th March)

Today we continued to film scenes for our opening sequence- aiming to keep to our film schedule and finish filming by the end of the lesson ready to film on Friday. Unfortunately we do still have a part that we need to film however we will do this in a free period we have on Friday before the lesson and will not lose out on anytime. The group worked well together today and this is the first lesson where everything started to slot into place and come together. At the start of the lesson we went off to film straight away to ensure we had the maximum amount of time possible. Today we filmed scenes of Me and Sophie playing a couple walking together in through a field. This scene will be cut to at several points between shots of the photo panning sequence we filmed last week and as explained previously will make up a montage/ proglogue style opening of past victims of the killer. We chose a field as it is a realistic place for a couple to take a nice walk together and a place where someone can easily watch them without being seen. Fields are often places were people are took and killed elsewhere. The first shots we took were of Me and Sophie walking along a path using a long shot, occassionally zooming in. We tried this from several angles so we can edit them together so you see the shot from different views. These shots where the camera would be 'invisible' and not a point of view shot of the killer. To ensure the acting was as realistic as possible I told Andrew and Josh to not tell us when they had started filming therefore we started acting as soon as we set off along the path. This technique seems to have been successful.

Here are shots of the location in which filmed this first part of the scene:

Originally they filmed us walking and sitting down on the grass however this did not look very natural so we tried again and instead walked from the path to a fence (which you can see slightly in the images above) and get up and sit on it. However this took too much time so we settled with me leaning against the fence whilst Sophie stood in front of me. This is a typical position for a couple to stand in and hug. Again this was filmed from different angles to add varitation, make it interesting and show our understanding of different shots and our ability to edit them together. The shots we took were a long shot continuing from us walking down the path, a long shot from the side rather than the front seeing the fence in the shot before we stop near it, a close up of me and you see the back of Sophie whilst leaning against the fence and a close up of Sophie and you see the back of me whilst leaning against the fence. Close ups allow the audience to see our facial expressions, particularly as Sophie starts to notice something in the bushes- building up tension. We filmed against the fence because directly behind it was longer grass, lots of trees and bushes and this would where the killer would be watching from.

Here are a variety of images of us filming this sequence and examples of the different shot types:

We then filmed an idea me and Sophie had in the planning stage- a shot where the camera is on the victims- the couple, from the perspective of the killer watching them- as if it was his camera filming them. Andrew filmed this shot and moved behind a tree create the effect of the killer moving to avoid being seen as Sophie starts to starts to notice something in the bushes behind her whilst she is hugging me. Then when he has been spotted he drops the camera and runs towards them. This will be cut with the close ups and shots we filmed earlier. This is an effective and skillful shot that creates a sinister effect however it was difficult to film as we had to make it look like the camera had actually been dropped by the killer without actually dropping it because the fall would damage it. It needed to fall in a way that looked realistic and land on an angle. I told Andrew to shake the camera fast and jerky while bringing it down to the ground and drop it when it is just centimetres away from the floor over one of the tree trunks. Therefore it could land on an angle and the shaking makes it hard to see what is happening- giving the effect that it had fallen. We filmed this three times so we could choose the best one. In one of the takes when the camera was dropped the footage actually went fuzzy and cut to the footage we were recording over for a second. This was an effect we created by mistake and actually looked effective as it was so quick you could not actually see what was on screen and it could have been what the killer previously had recorded. We decided to use that version of the shot.

The image above shows the location Me and Sophie found behind the field and thought it would be an excellent place to film like a chase or running sequence as the couple try to escape from the killer after he dropped the camera and ran after them. We took several shots of Me and Sophie running from out of the bushes and looking frantically where to go before running past the camera. This was done with a long shot so you could see all of our bodies and the surroundings and a pan was used to follow us as we ran- the pan gave a sense of being trapped and the effect of the characters having to keep moving. Andrew then filmed an extreme close up of the lower part of Josh's body as the the stalker walked slowly hunting his prey. This would contrast with the fast moving of the victims and would create tension as the predator hunted it's prey while his identity remains hidden. Overall, a great lesson where we filmed some great footage with a variety of shot types and in a well chosen location. The group has a better idea of where our Opening is going now as our ideas are more focused. We aim to finish filming in our free period before the lesson on Friday where will film the end of the other victims' (Andrew) story which we started last Friday.