Day 6 Evaluation

• Day 6's filming was for the shots of Harry and Tara before they disappear.
•  As we'd struggled to organise a time for both Harry and Tara to film in Hextable, we decided to change our location to a local woods in Bexley. This meant we could travel from school to save time.

Master shot: a long shot of Harry and Tara's characters walking along the river. 

• Because the area was muddy, Tara struggled to walk naturally. Therefore we both the action further over where the ground was more solid.
• We tried the shot several times to ensure the actors were believeable as boyfriend and girlfriend and his created the right atmosphere i.e. smiling, holding hands

Tracking shot: Harry walking and turning around to see Tara has disappeared

• We tried this various times with me and Amy Chenzo filming to ensure Harry was kept in frame and the camera turned at the right angle to be effective and believable.
• On occasions, Harry walked to quick so we changed ours and his pace as well as how many steps he walked before we recorded the shot

Long shot: from across the river as Tara stops to tie her shoelace

• We shot this last as it required us to be on the other side of the river
• We place the camera in different positions between trees so we could see branches. This hints at a POV shot from something hiding watching them
• We tried this several times to make the actors look natural and be in frame

I think this was the best filming day as we were efficient, in a good impromptu location and the shots we took were extremely effective.

Daisy Edwards 

Day 5 Evaluation

Exterior Location: Hextable

• For the fifth shooting day, we travelled to our exterior location in Hextable to shoot Frankie and Lewis' disappearances. We organised to film Harry and Tara’s sequence also, however Tara was unavailable for the time of filming last-minute.

• We started with Frankie at the bus stop. Her character would simply be waiting for a bus before it's implied that she's disappeared. We'd suggest this through use of camera angles and editing. 

• We started with a long shot of Frankie to emphasise her isolation and vulnerability showing her role as the victim. 

• Contrasting this, we tried close-ups and extreme close-ups of her face to feel intrusive and make the audience feel uncomfortable.

• We had to try various positions and exposure levels as her face appeared too bright and we couldn't see her features. We also had problems with continuity as Frankie was wearing different jewellery so we had to review our footage and just in case there were any significant issues we filmed the same shot again. 

• We wanted an eerie POV shot so Amy C tried a handheld shot to appear it's a person creeping around the bus stop. Frankie then rips her earphones out and looks round as if she hears something. 

• While this was being filmed, I filmed an establishing shot of the road. This was in order to set the scene and show some sort of normality and equilibrium.

• We moved to the lane to film Lewis as if he was walking down listening to music. 
We aimed to avoid many shots from Lewis from the front as we had to replace the hoodie he was wearing as we forgot to bring the original on the day. 

• We had a long, static shot with Lewis entering the shot and continuing to walk down the lane. 

• We tried shots through branches, equivalent to the POV looking at Frankie at the bus-stop. This was quite difficult as we couldn't go the other side of the hedge. Therefore we attempted to place the camera in amongst the twigs so they were in the front of the lens but we could still see the display to know what we were filming. 

• As this showed Lewis from afar walking down the lane again, it was not so much of a problem to film the front of his hoodie especially if it's going to be cut short in editing.

• We felt that we needed another POV shot just in case the last didn’t work. We though a handheld POV as if someone was following someone would be effective; even more so as we opted for an extreme close-up of the back of his head before he spins around toward the camera looking like he’s heard someone behind him. This close-up is extremely intrusive and therefore is uncomfortable viewing for the audience. It creates tension, reflecting the atmosphere felt by the characters. 

• We tried this a few times as it was difficult to frame Lewis’ head in such a close-up shot as well as trying to keep the same pace when following him.

• We managed to get the shots we wanted fairly quickly therefore it was a successful shooting day. 

Daisy Edwards

Day 2 Evaluation

• The second day of filming consisted of more shots for the dungeon location as well as re-filming of shots from the first shooting day.
• We focused firstly on the master shot and other shots that focus on all actors gathered around the table. We thought that this was important to get done as it involved all the actors being available. 
• We started with a static shot of Amy sitting with the characters but we thought it would look more threatening if she were standing above them, demonstrating her power. 
• We then tried a moving shot that sweeps through the food towards Amy on the table level and then tilts up to her face, which further demonstrates her power. 
• Originally we attempted to look at the victim’s faces as the camera swept past, however this movement didn’t look natural.
•  Another shot of Amy we tried was a hand-held zoom from the master shot position towards Amy’s smiling face. We thought this shot would look good at increased speed to create a crazed, psychotic effect.

• We looked to film close-ups of the victims at the table. 
• We started with a two-shot of two victims each side of the table, firstly Frankie and Lewis and then Harry and Tara for which we wanted them to look drained and scared. 
• We then tried a single close-up of Lewis waking up. This went well as the acting was adequate and the shots will be quick so the acting won’t be focused on.

• Next, we moved on to re-filming the scene where Harry gets hammered in his eye. Tara replaced me (Daisy) as the girl, as I was not happy with my acting. 
• The re-filming involved including Tara replacing me in the shots as well as adding more to create more dramatic effect and add more to the story. 
• We made Tara look like she’d been pushed into the shot by Amy, but the majority of the rest of the shots were the same.
•  We changed the way the hammer was moved as when we reversed it in editing, it didn’t look natural as it was too quick. 
• We also had an after shot of Harry’s eyes covered in fake blood dripping.

• We also filmed more shots of Frankie’s torture including:

·         Amy pulled Frankie’s head up by her hair with both of them in the shot

·         Close-ups of Amy having the motion of cutting into Frankie’s face with a sharper knife

• I thought that it would be interesting to have Frankie look as if she’s spitting at Amy in anger, for which she took a mouthful of water.
•  We re-filmed shots using the ‘Smile’ make-up, too. 
• When we filmed extreme close-ups of the make-up, the lighting didn’t look scary or manic enough so we decided to have no lighting except a white fast-paced strobe light, which had a flashing effect. 

• Overall, this filming day went very well and it was a lot more efficient than the first day. This is because we planned more thoroughly for exactly what shot we wanted and allowed for more experimentation which meant less time was wasted.

Daisy Edwards