pre-production test shoot

Test Shoot

Last week we went off in our groups to find a location and film a test shoot for our opening sequence. We found a really good location for the tent section of our opening sequence in the woods. We didn’t have any of our props (tent) which is obviously a vital part to the scene but I feel as though we worked well with what we had.

We had to shoot the whole thing on my iPhone so obviously the camera work was shaky and it wasn’t nearly as good quality as we hope the final product to be. We focused it on the shot types and came up with loads of different ideas as to how we could manipulate our surroundings to our benefit and take advantage of everything around us.

Despite our efforts, the footage we did have didn’t turn out too great as a lot of the good shots got lost on my phone because it ran out of storage which was very frustrating, so we decided to try again in a different location. We then focused on the bath scene at the beginning and end of the opening sequence and to do this we went up and used the bath in Hurtwood House. This was not a very accurate representation of what we would hope for the bathroom to look like in the real thing. This went well however it wasn’t exactly what we would hope it would turn out to be, but it is only a test shoot and it gave us an accurate idea as to how we would film it and the sort of angles we are looking for so it was helpful in that respect.

first main pitch

Pitching to Mike

Last Friday as groups we had to pitch our initial idea to Mike to get a second opinion on our idea and it allows us to get an even more accurate idea of what will be possible within our idea. Hearing the feedback Mike gave to other groups before ours was also helpful in regards to our own ideas and I feel being able to hear the other group’s ideas was also helpful and it is interesting to hear what the other groups are doing. We described the basic outline of the opening sequence, beginning with the woman in the bath scene and then describing the tent flashback scene and eventually coming back to the woman in the bath scene. Throughout the description Mike listened and then when we were done, without including any of the technical aspects, we got out feedback from Mike. What he told us was extremely helpful and he gave us ideas too. He mentioned that we have combined two different ideas in a way that makes it much too complex and we need to pick one of these ideas. This we knew would be difficult as both of the ideas were really good and we all really liked both of them.

Despite this, we further developed our idea and came up with an idea. To begin with, the woman will be in the bath in her clothes and as the camera focuses on her face, you can hear faint screams in the background which appear to be coming from the inside of her mind. As she goes under the water she will lie there for a while. She will then try to get her head outside of the water (at this point the camera will be focused on her face) and as she attempts to get up, the camera zooms out where there is a hand on her throat and she begins to panic and scream and at one point the camera will be under the water looking up at a blurry figure which appears to look like the protagonist herself. At this point I think it will be fun to play around with sound as we could do  muffled scream coming from the protagonist and it will be interesting to get the sound right. The woman then bursts out of the water and begins to pant, she looks around the room and it becomes apparent that there is no one else in the bathroom. She is completely alone.

The full storyline is that the woman is schizophrenic and keeps having visions of being murdered by herself. This is due to the immense guilt she feels from killing her friend on a camping trip, however she is so in denial about this that she has blanked out any memory of what happened that night.