Shooting: The Forest and Chase Scene

We wanted to secure a large section of our trailer. So we set up a day when everyone was available to film (which took some organising). Then we borrowed two baseball bats from the PE department and bought our own to customise with nails. The latter raised some issues. We knew that it would attract attention- a group of young people with baseball bats and one with nails in. So we agreed on the rule that whenever we were not recording a shot that required the bats, we would have them away in a bag.

On the day Daniel was already at my house (the agreed meeting place). We had decided to meet at my house because it was the closest to the nature reserve where we planned on filming. It was also directly close to fields which we also had planned on using. Lizzie had stayed at Clare's house (a short walk from mine) this was so she would not have to worry about travel but also so Lizzie could style Clare into her character Selene. We had agreed prior to filming that the girls in Michael's group should wear minimal or no make-up because they have been living in the forest and Selene should way a lot of make-up particularly dark eye make-up to add to the sophisticated villain image and to show that because Haden's group lived in the town she had access to her make-up.

After we had all assembled at my house, we gathered our equipment and made our way to the field for our first shots. Once we had the shots framed we did our first take which uncovered a problem: the mud. The mud of the field had a clay like consistency and to mine and Clare's horror from behind the camera Daniel's shoe came flying off and people struggled to run on the surface. We reset the camera and filmed again making sure everyone's shoes were secure. We gathered some bonus shots, because we thought the more you have to edit with, the better.

We came up with some bonus shots such as Haden's henchmen running past Haden and Selene in pursuit of Michael's group. We decided as well instead of the whole group jumping over the camera it would be more effective if it was after the split-up shot and it was Fiona jumping over the camera and the camera following after her. Likewise, when filming the tracking shot with Fiona we decided to frame it more tightly and this made it seem a lot more dramatic. Daniel also did an extra shot of Fiona fighting her way through the undergrowth as well. The shot was long but we knew it could prove useful when editing. Then came the shot of Fiona falling. We decided to have her falling in one shot so it was more dramatic and we got it on the first take. On reflection we should have made a few variations to choose from, but it seemed very natural and realistic so we were happy with it.

We then made our way to the tunnel which we had storyboarded. The tunnel had been considered for the making of our AS Opening to a Thriller: Parallel. But, it had gone unused and so we thought it would add visually to our trailer. Me and the rest of the bad group climbed down into the shallow stream and walked into the mouth of the tunnel ready to begin filming. We knew it would be difficult due to the slippery floor and the debris was also problematic. This coupled with the fact our shoes were filling with water meant we wanted to get the filming of the tunnel done as soon as we could.

We were filmed coming out of the tunnel twice, due to the fact that a started flailing my arms around the first time because I had tripped on some rubble. Daniel also got a bonus shot of us standing outside the tunnel with the camera doing a point-of-view shot looking out from behind a tree. We had not storyboarded the shot but we liked the idea so we did the shot. We made a few final shots of me saying the lines "Find them" we opted for just a close-up rather than the extreme close-up because we liked the fact you could see Clare and Alex lurking behind me.

We later found out that we had not recorded the best shot  of "Find Them" and so we had to use one of the other recordings of the shot due to time constraints.

Behind the Scenes:

I was influenced by The Road (dir. John Hillcoat 2009) trailer, to have a shot of Haden's group searching the forest for Michael's group using flaming torches, the camera would move down to reveal Michael's group hiding. I drew this sketch to explain the idea to my other group members. Lizzie and Daniel liked the idea but argued that they would probably use electric torches because there would be less people using supplies so they would be available (in the narrative) but also it would be a lot safer to film. We did not film this scene but we kept the idea of Haden's group searching for Michael and his group, to add to the drama of the film and the trailer.

Shooting: The empty road and Town Lanscape

We originally had scheduled to film the empty road location shot and the town skyline shots on the 6th of October. But due to issues of availability, we were unable to film so the filming was postponed till later.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Postponing the filming of these shots to 20th October, we then carried out the filming. I stayed around Daniels and we woke up around 4AM and then went to our location of filming. We stood on the bridge along the road and realized we could not fin how to adjust the tilt on the tri-pod. On top of this, some road works and flashing lights had taken up a spot on the road. So we had to go to the next bridge along. This was near a bend in the road which meant traffic could come at any time. So we had to wait till it became a little bit lighter and then began doing handheld tilts up. It took a few attempts and we took turns in warning whichever of us was on camera whether cars were coming.

 

After we felt we had enough shots, we began walking back to Daniel's house. On the way we walked through an empty and eerily quiet street. So we quickly got the camera out and filmed the street still, zooming-in and zooming-out. We felt this spontaneous filming would come in useful when it came to editing our trailer together in post-production.

 

Later in the day we met up with Lizzie in town to get the town shots done. We decided to do the skyline first. We went to the top of the multi-storey car park and filmed from inside out of the window. We all took it in turns to do a few pans. After this we went onto the roof level and again took it in turns to do a pan or a few. We were just about to move to another side of the roof level to get a shot of the industry on the skyline but the car park attendant approached us and told us that we would have to get a permit from the council in order to carry on filming. So, we politely began to leave, but attendant was still explaining how apparently some university students had also tried filming up there and the attendant had to call an "armed response team" to take them down. Doubtful and downtrodden we left the car-park. But, we knew there was another multi-storey car park. So we headed directly there, but when we arrived the Car park was already closing. We considered getting shots of the streets but, we thought we would have enough location shots already for editing so we wrapped up for the day.

 

This experience has taught me, that just because a place is public, it does not mean you can just film there. So in future I will know to see if I can access a location by getting a permit to film there.

 

I took the camera and equipment home, so the next day I went out to the forest area we were due to film and got some location shots there and I also planned on getting another shot of an empty road. However, the road was busy all day so I did not get any footage of the empty road but in the video below is the location footage from the forest.

 

 

Behind the Scenes Gallery:

 

 

 This was the bridge that we filmed the road shot from. This is the second bridge we filmed on, due to the first being near road-works and flashing lights, we had to move to get a clear shot of the road.

 

The Photo was taken near the street that we filmed the improvised location shot, we liked how the sky was getting lighter but also the street was still completely empty.

 

I took this photo, when we were filming from inside the multi-storey car park. We all took it in turns to get some pans of the skyline before going outside to get some from the other side of the building.

 

 

Prior to mine and Daniel's filming of the road shot and street shots, he had done some of his own location shots, that we could also utilise in our trailer, there is a compilation of these shots below.

 

Shooting: Making Ged Disappear and the Corridor Location Shot

We had to film, the sequence of Ged disappearing on two occasion. A relatively simple shot in principle, in practical it was a lot more complicated. The idea was for the camera to be in a dolly movement along the back of the lecture theatre. As the camera goes behind one of the heads of the students, Ged would quickly duck down and when the camera came from behind the student's head he would have disappeared.

 

 

This was very difficult in practice. Due to the fact that firstly- we do not have a dolly. So we overcame this decision with the idea of placing the camera onto some fabric (a hoodie usually) and then dragging the hoodie along one of the continuous back desks in the Lecture Theatre. Once we had solved this, another difficulty arose. Without a monitor for the camera, Ged could not see when to duck down out of the way. We resolved the issue by having Clare (who plays Selene) to give Ged a signal to duck.

 

We had to borrow classes of people to use in the lecture theatre and selected seats so the room looked as full as possible. We included Lizzie and Daniel (who play Michael and Eve) so the eagle-eyed audience member could see this was their teacher who disappeared.

 

Then, we had to find the right speed of the camera movement and perfect the timings for Ged to duck down. We re-arranged the formation of students in order to find a way to conceal Ged but the first day of shooting left us with no usable footage. So, we tried again another day and eventually we finally succeeded and gained a shot we could use.

 

The same day we decided to get a shot of an empty corridor. We chose the corridor because of the clinical quality of it- it could look like part of a hospital. Also, we knew the corridor was rarely used. We got a number of shots both zooming in and zooming out as well as fixed camera shots. We would decide which to use when editing.