Shooting: Lizzie's House and the Campfire

Daniel, Clare and I all went to Lizzie's house for filming with her and her brother, Matthew. We filmed the sequence of Eve and her Mother's "Goodnight" and then we were filming the shots when the folder is discovered by Haden and missing from Michael's group. We also filmed the campfire sequence, which Sam arrived later for. While we were there we had some new ideas and improvised as well.

We first filmed the sequence with Eve's mum disappearing and Alfie discovering the empty kitchen. We deviated from the storyboard in that, rather than have the dramatic shot of the door, we had Lizzie's mum walk out of frame and then recorded the sound of a spoon falling out of her hand. This is so we could edit them together so as Eve's mother walks out of the shot you would hear the spoon drop to the ground. We filmed the sequence between Haden and Selene when he knocks the magazine out of her hand. The shot was filmed from a variety of angles in order to have a good selection when editing, there is a compilation of these shots below.

We then had a break for lunch in which time we talked about which shots to film next.

After Lunch we filmed the scenes with Haden's discovery of the folder and Eve realising the folder was missing. We decided to use Lizzie's storage room so it looked like a lot of things were there and it seemed like a good place to find the folder. We filmed without using a tripod and did a tracking shot of Lizzie (as Eve) coming down the stairs to find the folder missing, we filmed without a tripod to get a more fluid movement and also we took influence from the Hunger Games (dir. Gary Ross 2012) cinematography which was mainly made up of handheld/steadycam. After we had filmed Michael's group searching for the folder, we then filmed Haden and Selene finding the folder (this happens before Eve searches for it in the narrative though). We made a shot of Haden's (my) hand picking up the folder as an improvisation and we added movement to the shot we had storyboarded of Haden reading the folder, so the camera had a close-up of the folder then travelled upwards to me reading it.

Sam arrived and we started to make our campfire set-up in Lizzie's garden. We dragged some large logs near a wooded area and then put them next to each other, in front of which we made a ring of rocks and inside the ring we piled firewood and newspaper. We lit the newspaper and had to sustain the fire through the filming. The fire would occasionally dim but by the end it had become rather bright especially when we were losing the daylight. We added in a few handheld pans of the group as well as doing the storyboarded conversation between Eve and Michael. Lana was originally going to be having the conversation with Michael, but Hannah was not available to film and we felt that Eve would be a more appropriate person for Michael to talk to in the trailer.

We also added in a shot of Eve comforting her brother Alfie. This involved her reaching across to him (he was on the other log) but the way the shot is framed it looked as if she was reaching over the fire. This has semiotic meaning that she would go across fire to protect her brother. Then we put the fire out and then made our way to the gates on Lizzie's drive-way. We had Lizzie and her brother run up to and through the gate (in one take) and then in another take, we had them slamming the gate shut, together. The final shot was of them continuing running up the driveway afterwards.

We then had some ideas of shots with torches, Selene and Haden searching for Michael's group in the house. So we turned all of the lights off and me and Clare were filmed coming up the stairs with the torches and along the landing (handheld again). I liked the idea of the torch light blinding directly into the camera (I was influenced by the TV series Supernatural) and it also gave a sense of point of view as well. We did this again in Lizzie's room, Clare and I were filmed entering the room with the torchlight sweeping about. We then filmed the exact sequence again except I had the camera so it was a point of view from Haden, looking for Michael's group.

Going downstairs Lizzie, Matthew and I went into a small room and turned off the light, we then tried to get the shot with her and her brother when she blows out the match. It took a few attempts because the camera struggled to focus in the low light, and someone accidently turned on the light in the middle of filming. But, we got a selection of shots, that we were confident would be included in the trailer.

Our final filming involved the sequence that came first in the trailer. Lizzie got into her pyjamas and her mum put a dressing-gown over her clothes and we set about filming the "goodnight" scene. It took a few takes to get the looking through the door shot just right. Sometimes the door wasn't opened enough. We got a few variations of the hug between Eve and Eve's mother (Lizzie and her Mum). We also did some alternate shots of the folder, with a zoom and without a zoom, this was so we could decide in post production which was most effective. After that it was a wrap (well for that day).

 






















The day of filming at Lizzie's house was the day that included the most dialogue, so made a script to go through the day, although we weren't afraid to modify it in parts to make it sound more natural on the day

Below is a gallery of photos that were taken behind the scenes on that day of filming:

Filming the scenes with Eve's Mother and Alfie:

Selene's make-up:

 Filming the scenes of Haden and Selene with the magazine:

Filming the search for the folder:

Filming and making of the Campfire scene:

 Putting the Fire out and heading to film the Alfie and Eve run through the gate shot:

Lastly we finished our day of filming with the beginning sequence of our trailer with Eve and her Mother's goodnight scene: