Filming diary

16/11/14 – Today we began our filming for our horror trailer. We chose to begin our initial shots at the local community hall because we wanted to ensure there was lots of people around and available to help. In the first shot (the happy birthday scene) we gathered everyone around in order to make the scene realistic of Maddie and her family. One problem we encountered with this was what shot angle to use. This was a problem because although we wanted to get everyone possible into the shot to fill it out we weren’t able to get one half of the kitchen in the shot because it didn’t look like an actual kitchen. This side consisted of health and safety signs and warnings, which you wouldn’t have in your own home. We overcame this by picking the corner of the room preventing the unwanted side being in the shot, we also chose a low angle so it maximised the amount of people we could fit in the scene. We also filmed a few other scenes, this is because we wanted to keep the consistency of the same kitchen throughout, and it wouldn’t fit if the kitchen location changed in the trailer. Character wise, we wanted the same motherly figure. The ‘mum’ who brought out Maddie’s cake is also used again in a new shot of when Maddie answers the door and the mum chases her out. One problem we faced when trying to film this shot was that the volume of Maddie’s voice was too loud in the clip considering she was supposed to be at the door. However if Maddie stood at the door her voice wasn’t heard. We overcame this by placing Maddie just outside the door and ensuring the mother spoke loud and clear so that there was a contrast between who was near and who wasn’t. We also had to reshoot this shot a few times as we weren’t happy, and realised something was not right.At first we wanted the mum to step back and looked shocked or scared when Maddie said her dad was at the door, however when thinking about this concept, we realised that Maddie’s mum wouldn’t just look scared if her paedophile dad came to the house. Due to this we reshot it until we were happy with the reaction that the mother should give, this resulted in the character screaming Maddie’s name and running as fast as possible out the door. We felt this gave the true effect of what we were aiming for. On the way home from the community hall we decided to get a few shots in the car, we felt this could give off the impression of when Maddie gets taken as if she’s being driven away. As it was night this gave a haunted effect as the headlights were the only source of light. We did have to repeat this shot a few times as were it was a handheld shot and the car was moving it was often out of focus. Also we had to ensure that you couldn’t see the camera or us in the reflection of the windscreen, as it would ruin the whole illusion. We managed to overcome this however, as we found the correct focus point within the camera and leant the edge of the lens on the dashboard keeping it still.

17/11/14 – Today we changed the location for the filming and used the main location – the house – to complete more of the filming in. Some of the most crucial scenes would be recorded here, as this was where we decided to make the primary set. The first shot we wanted to focus on was the shot of maddie running out of the house. We had a clear idea of what we wanted the shot to look like, we just were unsure of the method to complete this. We wanted to focus on the camera on the feet and let it pan through the corridor, in order to do this we needed to place the camera on a moveable object. We chose to use a tripod with a fluid head, which allowed us to create the smooth pan movement. This gave the quirky angle emphasising the horror theme. However we did struggle slightly on finding the correct tension on the fluid head in order to create the correct speed for the desired atmosphere. To overcome this, we were able to shoot this multiple times until we filmed the one we wanted to use. Another shot we filmed was from the upstairs of the house, we found a location out of the spare bedroom window, when using a wide lens we were able to view a large proportion of the environment and view from the window. One shot we filmed from here was leaving the large bear in the middle of the road; this gave a sense of mystery and made the audience question, why? Although only little and not a large problem, we did find a problem with leaving the bear in the road considering it is road many cars were passing and the bear was in the way. One of us had to stand down in the road (but out of the shot) so that the bear could be moved if a car came. Fortunately it was a small country road so the chance of a car coming was minimal. Another shot we took from the same location was of maddie running out of the door and down the street. This was to link the shot of maddie running out of the house into where she was running too. We filmed it so that we could edit it in so as the door opens and maddie steps out it cuts to maddie stepping out the door on the other side. This helps the story line as it makes the trailer more continual and flow better. It was necessary for us to film this shot again, multiple times until it looked completely realistic. We had to ensure that maddie was running all the way out of the shot so we don’t see her stopping whilst we could still see her. We also had her running out with the bear however the shot it is cutting from in the house is maddie without a bear, this means the trailer has little continuity so we had to change this to make the trailer flow structurally.