Due to the covid restrictions and exams, we didn’t have a lot a chances to go to the school and get footage, this was a major flaw in the project. The footage wasn’t good and the audio quality was awful. The dates when we filmed was around April and February of 2022. On the first try we did most of the transition cuts such as the staircase one. Later we did the dialog and finally we did the theatre scene.
My scheduling wasn't great, and Myryl had a complex schedule which caused less meet-ups with Myryl to shoot the scenes. The filming sessions were long, around 5-6 hours for each shooting session, and we did five of them in total.
Myryl and Erykah did the acting. I did the lighting and filming. Myryl mostly contributed in the acting, sound editing and storyboarding. I did the script writing, filming, editing, colour grading, sound editing and planning. A lot of the shots didn’t work due to the equipment and skill limitation.
We started on November 18th 2021, at that time we didn’t have a script. However, the scenery was great outside, with thick fog. We decided to do some trial shooting. We used footage from that day in our opening of the coursework. Which, was utilised to establish the mood for the film.
We altered from our script a lot, because we understood that the foggy day was a one time thing. And we couldn’t replicated the scenery, this was a shame as it meant we couldn’t really use any of the footage, or else it will be confusing. We also didn’t do the classroom shot with the school noticing that Diana is missing. This decision was made mostly because we couldn’t gather enough people so that it looked like a regular classroom. The dream shot was altered, due to Myryl’s personal reasons, and instead replaced by the theatre shot, which was a great substitution.
In the theatre shot, I wanted the supernatural side of Elise to be revealed so I created a symmetrical shot, with no distracting elements in the shot. This was intentionally done to allow the viewer to specifically focus on the supernatural aspect of Elise, and the denotation of the murder of Diana, represented through the glitching teddy bear.
(me setting up the lighting for the theatre shot)
For the scene where Elise was walking down the stairs, Myryl was doing the lighting and I did the camera work. Myryl was walking down the stairs while holding the lights and I was taking the video while walking down the stairs. Myryl warned me that this was a dangerous way to shoot the scene because I couldn't see my steps, but I promised everything would be ok. The difficult part of the shot was, I had to keep up with Myryl’s footsteps and simultaneously walk down the stairs while focusing on the camera. This had to be a handheld because there was no space between the wall and the stair railing. I almost fell once, but the footage was worth it.
I think for thriller horror genre, a minimum crew of 3 people would be thee best. As two people was too hard to control or create settings. I think overall the shooting wasn’t very successful, which also caused the motivation to fall. I didn’t have a lot of desire to edit the footage because it didn’t look as I planned. However, I tried my best at the parts that I really liked (the theatre shots).
Comments