behind the scenes

During our thriller shooting there were some things we did well such as, I felt like we had everything prepared in plenty of time to shoot so no time was wasted on set. Our group worked well together as we rotated rolls from being the director to camera to someone on sound etc. This gave each member of the group to try different activities and get more involved with the shooting. Our idea changed on set, despite this we all agreed on the new idea with no delay. We thought about where props should be set, thinking about how realistic it should look, for example we could not decide where to place the barbed wire however we then decided as a group to place it around the chair where the character will be sitting, this made him seem untouchable and placed in a dangerous territory.

In the long run changing our idea on set was for the best however we should have made our actors try on the costumes before hand to if anything was wrong with it there was time to change anything. So we should have been more organised so if we had changed our idea before hand we could have created another shot list to help us on set. However we managed without an updated shot list but we did use our original shot list for different scene we did not change.

In the afternoon we had to buy a white shirt from the co-operative in the clothes section, as the shirt we had ordered did not arrive in time for our shoot. The morning of the shoot we arrived in the studio earlier so we could get organised. We collected the rest of our costumes our school costume department. This was well organised as we had sent emails to the department discussing what we needed for our shoot.

We also organised a student to help us with the make-up for the main character, this was organised days in advanced so I could send her photos of exactly what I wanted.

We brought all our props to the set where we were filming and trying deciding as a group where they should all good, this took quite a long time as we all had different decisions, but we soon came to an agreement. Once we were on set the lighting took the most time because it had to be adjusted so our actor was well lit and in sight, highlighting some of their features. Once all our lighting was sorted we made some small adjustments for example to barbed wire around the chair was originally in a pile next to it. We were then happy with our set, however once we began to film and look through the lens of the camera props were adjusted, as it looked slightly different.

During the shoot a lot of time taken up involved telling the actors what to do and placing then in the correct position, then changing the lighting according to their placement on set. The most difficult element of the shooting was changing one of our characters due to what he was wearing, as it did not fit the roll he was meant to be playing at all, so he changed from a hero to a villain. However are group was very happy with this change as it helped our thriller become more dramatic and exciting.

The most enjoyable part of shooting for me was filming scenes in slow motion on the camera and I loved watching back our end product and feeling the excitement and tension from a 4 second piece of footage. I loved being in control when we rotated rolls and I became the director, called people in and shouting so the actor could hear me from outside.

I think as a group we collaborated well especially the day of the shoot, we all worked well together by rotating rolls and giving each other new ideas as we went along. I am really happy with what we achieved the day of our shoot and can not wait to see the finished product.