After filming the first half of my opening sequence I have learnt a few issues that could be adressed in future filming. One of which is lighting. As I am using pathetic fallacy in my final film to create a tension and scarier feel I have learnt how to play the light. As my character is walking down a road I have tried to film her in the lighter parts of the walk to highlight her walk and capture detail on her yet still create a dark sensation. Another way is to film under street lights. This yellow (rather than natural) light captures the character but leaves the scenery dark around her. However the natural light changed whilst filming and as the character walkes down the road the light dramatically changes and quickly becomes darker. This could be seen as a fault in the filming but as the character was only availible for that day we could not shoot on a different day. None the less the drastic change in light helps our film as it emphasizes the change in day and her walk becoming gradually more dangerous. The road our character was walking down would have been too long to shoot fully as it would have taken more than 2 minutes so we selected parts of the road that would work to our advantage in terms of light and background scenery for our shots and will cut them together to give the illusion to the audience that our character has walked down the full road. Another part that was hard was syncing what our character is saying with different parts of the road to create a flow in conversation. Towards the end of the shoot many cars and civilians crossed the line of the camera so we could not use the footage. If not this than they would act awkward infront of the camera to be considerate to us. It was hard to tell them to act normal whilst the camera was filming and those who didn't want to be on camera waited and out us under pressure to finish quickly.
We filmed the 2 sets of characters on different days yet continuity prevailed and it seemes as if it's a flowing sequence of events. We remembered the timing of the end of our first shoot so when it came to the second we filmed at the same time to create light continuity. As one of our male characters has a darker skin tone it was difficult to shoot him with a hood up in the dark and maintain the detail we aimed to film. Other than that it was hard to capture their voices on film with all the background so a voiceover will be necessary. Yet again it was hard to shoot them in the dark so we had to film wide shots with our characters in one spot, and then worm shots of them in a different spot but try to connect the two to make it seem as if they are in one location.
Overall I was very pleased with our filming and actors efforts towards our feature film. There is not much I would change at the moment with what we shot but im sure a few faults will unfold whilst editing.
Equipment List:
Skateboard (For Tracking shot of feet)
Yoga Mat (For tracking shot of feet)
Video Camera - Sony HDV
Trip pod - Velbon
Laptop
Microphone
Planning:
To plan this film we monitored the lighting in the local area for a week or so to make sure it was as we wanted it. We printed a script for each character and explained to them the idea of the film and what they should do for best performance. We also went through it with them in daylight hours so they would feel comfortable in the small margin we had to film where the lighting was right. We also figured out how we would film certain shots such as the tracking shot on the feet. We had to use a yoga mat and skateboard in order to create a smooth track. It would have been too hard to try and bend down and follow our character without jolting the camera and as we did not have the necessary equipment we made use of what we had.
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