Filming - 11th January

Before we began to film, we considered the following things:

- what equipment we would need

- props

- clothing for costumes

- make up

- the weather

We made sure that all these factors had been looked at, and that all of them were sorted and would not effect the filming process, also making this process more efficient.  

We started filming on Tuesday 11th January and firstly went to one of our houses to prepare equipment, props and costumes. 

Equipment: 

- Digital Camcorder - we took two digital camcorders that we made sure were fully charged ready for filming, also we took two to ensure that if one camera ran out of battery, we would have another spare so that the filming process would not be interrupted. We also though it best to have a spare encase we felt we needed to film parts from a different angle, and we could have two of us filming at once and capturing different angles. 

Props

- Fake Blood - our opening scene revolved around a little girl who has just killed someone, therefore to make this idea clear, blood was required to make it look realistic. We got some fake blood and used some to make a hand-print on the 'little girls' plain white dress, we also watered down some of it so that we could put it around the body, and then we also put some on the dead person to make a wound. 

Costumes and Make-Up:

A Plain white dress was used as we wanted to make the little girl look very innocent, we associate the colour white with innocence and safety, which we thought would end up being a good contrast as she is actually a murderer. We then found that obviously a bright red blood hand-print would be very outstanding and noticeable on her white dress. 

We ripped up the dress to make it look worn out and rough, giving it a distressed look, and also then when this character was killing, there may have been a struggle between her and her victim. 

We needed an oversized jacket for the role of the dead man, we then made a rip in the jacket to make it look as if a knife had gone through it and skin could be seen. We then covered it in blood, along with the wound. 

We used pale face powder to make the little girl look very pale and almost ghostly, which we feel would frighten the audience. also we were shooting this film in a very darkly lit place, and white skin would also show up a lot better on camera and therefore taking this into account we thought this would be a good effect.

We used dark eye shadow around the eyes and a lot of the focus will be on her face. 

We wanted the little girls hair to be coming over her face, to make the audience unable to see her full face, which we find in horror films can often unnerve people as the thought of the unknown is quite scary. We used hair gel to flatten the hair over her face, also ensuring it stayed there. 

Weather

part of the filming was took place in a forest, and we wanted the surroundings to be very dull, as opposed to light. So our only issue with the weather was if it was to be sunny. Luckily that day was very windy, dull and cloudy which created a perfect setting for our filming. We wanted a gloomy surrounding to add to the suspense and horror of our film.

During this whole process we all made sure that we each had a turn at filming. We all have different filming techniques and what angle etc we think looks good, therefore we would have a range of different clips to apply to our opening scene.

Planning - Film Title

We decided to do a brain storm to come up with possible titles for our film. We looked at the plot and tried to come up with a title that linked in well with our plot. 
We did some research into what some of the titles' meant, for example the name Thana means death. 

Planning - Scripting

    There is very little speech in our opening scene as it is mainly just shots of the little girl who has murdered someone, and the victim as the opening scene is just a flash back. It shows what has happened as a result of events within the film as our film unfolds and shows why this has happened as explains to the audience why this has happened and shows everything leading up to it.  The only thing she says is "If you go down to the woods today, you're in for a big surprise" This links in with the plot of our film as the victim is murdered by her in the woods.


the girl is walking through the woods and only her feet can be seen, the shot then switches from her to the victim lying in the woods, then to the little girl walking down the church steps. This is repeated with each shot getting closer, for example the camera becomes closer to the victim, the little girls feet can be seen walking towards the camera and the little girl is also walking towards the camera in the church


as there is a close up to the girls face she says
' if you go down to the woods today, you're in for a big surprise ' 




    Although we dont have any speech, we do have background music to add tension to the scene. Once we've filmed we are going to have the sound edited to fit in with all the areas of our opening film. This sound clip was made my Mat so that we would have an idea of what we can work with and would have something to adapt to when making our film.


We realise that line 'If you go down to the woods today, you're in for a big surprise' may be subject to copyright.
Copyright is a set of exclusive rights that is granted to the author/creator of an original piece of work. This includes the right to copy, distribute and adapt the work. This is the symbol for copyright: © 


We did some research to see whether we needed permission to use this in our film, but we found that this song is public domain, meaning that anyone can use it. It is not copyright protected and therefore we did not require any permission to use it within our film.  

Planning - Characters

    These pictures show the process by which we made our actors into characters using make up. Sarah and Becca were the actors within our film. Becca was the little girl, and Sarah was the victim.
   We started by making the little girls dress. We covered our hands in fake blood and pressed them on the dress to leave a hand print. This makes it look like their was a struggle between her and her victim. We also cut up the dress to make this effective.

In this photo, we started to apply make up, we used a very pale face powder to make the character look very unnatural and almost Ghost like.

To make this character of the little girl look realistic we also applied the same pale powder to her arms to match her face. 

This picture shows when we put hair gel on becca's hair to flatten it across her head and over her face. Giving it a wet and greasy look. We also thought that when her face is not fully visible because of the hair, it creates tension and fear within the audience as it is this idea of the unknown.

This picture shows the eye make up that we did,

we applied very dark black eye shadow to achieve this effect. We thought we would do this as at one point in the opening scene, there is a close up of the little girls eyes, therefore we wanted to make them as frightening as possible.

This is what it is going to look like overall, the hair will be over her face but her eyes can still be seen to give a more creepy effect.    

Planning - Camera Angles

Before we filmed, we considered what was actually going to happen in our opening scene and therefore what angles are needed. 

We found that the most appropriate and effect angles would be:

- Eye level

- Oblique angle 

- Low angle

Eye Level - this is a fairly neutral shot; the camera is positioned as though it is a human actually observing a scene, so that the actors' heads are on a level with the focus. We decided to use this shot as it goes well with the genre that we are using. We are able to maintain eye contact with the character but also it appears as if other characters within the film are being watched.

Oblique Angle - This is when the camera is not placed on horizontal to floor level and is tilted. We managed to achieve this by using a handheld camera. This shot suggests imbalance and instability which is what we wanted. The little girl that is coming towards the camera is very unstable as she is capable of murder, therefore we thought this shot would convey this idea.

Low Angle - helps to give a sense of confusion to the viewer as it is at a unusual angle, the background tends to be the sky or the ceiling, in this case it is the ceiling of the church which adds to the disorientation of the veiwer. This may make the audience be fearfull and is only focused on the dominant character of the shot.

Planning - Storyboard

I have put together a storyboard to show the main events that take place within our opening scene, it indicates where and what is going to be filmed in what sort of setting,

When looking at the results of our questionnaire, we discovered that the main features that the audience enjoy most of a Horror film is firstly blood and gore, and secondly Psychological, and we've managed to apply both of these features to our opening scene.

Blood/Gore - we included this by having a man that has been stabbed on the floor, with lots of blood and a wound that in one part of the scene is shot up close.

Psychological - the killer that is the little girl is slowly getting closer and closer to the screen with interruptions of a fuzzy screen. Each time the screen goes fuzzy and then comes back, the little girl is one step closer to the camera, until she ends up very very close. This causes tension and will unnerve the audience.  

These scenes may not go to plan as it depends on how the filming work goes, whether we get the right shots, angles and whether the setting is right. After the filming is completed we will be able to produce a much more accurate storyboard of our opening scene.   

Planning - Location

In our opening scene, we are not just having a whole acted out scene with out anything else, we are including parts where titles will be shown, parts when the screen goes 'fuzzy' and then flashes of acting. Therefore we saw this as an opputunity to use different locations to film the parts where actors are involved. We filmed in the nature reserve and at the church which are both in Whittlesey. We decided to use these places as they are very lonely and darkly lit areas, creating a lot of suspense and tension.


The Church
In the church, we used the stairs which were going up to one of the towers, there was very little light and it was an enclosed space which made it even more of an intense setting. It was very dusty, with lots of cobwebs and you could see how old it was. This is often scary for people to see and old setting. We thought this would be a perfect setting as it consisted many of the features we needed. 


This particular setting was used to film the character of the 'little girl' walking down the church steps, in the darkness and becoming closer and closer to the camera. 







The Nature Reserve (Forest)
Again, people often associate a forest with being a very isolated and lonely place, somewhere you would not want to be on your own which just that in itself creates fear for the audience. Many weeds and dead plants were surrounding this setting which gives it a rough and old look which often unnerves people. 


This setting was used to show feet walking through the grass and another character 'dead' on the floor with blood around them.