Filming (Day 1!)

AB - 21/02/13

Day 1 of Filming

 

Opening/cycling scene:

We decided to begin our filming with the opening cycle ride, where May is travelling to meet her therapist. We decided the location should be an average street/road as there is nothing incredibly significant about May's cycle ride - It's just an average journey. We made sure that there was enough daylight to show that it is during the beginning/middle of the day and that May (Daisy's sister Veta) was dressed in a normal, teenage girl's clothing. Daisy was sat in the back of the car with the boot up so that we could get a clear shot of May riding on her bike - (Karl and I were holding onto Daisy for her protection, making sure she didn't fall out of the boot!). Then, making sure the car was moving as slowly as possible as to not jolt the camera, we began filming May riding her bike. - May is of course behind the car and we filmed her riding towards us as the responsible adult with us drove forward. We repeated this a few times to make sure that we had enough footage and then moved onto May parking her bike outside of the house. We filmed this from the other side of the road with a tripod, making sure that we could clearly see May lock her bike and walk through the front door. (At this point in the film, the audience has no reason to believe that anything is abnormal about this girl, she has just travelled to someones house).

Therapist Scene

Location - We used Daisy's house as the location for our therapist scene as it is spacious, open and has an 'old-fashioned' kind of feel to it, making it seem comforting and safe (as you would expect from a therapist's house).

Lighting - We used 4 high quality lights which we placed around the room. They were quite dim and we placed a blue sheet of plastic over each one to get rid the the artificial feel which they created. These blue sheets, and the white boards that we used to bounce the light onto the actors, help to make the lighting appear more realistic - as if it was coming from outside. The 'barn doors' around each light helped to direct the beams onto specific points, whether it be the 'bounce board' or some area in the back of our shot which was too dark to see.

Costumes - May was still dressed in what she wore on her journey to the therapist - casual teenage girl clothes. The therapist however (played by Daisy's mother) was dressed in more stereotypical, therapist clothes (Casual, but smart, skirt and top).
We felt that this, although quite stereotypical, made her look like an older, intelligent councillor which was after all our aim.















Sound - Using a high-tech sound recorder and microphone we managed to record all of the dialogue in this scene, making sure that the mic was close enough to record a decent sound while remaining out of shot. At points, to get the mic close enough, we had to lift it above the actor's heads using a microphone pole. This recorder was able to tell us how loud the sound was and how much interference we were catching from outside and around the house. This meant that we knew how much useful dialogue we had finally recorded.























We used a dolly (made of an old door, wheels and some wood) to shoot the scene, sliding the camera slowly to the left around May as she enters the room and sits on the sofa. We put the camera on a tripod to film the reactions of the therapist and also the 'noddies' - where we just shoot the small nods or remarks that can be added into the film when we edit.

Elizabeth Scene:

The Elizabeth scene was filmed in the same house and in the same room as the therapist scene. However, we did redecorate the room so that this was not noticeable and shot the Elizabeth scene by the fireplace instead of the sofa. This meant that we could film both scenes on the same day and the room also had the advantage of a real fireplace and chimney, which made the lighting seem less artificial. 

 

We used the bounce board in combination with the Dedo lights with yellow filter to imitate the flickering fire effect. We experimented with the lights to try to achieve the wanted effects. By waving our hand over the lights we’ve managed to make the wanted flickering effect of the fireplace and candle that Veta (May) is holding. It certainly made the footages more atmospheric. Although no dialogue featured in this scene, we’ve used the mic to record wild tracks such as the fire crackling.



We encountered a few problems with the costume. We had the option of picking between two dresses, one which was dark blue and the other which was light green, currently featured in the pictures. Despite the fact that the dark blue dress had a more classic feel to it, it was too dark in the camera and so we had to pick the green dress over it. There’s the blue sash just below the bust of the dress to improve its fitting on our actress. Pins have been used to put down the ruffles around the collar as they were too prominent. A pearl necklace was used to complete the whole outfit. Not much time had to be used to fix her hair and make-up due to the natural texture of her hair and during the 1800s (which is where this scene was based on) women did not wear heavy make-up.

On the right of the picture above, you can see that we’ve used the homemade dolly to aid us filming this scene. This is to make more interesting footage rather than leaving it a static shot which would have looked bland. By having a moving shot, we’ve managed to capture the background as well, making the shot much more attractive. A few over the shoulder shots were taken as well as part of the noddies which featured Elizabeth turning the pages as she reads.