Camera, Lights and finally Action

Well we have had a very busy weekend with our first official day of filming. Stef, Nat and I filmed today's scenes (Jack was on a uni visit) We started off on Sunday morning in Kemsing which was our first location of the day. We went through with our actors what we needed for the first shots.

I've just realised that we didn't post the list of shots we were planning to do on Sunday, I think that may have been my fault sorry! So I will list those and then list the shots we actually going to do.
These were the shots that we were planning to do
2) Fade transition into establishing shot of girl swinging alone in a park
3) Straight cut to wide shot behind the swing of Mary swinging with diegetic sound of chains squeaking
4) Point-of-view shot of Mary on swing leaning back, repeated four times with Catherine not there then suddenly appearing
5) Close up of Mary’s feet digging into ground to stop swinging
6) Over-the-shoulder shot of Catherine who says “Hi. I’m Catherine.”
7) Reversal over-the-shoulder shot of Mary replying “Erm, hi, I’m Mary.”
8) Long shot of the two girls talking along with non diegetic voice-over of “Mary’s mother” saying “You’re such a lonely girl Mary, why don’t you try and make some friends?”
9) Long shot of girls leaving the park as voice-over continues (sound bridge)

Our actual first shot was one that we weren't expecting to do.
21) Long shot of Mary running
24) Long shot of Mary running part 2

We did this as when we arrived at Kemsing park there were people on the swings as we were wondering what we could do while we waited we noticed this clearing inside a forest area. As a result, we decided to film the running shot.
When we had finished our filming of this shot, the swings were clear so we started on the main shots on the swing.
We had a second problem however which was a child arrived with their grandfather and was playing on the equipment, so instead of having a reversal over the shoulder shot (shot 7) we had to have a continued over the shoulder shot from behind Catherine. This was so you could not see the boy.
Another problem we faced with filming in the playground was the noise of the boy. We have decided that we will have to mute some shots and luckily he wasn't making any noise while we were filming the talking scenes.
Having other people in the park also meant that we could not film a long shot of the girls leaving the park as it would break continuity and also mean that they were not alone as intended. So we will either return to film this at another date, or substitute this with another shot.

When we had finished this section we decided that we still had quite a lot of time so we went back to Nat's house to film some of the shots we would have done if it had been bad weather.
We decided to film the scenes involving fake blood (which Nat made some more of). We have changed the scenes from the original shot list.
- Close up of tap running and a hand turning it off.
- High angle shot of the sink filled with water and soap and 'Mary' washing a plate.
-Tracking shot of 'Mary' taking the plate out and moving it the side and taking another plate and bringing it back to the sink filled with blood.
- Side reaction shot of 'Mary' with her hands covered in blood
We may not use all of these shots but we feel it has helped us to film extra scenes.

We started on the final shot of 'Catherine' sitting on the floor surrounded by candles but decided Nat's sitting room was too bright and so are going to leave it until we film on our next date which will be after school one day and so should be darker.

Roles I played in the filming was to help adjust the tripod, film certain scenes, keep the shot list updated or work with Alice and Lexie so they knew what they were doing. Stef, Nat and I all took turns in every single job so a fair amount was done by all.

Our next filming date is the 23rd of October and then the 1st of November with our actresses. On the 1st we will be going to Hastings to film.

Helena