Film Day

On the 14th of January we started our filming of our thriller. We entered the studio in the morning and had to build a prison set which consisted of three flats laid at 90 degrees to each other in order to create a basic room set. We then laid a brick Patten over the flats and added some depth by painting parts. Then we laid wooden boards over the floor in order to create an old fashioned wooden flooring design. We then placed an electric chair which we acquired from the school drama department and added wires to the back panel in order to make it seem like it was wired up to a source of electricity. We then added a table in the corner of the room and placed a black drape over it and placed on it a metal bucket a sponge and a black hood to be placed over the head of the prisoner. The only way in which this set differed from our storyboard idea was that we did not have a switch /lever on one of the walls. (For performing the execution.) The main reason why we chose to film in the studio for this scene was that we would not have been to use a real location to shoot as the electric chair is no longer a method of execution and we could not have traveled to America in a day and most likely would not have been allowed to film in a prison.

In the afternoon we went to one of the local bars/restaurants in order to shoot the second sequence in which it is revealed that the murderer who was executed may have survived and may be about to repeat the actions that he was executed for. The reason why we chose to shoot on location in this scene was in order to get a larger sense of authenticity as it would have been time consuming and expensive to build a successful set for this scene.

We started of the filming by setting up a wide shot of the set so that we would have a base shot for when we started to edit after we had completed filming. We then ran several rehearsals so that all of the actors new where to stand so that they were fully in shot, and so that we could get the dialogue correct and they all knew what they had to do in terms of actions. 

We then began to start the close ups of all of the main roles and key items in the scene. We started this of by shooting a mid-close up of ‘Randall’ so that his shoulders and head were in shot. We then tracked in even further so that his face filled the entire shot. We then shot medium close ups of one of the guards, the governor, and the priest.

We then went on to film significant objects or actions in the scene these were; the governor removing this hat and signaling to the priest. The priest’s bible and one of the guards rising out the sponge. The reason why we shot the specific actions and objects was to draw attention and significance to them.

The last shot which we filmed in the first part of our opening sequence was a tracking shot using a spider dolly and two sets of rubber tracking. We then tracked slowly into the criminals face using a focus pull in order to keep his face in order to keep it in focus through out.

The only shot we had left to shot was the tracking shot in the restaurant. This was a tracking shot with a pan over the shoulder of a girl approaching the bar. This however posed some problems due to the floor being uneven and this made it more difficult to keep the tracking shot steady and it required us to do many shots in order to get a shot which we could actually use.

The casting we used for this opening sequence was mainly staff and students from the school. For the governor we used a member of staff as he was more of an appropriate age for a prison governor to be. The priest, guards, convict, and girls in the bar were all students. The student that we used for the convict that was chosen due to how he had a Southern American looks mainly though hair style. We then chose other cast members due to how mature they looked and whether they would be to pass as young adults ( early 20’s)

The costumes and props that we had to get in the first scene in our opening sequence was an electric and old fashioned prisoner costume which mainly consisted of denim trousers and jacket striped t-shirt and the actor was to wear no socks or shoes. We then had to get two 1950’s style prison guard outfits which we borrowed instead of purchasing due to their expense. We then obtained a swayed suit and Texas style hat and tie in order to portray a 1950 Texas governor. We then obtained an American style priest outfit and a bible to finish of the priest. In the second scene we only had to think about the outfits for two main roles the girl who approached the bar and Randall who was standing behind the bar.  The girl was dressed in smart casual clothing so was fairly easy to outfit. Randall was slightly harder to outfit we had him wearing jeans and in order to increase the authenticity we obtained a shirt from the bar that we used to shoot.

With lighting in the first scene we used standing studio lights focused towards the eclectic chair in order to draw focus towards it and make it the centre of attention in the scene. We however left them open enough to light the rest of the room. In the bar we used the lights room the lights and the natural light from the windows in order to create a naturalistic feel. In the way of sound a directional boom mic was used instead of the camera installed mic. This was so that we could film specific speeches and noises individually.

The role that I played in the first scene was to operate the boom mic and in the second scene I was responsible for the tracking shot across the bar, which due to its uneven flag stone floor which made the shot difficult to keep level.