Filming Day Four

Filming Day Four: Thursday 23rd March:

Today, we filmed the scenes where the children were shown being alone having been taken by somebody. We had a slight change of plan in where we were going to film the scenes as we discussed the different places that may look more effective and Alicia said that she had a run down old barn just around from her house that would look good. We thought about filming in a field and agreed that it would be very difficult to make it look very suspenseful as we wouldn't be able to show much of the background and it would be difficult to show different angles of the children being tied up. So, after school Amy, Alicia and I went to the barn in Newington and looked around the barn. We face timed Demi, who was doing some editing in school and agreed that the location was a good place to film.

Demi started to edit the part where himself and I had filmed some shots of him running along the school field the other day when it was raining. We felt that  this would look effective to show the children running from someone who has taken them. Demi did this by adding sound effects of heavier rain, heart beats and dogs barking to increase the suspense of what is happening. This looks very effective and we are all happy with the way that this part looks. Here are a few pictures of the field that we filmed this part in:

Alicia and I wanted to make sure it looked as life like as possible so we got some fake blood and smeared it all over our arms and hands to make it look like we had been hurt. We also used fake tattoos of cuts to show some close ups of what had happened to us. We both decided to wear casual clothing as we wanted it to look like the kids had just been out and something had happened to them.

When we arrived at the barn it was the perfect location as it was very abandoned and the ceiling was collapsed which made it look very spooky. This added to the very eary feel that we wanted to get across for the thriller to have. Also, the lighting looked very effective as we wanted to make sure that it looked dark and gloomy as the scene previous to this was filmed in the rain to show the "children" running through some trees to add to the tense atmosphere. To do this when we got back into school we added a sound effect of heavy rain to this and a heart beat sound to reinforce the danger that the children are in to the audience. This looks a lot more effective as it shows the panic that the children are feeling on the way to being taken to the barn.

As we had changed the location of where we were going to film this scene we wanted to see what we could do when we got to the barn and we were very surprised with the amount that we could use. First of all there was a window looking into the barn which we thought would be perfect to start filming from a point of view shot to show the children waking up having been knocked out and terrified, having no idea where they have been taken to. I feel that this looks very effective also as the audience will know that someone is watching the children and wonders what they will do to them. Amy who filmed this point of view shot made sure that she stood on branches and made the camera shaky as she walked up to add to the sound that somebody was coming and making them uneasy. Amy also filmed this shot  of her walking slowly moving forward as we wanted to create as much tension as we possible could by making the audience wait.

We then had the idea of Amy filming a close up of the blood running down the girls hands shaking as we wanted to add to the tense atmosphere. We felt that this would look very good however, when we got into class we realised that the point o view shot looked very by itself and didn't need anything else with it. Also, we were running over 2 minutes by 30 seconds which in the end we had to be very brutal with what we kept and what we didn't.

The point of view shot of the person who had taken them walking from the window all the way up to the children looks very effective as you're able to see the children scream in desperation to get away from the person. This looks extremely effective as it is a very high tension point in the thriller opening and I feel that this is shown through the shot that we have used as it reinforces the very dangerous atmosphere that we wanted. When we got back to class we added sound effects of rain and an increase heart beat to show more suspense.

When we got back to class the next day and showed Demi what we had filmed he was very happy with what we had. We then looked at some music that we could use to increase the tense atmosphere and decided that we could empathise the scream making it a higher volume and also add a sound effect of heavy rain to make the scene flow on from the previous scene of them running in the rain. This makes the scene look very effective as the non diegetic sounds and diegetic sounds together makes it look very dangerous and tense. However, when we looked back at the music from the start of the running scene we decided that the background sound took over from what was actually happening in the shot so I decided to cut the music at the start of the barn scene and just have the rain and heart beat as I feel that this bought even more tension and suspense than having the background music as well.

Overall,we are very happy with the barn scene that we have filmed. I am extremely happy with the change in location that we have had as the barn definitely looks a lot more effective than if we filmed in a field as the lighting and the mise en scene was a lot more dark and more like a thriller we were also able to adapt our thriller around what the location had to offer which was very helpful.