CONSTRUCTION POSTS

These are my two posts on construction; the filming of our film opening, Erica. We have to get a couple more shots before we can edit, so I don't have an editing post yet but these are the two posts on constructing our films so far.

29/10/14 | PRODUCTION | FILMING

Over this half term break Harriet, Amber and I met up and filmed for a day. We filmed using a Canon 550D video camera and a tripod to create steady shots. We filmed several quick shots from when Erica (played by me) is at home and going to bed, when she gets back up and escapes out of her window and when she comes back to her room again and goes back to bed. Amber was in charge of makeup, I contributed costumes and Harriet did a lot of the actual filming. We all contributed in setting up shots as we each had our own ideas as to how to construct each shot and we each had a turn at filming. Amber did a lot of directing the shots.

We spent 4 hours filming these scenes as we tried to get the same shot from different angles and shot types to make the film more interesting and draw attention to certain shots. Overall this filming was successful as we managed to film quite a lot of the shots we needed and included a range of shot types such as close ups, mid shots and mid-long shots in order to add interest to our film.

3/1/15 | PRODUCTION | FILMING

Today Harriet, Amber, Nikki Granger and I met up at Harriet’s house to do some more filming for our film opening, Erica. We filmed using a Canon 550D video camera. One problem we faced was that as we were filming after dark the lighting wasn't very good, however we overcame this problem by using torches to create eerie lighting, and this worked quite well. We did not use a tripod for these scenes as we wanted them to be handheld so they were disorienting and created a spooky atmosphere. We filmed a lot of shots for the main part of the opening, when my character Erica is walking down the street, sees Nikki’s character being bullied by Amber and Harriet’s characters, and then stalks and kills them. Amber again did the makeup for the scenes and both me and Amber helped style hair as part of the costumes, for example I gave Nikki plaits to make her look young and innocent. Amber and Harriet directed most of the shots but we all contributed our own ideas. We also all took a turn filming. I was mainly responsible for organizing getting everyone together and finding someone to play Faith (Nikki’s character). 

We spent 3 hours filming these scenes and I feel it was successful. We got a range of shot types such as canted angles, close ups and tracking shots.