First Day of Filming!

Yesterday was my first day of shooting! At 4 o'clock in the evening my Dad, Uncle, Cousins and Sister and myself walked up to Weston Woods to start shooting. It was dark by this point so we brought torches. It was also raining quite heavily so we brought coats and umbrellas to keep ourselves dry and warm. Below is my Shooting schedule so far, it told my actors where to be, at what time and what to bring. My next shooting date is yet to be scheduled as I have to work around school and work times for my actresses and their parents.

Screenshot of Amelie Counting

The filming went really well, I was able to get some really good shots even though it was almost pitch black and raining really hard. The audio was really good though because I had a microphone which I had attached to a boom pole with an extension lead plugging it in
to the camera. This way I could record the sound right next to the actresses. It was really useful to have this equipment provided for me by the school. It helped me out a great deal.

Screenshot of Katie running past

I tried to film as many scenes as I could in the time I had and how late and wet it was getting. I shot quite a few of the scenes I needed for the main story line of the opening. I filmed one of the actresses, Amelie counting in their game of hiding seek at different angles and then different shots of the other girl Katie going to hide. I took shots of her running, some tracking her as she went and some just watching her go past the camera. While filming these shots I was reminded of a shot we filmed for our preliminary task that I wanted to try filming. This was having the camera pointed at Katie while she ran towards it and then past it without noticing it was there. This shot looked really good and I'm glad that I was able to think of it from my preliminary task.

Unfortunately when filming, the microphone picked up a lot of rain noise. Looking on the internet I have found a lot of videos and blogs that tell me how I can try to turn this down, this will be really useful when I come to editing my film opening on the Macs. I am pleased with the footage I was able to get and I know that I will be able to work with it all so I'm happy.

My next plan for shooting is to shoot the crime scene where Katie is seen in the background looking really pale, bloody and dirty to represent that she's dead. I want to shoot this in the same woods but in the daylight so that it shows that it's a new day and that time has moved on since the girls were playing hide and seek. A shot that I want to also shoot is the parallel shot of the villain creeping around in the woods wearing dark clothes. This will have to be shot in the dark around the same time as the shots yesterday were filmed. Preferably when it's raining to show it's on the same night as the game of hide and seek.

For my next filming session I will need:

• The Video Camera
• Boom Mic
• Extension Lead
• Fake Blood
• Ripped black jeans
• A hairbrush to make Katie's hair messy
• Mud to rub on katie
• Police Tape

My goal is to film these scenes by the end of this week. I will most likely film on the weekend as it is when my actresses are free and able to make it to the location.