Our shoot day

Our shoot day was supposed to be on the 2nd Feb. However, due to heavy snow that made the school shut down which means that we were incapable to shoot on that day. It was then moved a week later, on the 11th Feb. Even though the date changed reduces our editing tine, but we had a great shoot day indeed.Our shoot day was spilt into 2 parts: in the school old dining hall and the wood. We decided to shoot in the school dining hall first in the morning up to lunch, then we moved to the wood nearby to shoot the chasing sequences. I am a producer in my group. In order to prepare for the shoot in the dining hall, I collected the visor for the killer, helped Jamie to prepare for lighting, holding the micro to record sound, trying to help creating the scene where blood was coming out of the neck from the girl when she was stabbled, checking the tripod to hold the camera still and following how the scence was shot in order to decided whether or not we should re-shoot or keep moving on.All what I did was quite effective that helped to reduce the waste time while everyone else was doing the others. The shoot went pretty well in the old dining hall when Russel did improvise his role by adding the "shussss" to build up his character to be more frightened.

The shoot in the wood was quite funny. We literally spent only an hour to shoot in the wood as it is only a short flashback of the main character. At first, our character ran like a fairy which looked really fun. However, those next runs were brilliant. Jamie was quite tired when he had to chase with the characters several times so I helped to shoot the POV (point of view) shot of the girl running.



Jamie and Alex did very well on the shoot day as well. Jamie was busy with his Director role, which meant to be direct everyone, i.e. cameraman, actor/actress, others people... to do what they were required to do. At first, I think he was quite passive but as the shoot went on, he gradually got used with it and became more active that led the shoot very well. As well as Alex, she helped to make up the female character and I thought it was brilliant. Franky, our actress, did look like she was screwed in the wood. Her hair was messy, her tight was torn off and there were blood and mud all over her body; and thanks to Alex who helped Franky to do that. In generall, I think we made up a good team where people understand what they need to do and we split the job equally for each other.

In term of what could have been better, I wish that we could have improved the scene in the dining hall, where the docter (or killer) prepared to kill the girl in more detailed. In the wood, some of the shoot involved Jamie's shirt. This is because while he was running with the camera, it was seriously shaken that Jamie did not know he was in the shoot (a part of his shirt). It could've been better if we had a tracking cam.

I think that overall, everything worked very well. The shoot went on smoothly without any big problem. The part where the doctor was doing "shusss" was very effective. Also, while Jamie was running with the shaken camera in the wood, it created a very effective scene when the wood was turning around very fast and it created a very dizzy feeling that we might put in to describe the girl's feeling when she was running. It was out of our plan and it worked particularly well. Also, using colour paper to change the colour of the light also made the scene more effective and drew a very scary scene.

I learnt pretty much through this. I got what it takes now to be a good director, apart from a creative mind, you will need a leadership skill as well. Also, I learnt to create colour of lights by using colour paper to cover the top of the normal light. It was very effective.

To serve the shoot, we used a JVC Sony PD170 with tripod. The mainly use several types of shots such as: medium shot, closed up, extreme closed up, long shot. In terms of locations, we still followed our own plan that only 2 locations.

In terms of lighting, we use a full pack of 3 redhead lighting. The light really worked when we use colour transparents paper to cover the light in order to create red right or blue.