Shoot Day

Today (Thursday, 3rd March) was the shoot day for our opening sequence title. I was nervous and excited for the day to begin. We started the day off by meeting Adam and Tom in the media studio at 9. We gathered our props, cast members, camera and studio lights and then headed to Beatrice Webb house. When we arrived we were able to set up quickly and jump straight into filming, due to me building the fort the night before. Me and Bea got the two girls dressed and then added some fairy lights and more pillows to the fort. We spoke to the girls and explained what we wanted them to do. They listen and performed in the way we asked. 

We then put the Camera and studio light in place for our first shot, and starting filming. We started off with  a mid shot from the right hand side, and got the girls to laugh and smile facing each other. We then repeated this shot a couple more times however we were zooming in more and more on Saskia face for each shot. We then repeated this on the left hand side and zoomed more into Gracie. While zoomed in on Gracies face we got her to say "I love you" in a sweet tone. We want to use that shot at the end of our opening sequence.

We then moved the camera to a mid shot slightly off centre facing the fort. For these shots we filmed Saskia lying on Gracie while stroking her arm. While the camera was in this position, we got the girls to act out more cute and innocent movements such as tucking each others hair behind an ear and placing their hands on each others faces. We zoomed in and out for most of these shots to give us more variety when it comes to editing. After focusing on their faces, we lowered the camera and zoomed in to focus on the girls hands. We got them to play with each other fingers and hold hands. For one shot we were focusing on Gracies smiley face and then panned down onto the girls hands. As we are not using any dialogue for most of our opening sequence we were able to play music while filming this scene, which made the girls more relaxed and comfortable as well as making the environment fun for everyone. 

The filming for the fort shots ran smoothly and quicker than I expected. We had gotten all the shots we needed after an hour and a half. This left us with plenty of spare time. We used the spare time to get creative and add more shots. One of the shots we added were the girls leaning in to kiss each other. I didn't think a kiss would be appropriate to add into our opening sequence as I want to keep it as young innocent love. However I like the idea of the leaning in for a kiss shot next to an emotional exorcism shot. I think that filming this shot was a good idea as it gives us the option to add it. Another shot we added that wasn't planned was the girls lying down on a pillow with their faces next to each other and their hands holding. We put the camera above the girls at a tilt. We made this shot longer than any other shot we filmed. After we filmed both the girls, we zoomed in on just one at a time. We got them to repeat the same movement they did before. This is useful and make the opening sequence better when it comes to editing. 

One challenge we faced while filming this scene was ensuring the fort didn't fall down. Originally we used pool cue to help hold up the fort however it started to fall down. We had the idea to stick the pool cue into the couch instead of next to the couch. This gave the fort more support and helped it stay up for the whole scene. Another issue we faced during filming was the lighting. We had originally placed one light in front of the fort however this made the girls look dark and the camera couldn't pick up their features. To fix this we put another studio light at the back of the fort, this made everything lighter and it looked much better on camera. Once we were happy with the shots we had taken and got enough, we went for our lunch break.

At 1 o'clock we headed back to Beatrice Webb to start filming the exorcism scene. Me Bea and Otto went upstairs to the room we were filming in and organised it so it looked good. We moved the bed slightly to make space for Adam and Nicky to stand. We cleared and moved objects surrounding the bed area, to make the setting more homely and less like a boarding school room. We placed a big cross and a chalice onto the shelf to help portray how religious the family is. Once we thought the bedroom looked good, we started setting up the camera and studio light. I spoke to the cast and told them what we needed to do and gave them instructions. I then went and got Saskia dressed into a black dress. Bea made Nick a dog collar out of paper as our original dog collar we were going to use didn't detach from the priest costumes. We gave Nick a small cross necklace, a rosary and a Bible to help him look more like a vicar. We gave Nicky (the mum) a rosary to imply that both the parents are religious. Once we were happy with the set and costumes we started filming. The camera was on a tripod on the right hand side of the room for the majority of the time. The tripod was at a higher level to make the camera seem like a fifth eye in the room. The studio light was placed next to the camera. We only used this light for the whole of filming as it create the mood we wanted in the room.

For the first shot we got Nick to walk into the frame, open his bible and start reciting the lords pray. We asked him to slowly start getting more aggressive with his hand movements as the camera can't see his face and only his back and hands. Our main focus for this shot was the girl and her parents. We asked Saskia to grab her mums hand out of fear, and asked the mum to quickly look away when she did so. After we got this shot a few times, we zoomed in closer to the parents and Saskia so the priest was out of camera. We then focused a few shots on just one person at a time. We did this incase we want to cut between all three of their certain reactions when editing. 

After many shots like this we decided to just focus on girl and the vicar, and asked the parents to leave. We wanted to get a POV from the girl looking at the vicar. For this I needed to lie on the bed and place the camera on my legs. We asked nick to give this his all and really go for it. As we are not using dialog nick was screaming the funniest things which made everyone laugh, however he managed to stay in character. Filming this close up of the priest was my favourite part of the day. It allowed me to hand hold the camera which was enjoyable and I think we were able to get the shots had planned. 

After we had gotten all the shots of the vicar, Nick left and our last focus of the day was the girl. We moved the camera to where nick had been standing and zoomed in on Saskia sitting on the bed. We wanted a close up of her emotions. We filmed several shots which were all about half a minute each. We had asked Saskia to show emotion and look scared. As Saskia is an incredible actress this was easy for her to do and sold it well.  Once we got a good amount of shot, We called it a wrap. 

We faced a few issues while filming the exorcism scene. One of them being the fact the bed didn't have a headboard. We knew that the bed we where using didn't have one so we went and asked the maintenance guy at school, but he didn't have one either. We decided that we would just have to film without one. Not having a headboard did mean we had to change a few of our original shots but we were able to improvise new shots while filming. Another issue we had was when Tom removed one of the memory cards out of the camera and left the room. My group and I thought that we weren't able to film until Tom had returned with a new memory card however we did not know that the camera had two memory cards in it. We all waited around till tom returned (which was about 10 minutes). When he returned he told us that there was another memory card in the camera and that we could have carried on filming. This was inconvenient as we wasted time but it taught us something new that we can learn from in the future. One of the main lessons I learnt whilst filming is things don't always go to plan and that you must always be open to change. Although I wasn’t very stressed for the shoot, I was nervous of things not going to plan or not looking the way I wanted etc, but I realised last minute changes or ideas can be the most successful.

The exorcism scene harder to film and felt more intense compared to the lover in fort scene. I think this was due to the fact that we were working with a bigger cast and the pressure was higher. With the fort scene we were able to experiment, take our time with the shots and have more creative freedom where as the exorcism scene had to be more professional. 

Overall the shoot day was amazing and I am extremely happy with how it turned out. The day was almost  exactly how I imagined it would be. I was the camera man through out the whole shoot day. This was really interesting and I learnt new things from Tom. I also enjoyed setting up the set, putting the cast members in place and telling them what to do. I can't wait to watch all the shots and begin editing :)))))