FILMING - BEACH SCENE AND WALKING HOME SEQUENCE ANALYSIS

I found the beach scene really fun to shoot. It was well organised; we gathered our equipment at around 3 and met Anna schofield, our actress, at Clapham Junction before travelling to Waterloo by train.
The walking home sequence proved to be quite difficult in terms of arranging everyone (me, Emma, Blake, Anna Schofield, Helena Eades, Joanna Murray, Emmy Pollock, Lara Redmayne) to be in the same place at the same time wearing the right outfits. I brought the props and clothes for our characters and we met at the 'club' in Clapham that our actresses would walk out of. We then travelled to our final setting which was the alleyway. As people needed to get home the process was quite rushed and stressful, bearing in mind this was before we realised the camera wasn't recording any sound.
Overall, I think the filming went well, but the beach scene was most enjoyable to shoot because of how well it had been planned out and how easy it was to manage a smaller group compared to 8 people, or with the club scene around 15-20.

PARTY SCENE ROUGH CUT

This is a rough cut of our dance scene

LIGHT WORK

In order to understand better the use of lights in filming, myself and 3 other media students created a small production involving a dark room using our own lighting.. By doing this we encountered several issues which we understood could potentially pose issues during our real production on location such as the battery life of the camera. After a short amount of time, approximately 30 minutes, the batteries for the camera died, which helped us understand the importance of fully charging them before taking them on location. If they were to die on location before we finished shooting, we would be forced finish early, so we will remember to always be aware of the short battery life. We also learned the importance of the backlight. This secondary light to the main light provides depth to the shot which is vital in achieving a good picture. Lights are essential when filming indoors. The use of colour lights are also effective in setting the mood of the production.

FILMING DAY 1 ANALYSIS

We began our filming with the second scene in our piece, this was the party scene. We wanted to achieve a club like feel and so we kept lighting to a minimum. however we did use key lights that we constantly changed from red to blue. We also used a strobe and laser to add greater visual effects to the shoot.

We had 15 extras including our three main characters (the woman on the beach; the friend and the unknown man) We positioned one camera on a dolly, and we used one handheld. For the handheld camera, the key was to allow the viewer to feel as if they were part of the crowd. it was very challenging trying to coordinate every one in the scene. 

After shooting, we found that the film from the camera on the dolly, was overall less in focus and was more distant which showed that there weren't that many people present, when we actually wanted to make it look like there were 30+. We mostly used shots from the hand held camera as they gave a more intimate, close up feel.

These are some screen grabs from our film:

DANCE SCENE INSPIRATION

We have been trying to find inspiration for our dance scene. This scene from skins incorporates all of the elements we want to employ:

• A claustrophobic environment - through people dancing and intermingling together
• Saturated colours, most importantly reds and blues
• Moments of clarity as characters are introduced, e.g. the continued shots of effy dancing - highlighting her presence = what we want to do with our key characters.
• The use of strobe - again creating a chaotic environ
• Slo- mo used, producing an alien environment

IDENT IDEAS

SETTING IDEAS - WALKING HOME SEQUENCE

For the same reasons as stated in the 'exiting the club' sequence setting, I knew I would have to find locations in and around Wandsworth. 
For the first part of the walk homewards, I felt it would be best to use the actual road on which the 'club' they had came from was, mostly because it made shooting slightly easier and since we were going for the more 'grungey' look instead of high end Chelsea clubs, I thought the fact that it was a semi-residential road wouldn't really matter.
The final scene, revolves around an alleyway within which one of our main protagonists is captured. For this we obviously needed a pathway that was:

• well lit
• long enough in length for other girls to exit and Helena still be left on the phone
• not in a dangerous area (carrying around v.expensive equipment)
• average-looking, nothing glamourous, just a run of the mill cobbled alleyway
• and of course, in an area which was relatively easy to get to

I subsequently did a recce in in which I narrowed my choices down to 3 alleyways in my area, and with the help of Blake and Emma we decided on one which was very close to Wandsworth Common overground station. On the map pictured, it shows the alleyway jutting off from Balham Park High Rd. We chose this particular alleyway because it was very well lit, was sufficient in length and due to the train station being so near, made it easy for us all to get to. I have included a picture I took which shows the high walls (creating an imposing feel to the scene we will subsequently shoot), good lighting (from the two lamp-posts), and perfect length.

PROTAGONIST PROFILE

From just our opening, the character roles are relatively ambiguous.

The main character present within these two minutes is:

• Unnamed girl at beach with whom the film opens - played by Anna Schofield

I think the main influence for this particular character, our main protagonist, would be Effy from Skins, played by Kaya Scodelario.

From the opening, the viewer understands this female as someone who was friends with the victim of the kidnapping. We wanted her to seem:

--> dishevelled, an outcome from the 'night before' which we would subsequently cut to

--> dressed as if she were on a night out

--> heavy eye makeup, as is common for characters like Effy

--> we would have wanted the character to smoke but we didn't feel right our actress to as a non smoker

CHARACTER INSPIRATION

I had three main influences in terms of character creation. As we were going for a more urban/grimy/London tone of film I had to choose accordingly, including:

• CHERRYBOMB, described by IMDB as a film where 'Three teens have a wild weekend of drinking, drugs, and stealing that quickly spins out of control.' Because this is one of my favourite films, I have been heavily influenced by it. Released in 2009, it is a grimy drama that centres around two boys (Malachy played by Rupert Grint and Luke by Robert Sheenan) attempting to win the same girl's affections by outdoing eachother on a wild ride of sex, drugs, vandalism, shoplifting and fighting.

• GLUE - T.V. SERIES, a new E4 drama described by radio times as 'Skins meets Broadchurch'. I think the main reason this was such an inspiration was because of the series' plot - a murder mystery. Although it is set in the countryside it includes many of the themes of young urban life, parties, drinking, drugs and amicability - which is especially portrayed within the first five minutes of episode 1 - pictured.

• SKINS, a British T.V drama that started in 2007, following the lives of a group of teenagers living in Bristol as they battle controversial story lines like dysfunctional families, mental illness, adolescent sexuality, drug abuse, death and bullying. I think Skins relates to what we are trying to produce in our opening, especially in the second series which features Kaya Scodelario. The grimy, darker quality of the programme as well as it being set in an urban environment.

DANCE SCENE MUSIC

Knowing we wanted a deep house track for our dance scene, we were influenced by many songs including:

We felt this song was

This is another darker house beat we thought would go well with the 'sense of foreboding' we wanted to achieve in our scene.



Here is a dance beat from the different genre of music - drum and bass.

ANIMATIC

This is the animatic I have made of the 'STROBE' storyboard. Using iMovie, I made use of the Ken Burns effect in slowly panning and zooming out of certain shots. I think it works really well in showing the main frame of the opening, incorporating all the key shots.

STORYBOARD

Here is the storyboard I have drawn out. Only the shots for the beach scene were actually drawn prior to filming, as we thought it would be nearing on impossible to draw all the .05 of a second long shots within the club scene. So, for the latter and the walking home sequence I have picked out the key shots and drawn them in the way that we wanted them to be portrayed.