17/10/09 Production Diary (Part 1 Interior Garage Scene)

As a group we decided it was convenient to shoot the footage of the ‘garage warehouse/scene’ at Peter McLaughlin’s house on Saturday 17th October. We mutually agreed that this garage was ideal to use, due to it being cluttered and small giving the audience a sense of claustrophobia when it was presented on screen. Previous to deciding on this location we had surveyed other possible locations that could be used including Oliver Fitch’s Father’s garage, a local garage up for rent and various places the character could awaken but none matched or contained the iconography that this setting obtained. We delegated different roles once everyone arrived at the location.
Oliver Fitch being responsible for Continuity and helping with the framing of camera shots,
Peter McLaughlin playing the role of “John”,
Joseph Lawrence in charge of cinematography
and Tim Mcniven was trying to justify the shots taken in relation to the script to
keep raw as possible.
Prior to arranging the shoot, we casted the iconic role of the dead girl as Holly Brooks. Holly was ideal for the role due to her stereotypical

features:
fair haired
blue eyes
And has a sense of innocence about her.

In using a female body instead a male body we felt that the audience would sympathize as well as feeling emotional towards the now deceased girl, as a young girl’s death is seen as tragic. With the dead girl being shown near the start of our production it sets an ominous tone and engages the audience.

We tested several Camera shots for the opening of our film as we wanted to correctly establish that our short film was of the experimental genre. We tried several camera shots mainly consisting of a change in lighting. The first shot we tried was of ‘John’ lying on the floor with natural daylight flowing into the room, illuminating it. We felt that this shot was in a sense clever as it could be seen as a cinematic conceit (as the closing of the door shows how society is rejecting him due to his situation). However this shot would divert the audience’s attention, as they would question where the daylight was coming from and this would shatter the film’s continuity. We tried close ups of John’s face and that of the dead girl’s but we felt that this would ruin the plot instantaneously. Eventually we found a camera shot that was interesting and fascinating. This was an extreme low-angle shot looking up towards a light as it flickered and lit up the darkness of the confined garage. It created a strange blur effect when filmed due to the sudden contrast in lighting. We felt that this was particularly effective as it set the mood for the film and could be related closely to the experimental genre.

After obtaining this footage we decided to stick closely to our storyboards based upon the script. We set up the next shot, which was influenced by LOST. It was an extreme close up of John’s eyes as they opened. We felt that this use of the camera was on par with the creativity of the previous shot and we wanted to keep this fresh and raw use of cinematography consistent well throughout our production. We felt that this shot could also be enhanced through the use of light manipulation and contrasting, to create an effect that the eyes are about to shed tears.

We then began to trial various camera shots of a higher difficulty, the reason that these shots provided more challenge was because there was a mirror present in the frame of the camera, and we had to take extra care that the camera or tripod could not be seen in the reflection of the mirror. The use of the mirror would have a great impact on the audience when it was viewed on screen, as it panned away from the mirror to reveal the character in a different position creating a psychedelic impression. Upon acquiring this shot we thought that we needed to match the motion of the character with match on action shots, as breaking up the shots and keeping the pace of this scene is what we are mainly trying to achieve to set the mood.

We then moved onto a crucial part of the shoot in which the dead girl is revealed to the audience and presents an enigma, leaving the audience to join the dots as the film progresses. The camera shot was a high angle/over the shoulder shot at a canted angle. In frame the shot contained ‘John’ nervously moving forward towards a large box, his hand slowly reaches to the lid of this object and begins to pull it away slowly, eventually revealing the ‘Dead girl’. We felt that the way our piece had been constructed through storyboards could be due to our study of Psychoanalytical Film theory, as we wanted to keep our audience engrossed whilst they watched our short film.

Definition:
The film viewer is seen as the subject of a "gaze" that is largely "constructed" by the film itself, where what is on screen becomes the object of that subject's desire.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoanalytical_film_theory

We encountered numerous problems whilst trying to shoot this section of our short film.
The lack of space made it difficult to arrange camera shots and angles.
Due to the lack of space, not all members of the group could be inside the garage whilst filming, so we had to rotate who was using the camera and who would be preparing shots.
The lighting presented a problem when viewed on camera, due to auto focus issues.
The battery life of the camera meant that the time available for us to conduct the shoot was limited unless we were near a plug socket.


By Oliver Fitch & Peter McLaughlin