Problems and successes from my production

During the production phase of my opening sequence I encounter numerous problems with Mise-en-scene and various other components. Firstly, I wanted to film at dusk, however we left this too late and we ended up filming in the dark as you will see in my rough cut that it was impossible to see any of the action. Additionally because it was so dark I couldn’t get the camera to focus this messed up a few shots as the camera was focusing on random spots. Furthermore we didn’t include an establishing shot this confused the audience as they had no idea what the setting was. This has to be easily identifiable as it is a key feature in a horror film as you need the audience to know that the setting is in the middle of nowhere and that the characters are isolated. I also did a couple of the tracking up shots at the start of the opening sequence unsuccessfully as you could see the cameraman’s shadow. So, on my re-shot I will correct this. I also made us stick to the script this made the dialogue seem unnatural it made it look really poor and unprofessional. Because of all of these problems we will have a re-shoot. In the re-shoot we will film earlier in the day and add a darkening effect. I will also make sure that the dialogue is more natural and that it is made up on the spot to make it seem realistic. I will add an establishing shot and add a greater variety of shot so that when it came to editing I will have a greater choice of shot to choose from.

Furthermore, my first shoot was very successful. The plot was easy to stick to and we never encountered any problems that would prevent us from keeping to the original storyline. The car scene also worked really well as it seemed realistic and the house scenes were very successful. For example the killing sequence worked really well as we perfected the lighting so that a dark silhouette appeared. The acting also seemed to be realistic and the setting worked really well. This will keep the audience in the ‘realism’ of the film. However on my re-shoot I will think more about costume design and using a tripod as some of the shots where shaky.

This was the lighting before the re-shoot:

After re-shoot

Cameraman