AS Media Horror film - Cold Case

Preliminary Task

Filming the main brief

Back in February Myself, Lily and Liv filmed our main brief with 2 of our friends Charlie and Lucy to help with the acting side. We began our film at the house with our opening scene where our characters discover the Facebook post that leads them to the park. Straight away there was a problem raised with our filming equipment, our camera did not connect to our tripod which meant we were forced to use an Iphone 6s. This proved to be a suffice replacement as it gave good quality recording.

This is Me, Liv and Charlie

Here is the Iphone 6s attached to the Tripod

Above is our VLOG on the day of our main brief planning

Filming the Mini Brief

As you can imagine there were a few problems raised in the production of our Mini Brief, Typically the weather was one of them. The temperature dropped to -4, due to the fact it was winter the brightness fell rapidly around 4 o clock which meant filming became harder as we had to use torches to light up the scene. 

The pictures above are of me freezing in -4 before we continued filming our mini brief. We waited until it became much darker as we wanted the setting to be spooky.

Mini Brief and evaluation of Mini Brief

Evaluation of Mini Brief:

The location used in our Mini brief was a good choice as it fitted in well with the horror genre due to the isolation that we would normally expect from a horror film. Although this was a good area to shoot it did come with issues, for example to maintain a spooky setting we had to wait until it was dark, but this also meant that lighting was limited which resulted in us using our phones as torches, this created a very artificial and fake look towards a film. On the other hand, this could be seen as a positive as the black background could give the audience a sense of abandonment or danger as we are unaware of what is behind. Also we used fake blood to put on the tree which strengthened as it is key iconography in the horror genre and was very realistic.

Our mini brief is accurate to that of our storyboard as we managed to maintain most of the scenes and cuts we had planned. However it was deemed that we couldn't have many of our props that we had first thought to use; for example we were unable to start a fire which our characters would sit around as we were in a park that was private property. This affected our script which meant we had some minor changes to the conversation between the characters. 

An issue was raised with sound during our mini brief because we didn't have a microphone, only a camera which means the digetic sound in the mini brief often changes depending on the different locations of the park we are in which can alter the flow of the film. Also the dialogue was affected by the loudness of background noise which makes it difficult to hear what me and Liv are saying which means it will be hard for the audience to know what is going on in terms of the plot. Although we have found an issue here with sound we countered this by adding our own sound effects, these work well as they have been put in places that do not have dialogue, and when the character Morgan walks up to the tree the music builds tension and mystery as there is a long wait to see what he is looking at. The non-diegetic sound works well as it includes the noise of a dog. 

Another issue raised from our mini brief is that our camera angles were sometimes wrong, one of which was our 180 degree shot of me and Liv talking where we filmed over the line which took the shot out of place and this meant we were unable to use a valuable shot. In future we can counter issues like this by filming more of the angles needed before we move onto our next shot. Its vital that we use relevant camera angles that fit the horror genre and the 180 degree rule is important for horror as we can see both parts of a conversation between the two characters and keep the flow of the scene which is vital to maintain momentum for the horror film.

Camera Angles and Editing

Shot reverse Shot:

Shot reverse shot (or shot/counter shot) is a film technique where one character is shown looking at another character (often off-screen), and then the other character is shown looking back at the first character.

180 Degree Rule:

In film making, the 180-degree rule is a basic guideline regarding the on-screen spatial relationship between a character and another character or object within a scene.
 

Match on Action:

Match on action (or cutting on action) is an editing technique for continuity editing in which one shot cuts to another shot portraying the action of the subject in the first shot.


Tracking Shot:

A tracking shot is when a camera follows a person or an object physically moving with the subject- This can be done using tracks, handheld, ropes, Steady-cam etc.

Over Shoulder Shot:

An over the shoulder shot is a shot of someone or something taken from the perspective or camera angle from the shoulder of another person. The back of the shoulder and head of this person is used to frame the image of whatever (or whomever) the camera is pointing toward.