Filming part 1

For our first time filming we went to St. Ivo school in St. Ives to film our high school shootings. We were there for 2 hours making sure, the shots were up to all our standards.

Here's what we did, and the processes we went through.

First we set up the camera and tripod outside the main block entrance, to shoot Lisette, our protagonist walking into "school" For this we used a mid shot pan to follow her along the path and up the stairs of the building. The placing of the camera here wasn't successful as the tripod and our shadows were in the way. We couldn't have done it in the other direction as the sun would've been in the shot and it would have gotten too bright.

So instead we moved the camera (with the camera off the tripod of course!) to around the corner of the building opposite. Here our shadows weren't seen and the shot was more successful. We used a mid shot pan again, but when Lisette walked up the stairs it become a low angle.

This is James having lots of fun with Rams mittens and Ryan setting up the camera for the second take of this shot. We took several takes of each shot trying it in different places and using different angles, until we were all satisfied with the end product.

Here's where Lisette started walking, when it came to editing we realised she was walking for too long, and cut it down so she started a lot further up. This shortened her walk, but still gave the same impact we were looking for.

After, we tried again from another position, this time at a high angle pan. We were very careful whilst filming on this wall and took extra precaution in case we fell. This is what the end "walk to school" scene looked like.


From there our protagonist had to enter the building. At first we had trouble shooting this as the camera and cameraman kept getting caught in the doors reflection when it opened, so we stayed in the same place but opened the other door. It was also inconvenient as this was the main entrance to this building and many people were going in and out often. This took up some extra time having to be patient and wait for students and teachers to go through.

(Obviously you can see Ram and James' reflection at this point, but I moved out of the way, and the other door was opened and didn't get in the shot.)



Once in the building we used a mid shot to show her coming through the door and into the building. We filmed from just inside the door to make it look as if, the audience would be observing her.

Once we finished the walking shots, we went into another building to film the actual "shootings" For this we used a long empty corridor to give an eerie atmosphere. It was also dimly lit, with a light at the end of the corridor, again creating a feeling of it being unnatural and creepy. We used a mid shot, and the tripod to avoid shaking.

After a lot of deliberating and trying and re-trying shots we finally finished and were happy with our results. From there we went to Ram's house to shoot the "home" scenes of our protagonist getting ready for the day. We were unable to shoot the protagonist leaving the house at that point as it'd gone dark, but we'll either shoot another time with Ryan's camera or cut that part out.

In our next media lesson we started editing, putting our scenes into the right order and cutting them down to the appropriate size. After this we'll start applying affects and music.

(NOTE: even though Ram was in only one of these photos doesn't mean she didn't do anything, as she was the one taking them! :)