Account of shoot days

Our media shoot took place on two separate days. This is because our thriller idea was based on unlicensed taxis picking up girls and we thought that filming in night time would be more realistic. The first shoot took place In Guildford at around 4 o clock in the afternoon. Luckily were still in the time of the year when it gets dark early so we were able to get the shots we needed. Using Guildford as our first location was really to establish where the victim was when she got into the taxi. Even though we only filmed around three or four angles that extra bit of footage will play a big part in our opening sequence and make it a higher quality piece of footage.

When we arrived at Guildford we spent no time hanging around and got straight down to it. We chose ‘The Drink’ nightclub as the location for our actress to walk out from. So we set up our camera across the street in order to pan down the entire building till we reached the victim stepping out and putting on her jacket. Looking back on our footage I found out that it was a very long shot of about 10 seconds but I think when we edit it all together it will look good.
Before we continued with the rest of the more challenging shots one of us had to go to the nearby taxi rank in order to pay a black cab to position himself outside the club and drive away when our victim walked out onto the street. Luckily there was one black cab there who agreed to do what we asked, even though on the first take he didn’t pull away but asked our victim to get in. However on the second take he drove away in order for our unlicensed taxi to pull up on the kerb.
When we were filming from this angle we had to place our camera and tripod on the side walk where a lot of pedestrians were walking by. This made it hard to get a good natural shot without the public knowing what was going on. However amongst all the Guildford footage we got we should be able to cut together a good introduction sequence before we move onto the interior footage.

Looking back at our original storyboards our shoot days didn’t actually go too different to what we planned which surprised me. We had planned to go to the nightclub in Guildford for our opening shot, however we made our lives a lot easier by just filming her get into the taxi instead of adding in the whole act of her dropping her bag, the taxi driver picking up her ID etc. Instead we changed the script later on in the interior footage.
From day one we were always aiming for a thriller effect for our shoot days. Even before we have edited our footage and added the music, text etc I’m certain that we have achieved the effect of the thriller. I think this was due to two things, the fact it was filmed at night in quite a dodgy looking location of a girl on her own, and the script we used in the end.

When it came to filming our group took it in turns to film each shot. In Guildford we did a shot each of our victim getting in the car. We did these shots in order to make our victim to look venerable and alone in the dark with only streets lamps which created a feeling of isolation. However when it came to shooting on our second day outside the studio at school there were a lot more tasks needed to be done in order to set up. Again it was dark because this is when we wanted to use stage lights to create the false impression that cars were passing by. We had two lights to use, one on each side of the car, one white and the other red. I had to set up the red light inside the shed so it was out of the rain but able to show up on our actors effectively.
On the second shoot day we had to set up outside the studio because all of our footage had to be inside our unlicensed taxi. Using the inside of the car and creating all the artificial lights and movements you would experience when driving in a car at night and in the rain all helped towards creating the mis-en-scene that would relate to the genre of film that we are making. I chose to do particular shots such as the taxi drivers eyes looking at the girl in the rear view mirror and a close up of her having no signal on her phone to call for help in order to create a sense of fear and create suspense. I think that the interior shots of the taxi worked really well with the lighting and rain effects we used. It made the footage look really realistic and give it a thriller edge to it.

For costume we decided to dress our girl in all black. This is a contrast to the stereotypical all white innocent look but we wanted her to appear streetwise so that she would be able to work out what’s happening to her and how to try and escape throughout the film. For our taxi driver we decided to make him dress in casual clothes-a black leather jacket as well. In his case we dressed him that way to make him appear like the villain and also make him appear like less of an official taxi driver. For props we needed to use a student ID so that it made the plot more realistic-that our taxi driver had been stalking her at her university and stole her identification as a memento. We were also planning on using a hose to create the false effect of rain but luckily it was actually raining on the day of our shoot so we just had to use a small spray bottle to use on the windscreen to make the rain look a bit heavier. We decided to use rain because it is a convention of a thriller/horror film which creates the fear factor for the audience.
When it came to casting we chose to cast our victim because she had a very innocent look to her yet mature. She would also appeal to our target audience for the males because she is a good looking actress. We chose to cast our taxi driver because we needed someone older to make it more realistic. If we had casted a 17 or 18 year old guy it wouldn’t be very believable.
In terms of lighting we chose to film outside when it was dark with the use of artificial lighting. This is because the darkness is a typical convention of a thriller/horror film. We didn’t use lighting on our first shoot day because we were out in Guildford and couldn’t set up lights in the street. However on the second shoot day we used two stage lights, one white, one red, on each side of the car and moved them back and forth every couple of seconds to make it look like cars driving past. When we looked back over the footage the lighting inside the car had worked really well, however some of the shots showed that it was in fact a stage light being moved back and forth, which eliminated the realistic effect of cars passing by. Hopefully when it comes to editing we will be able to fix this problem.
In terms of sound before editing we only had a couple of instances. One would be the car door slamming, which was a lot louder than the dialogue and creates suspense. It was a good use of sound to use for cutting to another shot also. We also had the sound of the rain hitting the car which created an atmosphere which was lingered with tension and suspense.
When it came to filming we alternated roles. I took part in filming, setting up the scene, the lights, deciding shot choices and creating the script used for our thriller. It was important that we all worked together and discussed options so that we got different opinions and as a group decided what would be best for our thriller.
Overall I was very happy with the outcome of our thriller. The shot day arose above my expectations and we achieved the thriller that I had imagined in my head. If we were to do it again I would do nothing differently.