Day Of Shoot

My Role in Crystal Productions is that of Assistant director. During the day of the shoot I took turns with Ruby, Katie and Anna to use the camera and microphone. I was also in charge of the permission to shoot document, the kit list and the hazards list which will have made its way into the production pack.

Generally i didnt have too much of a role on the actual day of shooting because the group hadnt sat down and explicitly discussed what we were going to do beforehand, so when it came time to shoot I especially just wandered around trying to work out what to do. however I made sure that I did as much of the filming and recording as everyone else. I would say that overall everyone managed to get as much time as possible doing their fare share of the individual tasks presented to them on the actual day. I would say that Ruby had the most contribution in the group as she was the director and then Katie and Anna would come second in that regard and then me last.

The role of Ruby was director, Katie was producer and Anna was the Creative Artist. Since Ruby was director the thriller was her vision and she was generally in charge of where in particular in the woods she wanted to film, it was Katies Job to help Ruby and check if what she was doing fitted with the script, My role to help Ruby with any additional camera work and sound recording and Anna provided the location of the shoot, gave us food and put the makeup on the children.

Overall the communication in our group is pretty bad because since the beginning we have been fighting over roles/vision and this is something that has then effected our organisation and that is definetely something we need to work on Not only this but the children were not particularly scary and if it was my choice I would have had actors playing the children however due to a combination of money issues and a lack of actors this was not the case. If we had been able to find actors to play the children and had better access to makeup then i genuinely believe this film could have been ten times better. The reason for this is because it would have made the film much scarier and believable as opposed to a child which is smiling all the time.

We used a Sony PD 170 to film our thriller it is pictured below







I have learnt many things from the entire experience including how to properly use a camera, how to use final cut pro and how to cut the film to turn it into a thriller. Whilst my group doesnt particularly get on I have still learnt alot about how to work in a group and this will prove to be a valuable learning experience for the future.

Thanks to Ffion however we managed to get someone who played the twins mother particularly well.

In terms of lighting we didnt use any, I think the reason for this is because the thriller took place in a natural environment (the woods) which means that we used the sun and the natural shadows the covered the forest floor, however i am not entirely sure as this was once again not discussed by the group.

Overall what you see in the finished product is exactly what was written in the storyboard however the girls were still not as scary as they should have been and the lack of lighting whether it was intentional or not did not add to anything.