Account of shoot day

As we were worried that the weather was going to be bad, we decided to film at my house. This was completely different to how we had planned to start the day as we had planned to shoot in the park. However, it was effective as it made it more realistic. The day started with Gabriel coming to my house at 10am and helping set up all the equipment needed. We set up the camera on the tripod and wheels, we created the set with the crime scene tape and attempted to set up the light but were not able to. We got all the props in the briefcase ready and the table set up and told our actors to get changed to be ready for filming when the other crew members arrived. Cesare and Mishel then arrived and Mishel did the make-up for the actors, drawing on the spider marks on their necks. We made sure that the marks were visible as they are the most important part of the film, revealing that Claire is one of the victims of the case.

We began shooting with both detectives walking up the driveway of the house from a close up of their feet to give a sense of mystery right at the very start as you don't quite meet them just yet. The diegetic sound of them walking up the pebbled driveway also created tension as it was a sort of crunching sound, which sends chills up peoples' spines. We then did some shots of Detective Seth and Claire talking from different angles but had to be extremely careful that the camera wasn't shown in the reflection on the window next to us. This was a challenge as it limited our range of shots that we could do. In the end, we stuck to the basic shots from the preliminary task. However, this was effective to our piece as it allowed us to show more camera time on Detective Seth, portraying him as an important figure and  allowed us to clearly show that he was talking to himself. One of the most important shots that we did was the long shot of my dad talking to himself as this was the moment of realisation that he is in fact talking to himself/a ghost. Another important shot in which we had to take was of the marks on their necks to fully signify that the two girls are victims of the same case and so we films close ups of these. Originally, the dead girl on the floor was not going to wear a coat as she was meant to be killed in the garden of her own home. However, as the weather was too cold, it would have been unethical to force her to stay out in the cold for hours without a coat and even with a coat, she was still shaking. One thing that we realised would affect our sound was the extremely loud wind. Despite this, we knew we could edit the sound and alter the volume of the wind.

We managed to create a mise-en-scene that was eerie but natural as we had the natural lighting from outside. As the sky was white, there was no sun shining through the clouds and so this gave a serious mood to the set. Overall, I feel that the shoot day went pretty successfully with a fair amount of shots. We realised afterwards that we had missed out on a couple of shots but we were able to shoot them another time separately and add them in. Furthermore, the day had few similarities to our original storyboard as we were in a different place and had to change the shots due to the reflections on the window. We were not as prepared as we were before we changed the location, but we managed to do everything we wanted to do by the end of the day.Additionally, we added in an extra match on action shot of the Detectvie Seth dropping the gloves on the floor, conveying how Claire isn't actually there and that he was giving the gloves to no one. This improved our film as it made it clear that he doesn't realise that she is a ghost. but we do. However, if we had the choice, we would have shot everything inside so that we would not have faced the loud sounds of the wind. Nevertheless, this added a supernatural effect as the wind sounded quite ghostly. We were going for quite a thrilling, ghostly, supernatural effect which is a good effect for our target audience of 18-60.