Sections of Filming - Evaluation

The section of the sequence that I filmed was the entire murder scene, from the entrance to the toilet until the end. The manner in which I filmed this section was slightly different to what one would expect, as the dolly was unable to fit into the narrow toilet, so I had to use a shoulder cradle to capture the sequence to ensure it was not tilted. The entire section used natural lighting, which was high key when in the main section of the toilet, but was no key light when focusing onto a specific stall, as we turned off the light in that stall to give it a more eerie feel, so that the killer appeared almost as a shadow in the darkness, which made it far more scary than when it was light. This vast and quick contrast between light and dark highlights the differences between life and death, and how white light connotes life as well as how darkness connotes death, giving it a more ominous look.

Also, other than the entrance to the toilet, I didn't film the sequence in the order that the storyboard would dictate as chronologically correct. This was done because I felt that the hardest section to film would be the stabbing and then the initial appearance of the killer.

As it happens, I was correct in my assumptions, as I had to film the stabbing section EIGHT times, as each time, felt that the motion did not seem real or menacing enough, or the focus on the camera was lost during part of the movement, or the actor who played the murderer (Sam) felt he should slightly deviate from the script in which he had no dialogue or sound, as he decided to grunt or scream. Eventually, I got a take which I felt captured a menacing, scary and quick lift and stab. This shot used a low angle

After this one shot, I moved onto the next shot, which was the shot that had the victim look up into the mirror to see only his reflection, then to look back down to wipe his face, and then to look back up again to find there was a person behind him. All of this one long section was an "over the shoulder" shot which incorporated both a medium close-up and a Two-shot, which also had elements of reference to one of our main influences, Mirrors and other influences with the generic trigger, such as Halloween II (2009), The Omen (2006), Orphan (2009) and Candyman (1992) were also referenced in this pastiche section. This shot was repeated four times, as the correct timing and focus had to be rehearsed and then shot, which was hard with the amount of movement that was needed without a dolly. This shot was also mostly a mirror shot, which the correct angle must be obtained to get both of the characters in the shot, as well as ensure the camera is not seen in the mirror.

After these two more difficult shots, the remaining shots were concluded without many issues, but the fact that the dolly was unable to be used did lead to a few more takes being filmed than would have been filmed otherwise. Examples of this are the shot in which the victim turns back around to find that he is the only person now reflected after having turned back around. This shot was filmed three times. The first two times I filmed it, I was unable to keep the camera straight for the entire shot so a third take was needed.

The match on action shot that was used between the victim moving his arm and the tap being turned on was filmed by 1st using the over the shoulder shot of him moving and actually turning on the tap from behind, and then re-recording the same action at eye-level from the side, as a mid-shot

This was the section that I shot, and I feel that there could have been some major improvements made, if we had more time and space. Firstly, the space issue played a large factor in diminishing the amount of time that I was able to shoot the other shots. In addition, the time that we had until the pub opened (making the toilets out of bounds for filming) was short, this meant that some of the later shots, which were later taken out of the sequence, were of a worse quality and that one shot that is still in the sequence was not filmed correctly. Due to the editing of the sequence, the transition looks less poor, but when the victim (Ezra) turns to try to see his attacker (Sam) the first time, Sam disappears from the mirror as Ezra is turning. This happened as the entire turn was not filmed, which lead to me having to splice in a separate shot of Ezra turning around, which didn't have Sam in the mirror, meaning that it looks far more novice than I would have liked.