Production Blog (02/12/13)

Production Blog (02/12/13)

Today, during our double media lesson three of our group members (Alex, Lucy and Manisha) recorded and put together some test shots for the beginning of scene 4, which consisted of the main character, Vincent, making a cup of tea.  After recording last week we felt that this scene in particular was not strong enough, and so we decided to re-take some shots in order to make the scene look more professional. For ideas on how to improve, we looked at the "Shaun of the Dead" trailer, where they too had taken quick shots of an action and linked them together in a montage for effect. 

We then went on to taking quick practice shots of Alex getting, opening and dropping the lid of a water bottle. Unlike last week when filming the shots we decided to use to one perspective and zoom in as the action was taking place. Once we had put the shots together it became evident that this new technique looked much more professional than perviously. The scene was quicker than perviously as we decided to speed it up to match the effect used within 'Shaun of the Dead'. The shots consisted of the camera zooming in on exaggerated action in order to effectively grab the audience's attention.

Now that we had decided on the perspectives to film from, the speed of the shots and the effect of the 'zooming in', we went on to test these new findings with the scene of making tea. We used the food rooms in the DT corridor as they were equipped with a kettle. We tried out a number of shots so when it came to uploading the footage we had a lot to play around with to see what would work best.

After the tests, we made a group decision to show main character Vincent getting a glass of orange juice as oppose to tea. We decided to make this change as when putting our test shots together we felt that there was too many stages involved in making tea therefore it seemed to drag on and didn't leave much of an effect on the audience. Orange juice however would be much quicker and dramatic which would also emphasis that this is a normal task and trick the audience into believing that Vincent is actually innocent and means no harm. In addition, orange juice is commonly known to be a kids favourite making the audience feel sympathetic towards Vincent as they may just think he has failed to grow up and is looking for friends, although they are left waiting to see the truth.

- Written by Lucy Parsons