Mother Nature's a B**CH

Don’t you just love it when you wake up in the morning after a great nights sleep, walk down stairs, get all of your filming equipment ready go to the front door and open it to be meet by snow!?
WELL I DONT!!!!!
Even this tiny amount of snow has resulted in me having to shut down production for the next few days; this is because it is impossible to be able to keep the continuity even throughout the film. So fingers crossed for no snow on the week end.

Pre-Production

I have been developing the story for up to two years. The story has changed and evolved from a horror set in a school with a cast if ten, to a horror set in fields and woods at night and then to a much shorter cast and set in the day time, and finally to the story of Possessed. After settling on this idea I decided to write a script for the film so that I knew where the film seemed to got and that I could put certain enigma codes into the opening that would make is seem like the film could carry on. With the help of many A-level students and a university graduate who studied film production and script writing for three years I finally had a good script and knew I could create a fantastic film opening, and the rest is history.

Production Schedule

Production:
Friday 19th Nov
Wednesday 24th Nov
Wednesday 1st Dec
Wednesday 8th Dec

Post Production:
Thursday 25th Nov
Tuesday 30th nov
Thursday 2nd Dec
Firday 3rd Dec
Monday 6th Dec
Tuesday 7th dec
Thursday 9th Dec

Pick-up:
Saturday 4th Dec
Sunday 5th Dec

Exporting
Tuesday 14th Dec

Actress

My lead actress was Miss Aj Watson. I have chosen her because she is the same age of the character in the script. Aj plays Jody in the film Possessed. Aj has the same strong curiosity about her that Jody does and I felt that she would be a very good choice for the part and she would make Jody come to life.

Props

Necklace (Pentagram)
Car
Fake Blood
Paper with demonic images on it.

Analysis of a professional film opening

http://www.slideshare.net/callison1318/silence-of-the-lambs

Finding the cast and screen testing.

Finding the right actress was actually one of the major obstacles that I had to over come. This is because I needed the right person who had the right look and who was able to act in the way that was required. The first actress that I settled on was a wonderful actress called Hayley Neil; however this hit a wall when she had prior commitments, and the final actress that I found was Aj Watson. This actually turned out for the best even though she is not an actress. Hayley Neil even agreed after she was the screen test that I done and she had this to say. "You see... if I had done it, it would have been expected and know you have a wonderful piece of drama". After finding Aj I finally felt the film coming together.

After finding the lead actress I need to do some costume test. We went through a lot of different costumes to try and find the right costume. I wanted to place a piece of red ion every shot, so we finally settled on a red hoodie with dark jeans. This gave her I look of her standing out but her legs seemed to be lots, and this gave the illusion that she was running very fast.

Lights, camera, ACTION

The start of principle photography was on Thursday the 18th of November in the woods and field of Stanstead Abbotts. We started filming but then disaster struck when it started to rain and we had to stop shooting for the day. We filmed for about two hours before the havens opened and we were rained off! I managed to record enough that day so I could know what other shots I required and when and where I had to film them, to create the best atmosphere which sent off the right look and feeling for the film that I needed.

Cast and Crew

The people involved in the filming are me (Robert Kenny) and I will be doing the directing, camera operator and editing plus all of the pre and post production stages. The other person involved in filming is Aj Watson; she is the assistant director, the 2nd camera operator and the actress (Of the character Jody). This film is a bout a young girl whose curiosity ends up destroying her life, after she uncovers a lost church, and becomes possessed by an evil sprit bound to the church. It now falls onto her best friend and room mate to exorcise her and save her life. This film is a drama/thriller and would be intended for an audience of over 15 years of age.

Assessment feedback on preliminary exercise

Millie, Page, Robert, Ryan

Good clean cuts
Well framed
Good use of timing between the different shots
You didn’t cross the line

Preliminary exercise

Preliminary exercise October 2010

This is the preliminary exercise I completed with Ryan Bartlett, Paige Weir, Millie Hicks

Overall I believe that we achieved a very huge level of quality on our preliminary exercise.
This is due to firstly, the camerawork, the shots that we used were steady throughout and each of these shots was correctly framed. The eye line match and the 180 degree rule were followed very successfully when filming. However there are some aspects that we would change in our exercise. This would be just to simply to add more shots, this is because when we started editing we discovered a jump cut that had occurred, this resulted in us having to find a shot of Millie Hicks without speech and add it in.

Secondly the editing helped us gain a higher level. This is due to our very successful match on action, invisible transitions and our shot reverse shot. The pace of the sequence is very good and fits in well with the tone of the scene. However to improve this we would have to again create different shots to edit in to make the sequence more interesting.

Finally the mise en scene worked very well in our favour. the lighting work very well in our scene as there seem to be a slight gray light over Ryan creating a moody and upset emotion, this light has not been transferred to Millie and this has made the scene gain the right emotions that is required. The background is very appropriate as it is filmed in a real office and as the scene is about a person getting fired, it felt like the right place to film it.

The team worked extremely well together and as we all pitched in on everything the process was very quick and we were able to complete this video to a high standard. My main role in the team was to actually be on the camera and press record.