Today on 27/10/09, we started creating our two minute film opening. First, we structured and storyboarded our film and then headed outside to begin actually filming. I was mainly excited about filming but also quite nervous. On one hand, excited because we have been discussing this coursework and planning and researching for it for the past 2 months and so I could not wait to actually produce it. On the other hand, I was nervous because there was a lot of pressure to film what we actually had in mind and if it was not of the standard that we wanted then we would be really disappointed.
Today, we filmed most of the outdoor scenes where the stalker and ballet dancer are in the shots. Our actors were very reliable and we took pictures of their outfits so that we remember what they wore and so when we film over the course of the next few days we will ensure that they are wearing the exact same outfit with the same make-up, jewellery and make up. This is extremely important so that it shows continuity thoroughout our film.
Elle Hutchkinson(Ballet dancer)= We realised that it was impossible to find the actual outfit the ballerina was wearing in the music box so we improvised. Elle became more of a contemporary dancer and wore the following :
Black jazz shoes, black leggins, black leg warmers, black crop top, black lace overlayer, black over the body bag and black coat for outdoor scenes.
She wore her hair loose and curly with a black headband and had natural make up with simple earrings.
Billy Jarvis(Stalker)= We wanted to portray the typical stalker looking character and we did this by ensuring he wore suitable clothing, he wore the following:
Jeans, black leather jacket, black trainers and black over the body bag. The idea of him dressing in black attire also fits in with the darkness of the sky. The black bag could suggest he has hidden items in there that could be of some danger.
We began filming in the park at around 17:00 just at it was beginning to turn dark. The first scene we filmed will actually be the last scene in the film. 
The scene was Sophie(the 2nd dancer) walking past the stalker as if she is his next victim. This was filmed by the river in Enfield Town Park as Sophie walked along the pathway next to the river Billy sat on the bench. We filmed this shot from different angles; wide shot, a shot from behind, a shot from infront and an extreme close up of the stalkers eyes whilst he read the newspaper.
Since most of our film was filmed at night and in the dark we decided to use nightmode on the video camera. Most of our film will be filmed in nightmode to reinforce the idea of the time of day being the night and it also makes it appear scarier and makes it clear that it is a thriller film.
Whilst filming we came across a beautiful reflection of the moon in the river. This really caught our eye as it was partially hidden behind a twig tree so the branches were sticking out and the silhouettes of the branches overlapped onto the moon. Although it was not in our storyboard, we decided to shoot a weather shot of this and slot it into our film somewhere to set the scene and atmosphere. We also filmed a pan shot from the moon in the sky down to the reflection in the ripples of the river.
After we filmed these shots, the night grew darker and it was too dark for us to film in our current spot as planned as it would not show continuity. We decided to relocate to a pathway under a light and filmed them walking past each other in opposite ways. This was a clever decision as you could see the characters clearer than in the previous location. We filmed this scene as a wide shot, from one end of the pathway and from the other end of the pathway.
We then made our way to Esporta Leisure Centre nearby and I asked them if we could film the outside of their building as it could pass for a ballet studio. To our delight they accepted and we began to film this shot. We filmed Elle walking down the steps as if she was coming out of the ballet studio at the end of a class . We filmed this scene as a wide shot on the other side of the road, an extreme close up of her feet as she walked down the steps and a pan shot as she continued down the road to show the linkage between the shot.
The shot following this was of Elle walking along the pavement. We filmed this scene from behind, infront, an extreme close up of her walking through the leaves on the floor, Elle then filmed a point of view shot of her feet and we filmed a pan shot follow as she walked.
Afterwards, we made our way to Enfield Town bridge to film one of the shots that I was dreading. The reason being was that it required great communication and timing between the directors and the two main characters. The shot had Elle running across the bridge right to left and had Billy running underneath the bridge from left to right. This was achieved by the directors and actors communicating via mobile phones to inform them about when to run and when not to. As Billy was running underneath the bridge on the main road we had to be extremely cautious so filmed the scene when the cars were stopped by the traffic lights. Our aim was to film it so that when the two characters were running in opposite ways their silhouettes met at the middle of the bridge at one point. The communication and timing all worked out perfectly and with the use of the bridge lights we managed to shoot the shot exactly the way we wanted which was fantastic. This shot actually turned out to be one of my favourite scenes to shoot because although it was difficult to time it correctly it was all worth it in the end and we also had fun and giggles along the way.
For our final shot of the first day, we filmed Elle walking down an alleyway then being followed by Billy shortly after. We filmed this scene from different angles; Elle walking towards the camera then panning around the corner, from behind Elle, walking past the camera and finally her sitting on a wall for a high angle shot. The use of this shot will portray her to the audience as vulnerable as she is the victim in the film.
I thought the first day filming was thoroughly enjoyable as did the rest of my group. All the shots came out the way we expected and we managed to shoot everything we set ourselves to film and more! The first day filming made me realise that our film will take a lot longer than we expected as we were out for around 3 hours we only managed to film around 10 minutes of footage.This is way too much as our whole filming should be around 2 minutes. This was because we found ourselves filming the same scenes a few times as we encountered a few problems for example, people walking past and cars driving past.But we thought that it is better to have more footage rather than less so that you have more to experiment with and more of a choice when editting but hopefully with the use of imovie we will be able to narrow it down to our duration limit.
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