Account of Shoot Day

Account of Shoot Day

When it came to the shoot day for our thriller we made sure we were well prepared and organised as to what shots we needed to shoot. We had to have two shoot days for the reason that our thriller required filming in a number of locations around a school, some during needed to be filmed during the school day and some did not.  Our first shoot day was the murders from the killer, with the second being the dynamic basketball shots. The reason we had to plan our shoot days ahead is because we needed the actor who is playing the killer to be wearing a suit. With the basketball costume, we rented one from our school so they were always accessible. Also as we weren’t hiring the cameras out of school, we had to hope they were available the days we wanted to film.  The first shoot day didn’t have the best of starts, as we couldn’t find the school technician who is responsible for the school cameras. We tried to begin filming using a phone just to try and get something filmed as point of view shots, however this turned out to be unsuccessful and a waste of time.

We had all the props ready and eventually found the technician. We regrouped and decided to split into smaller tasks to do some jobs. One group went to fetch the camera and my group went to a teacher to borrow some students to act in our thriller which was pre arranged.  The week before the shoot day I approached a teacher I was quite familiar with and asked if we could borrow students in uniform to use for our thriller.We decided that this would be better as the killer would be shown to have no heart, as he is shooting both boys and girls  who are younger than him perhaps and not appearing to target a particular gender. Once the camera was set up and ready, we began shooting the thriller during the lesson time in a teacher toilet, as this was roomier than a normal toilet and would allow us to get more effective shots. We used am over the shoulder shot with the idea of editing it to become eye-line match to show the evil intention of the killer as you can see the anger in his eyes.  At this point we decided to record the school-children being shot using the camera handheld, in order to incorporate a slight shaky idea of the shooting, which means that it would be more realistic and more hyped.  We then used the actual cameras to film. We decided that this would be the best time to do it, as the corridors would be less busy. We filmed the first part of the thriller where the killer is in the bathroom, and then we got the school children set up in different locations i.e. the stairs and the corridor that rooted from the staircase. We filmed a tracking shot following the killer down the stairs using the camera handheld in order to incorporate a slight shaky idea of the shooting, which means that it would be more realistic and more hyped. We had to record the shooting of the 2 girls running a couple of times, in order to get a variety of different camera angles and positions in order to make the scene look professional. We then had to film separate shots of the killer walking towards the PE department. We did this because otherwise we would use jump cuts and the killer would be at the PE department already, I think jump cuts would look silly and unprofessional for this type of thriller, so we filmed the killer walking and reloading to fill in parts and extend the length of the thriller. This took us the most part of a lesson so to film the killer walking through the corridors, my colleagues were standing in the corridors making sure no one interrupted the filming and we could get the last shot of the lesson done. I went to go and ask in the PE office if they would like to be a part of our thriller because to be a high school massacre you should kill the teachers as well as the students. Once they agreed we obtained footage from them being shot from a few angles. I think that it was a good idea to film the PE office being shot, as it shows that not only school children were killed, but also the staff that are obviously adults. The killer then proceeds to open the doors of the hall, where he would stand still. We initially had a shot of the killer nodding his head, but decided to not include it as it would be too long.

The second shoot day should’ve taken less time than it did but we did after school so it didn’t matter too much. It featured all of the shots that the basketball player needed, including the moves and shots, and also the ending where he moves towards the killer. I had to ask our teacher if we would be allowed to start filming during the lesson. He agreed, and we went to ask the PE department if we would be allowed to use their hall to shoot the filming of the basketball player. The actor playing basketball had to get his gear ready such as the jersey and shorts, along with the correct shoes and socks in order to fulfil the role of the basketball player to the best he could. We filmed a lot of shots with the basketball player so that we had a wide variety of angles and shots to choose from. This shoot ran smoothly however, it took the player some time to get the ball in as he kept missing. However I believe that it would have been better if we didn't take up the hour that we used to film, as we only practically needed roughly 30 minutes maximum in order to get all of the footage that we needed, plus extra shots if they were needed in the editing. After we believed we had finished we counted the number of killings we had done and I particularly wasn’t satisfied. However, at this point it was lunchtime so there were students roaming the corridors. I came up with idea to film the killer going into a classroom and leaving it again in separate shots, so that we could film a different classroom in the school as the one we filmed the killer entering had students nearby. We did so that on the final product it would still look like he had gone into that same camera.

The shoot account ended at this point, as we just needed to edit the two scenes together in order to make the contrast between the killer and the basketball player. If we got the chance to film again, I would ensure that we used the school cameras to film all of the shots, as we used them for all shots except for the shots where the school children were killed. As well as this, for some unbeknown reason, the camera was not in HD so effected the quality when editing.