We chose our setting of an abandoned house in Wyatts Green which is on the way to Doddinghurst in Essex. We all met up at Peter's house at 12 o'clock, already in our costumes (black suits with white shirts and black ties) and brought our props (Samurai sword, wrench, hammer and of course the masks). Joe was the only one who was not in costume for the day's shooting, as he was shooting all the footage but he brought all his camera gear including tripod.
When I arrived at Peter's house we immediately set off. We had two cars transporting us around. Peter's dad had himself, Peter, Tim and Joe in his car. I was in my dad's Porsche and it would be a major part of iconography for our thriller. We could not have some Ford Ka for example in our thriller otherwise it would simple look amateur and unprofessional.
We weren’t entirely sure where the location of this abandoned house was. We had a rough directions given to us by Mark Bansor the Friday before but still we still got slightly lost and past the House a couple of times before we found somewhere close enough to the house to pull up because the road was very dangerous and cars were speeding round the bends of this country road. We discussed what shots we were going to do first as we only had the Porsche for a limited amount of time. As Joe set the tripod up we all saw a major problem, there was a Massive JCB yellow digger just outside the House so we just had to discuss with my dad where to pull up to the house otherwise the digger would be in the shot.
During the shots of the Porsche some other problems occurred as my dad was talking to us he put his hazard lights on to show he had stopped but because of our marks and props we drew a lot of attention. A woman was driving about 60 miles per hour looking at us instead of the road where my dad had stopped in front of her. Luckily a crash was avoided. Other minor problems that we came across filming the Porsche was trying to get a clear road with just the Porsche as it pulled up to the house and as it pulled away. Because of this Joe had to re shoot these shots a couple of times. The one other problem I can think of whilst filming the Porsche was because my dad had recently just washed it you could see ourselves, the camera and tripod in the reflection of the shot so we had to rearrange the position of the tripod and when we shot it we stepped back a couple of metres.
After finishing with the Porsche we started with a long shot of us walking towards the camera with the house in the background of the shot. The Digger again became a problem for Joe shooting it so he had to rearrange the tripod and camera in order for the digger not to be in the shot. Also we had to watch where we were walking as it was extremely muddy. After finishing the shots outside the house we proceeded into the house. We were horrified at the state of this house but the mise en scene was amazing and we knew we had an excellent location. We had a quick look around. Every window was smashed, there was at least one or more holes in all the walls, there was blood written on the walls. As freaked out as we were we knew that the mise en scene and iconography this house possessed was appropriate for the genre and hopefully would help get us the grade we wanted. It also matched the minds of the masked characters that they are completely insane and horrific people.
Firstly we each picked a room that Joe would film us in. We decided that Joe was going to first film hand held. He made his way round the house and we were just destroying things throughout the house. I found a saw smashed it a couple of times on a wooden bench and then threw it on the floor I was also pacing up a down to show that I was impatient and wanted to proceed to the location of the protagonist. I was also looking at my Samurai Sword removing it slightly from its case to check the blade. Tim hearing the noise from my room thought he had to doing something just as good if not better to make his character look even crazier than mine. Joe started filming Tim from a hole in the wall which linked our rooms together. He then moved in the room and Tim suddenly went a bit loopy with his hammer. He ended up taking about half a wall down whilst Joe filmed he got a great shot of the camera looking over Tim's Shoulder as he raises his weapon. Joe got the angle of the shot from sitting on a ladder that had collapsed.
After filming Tim, Joe noticed that we had access to the loft of the house but it was not worth shooting up there as the mise en scene was not as good as it was down in the house. Joe then moved into Peter's room where he tore an old Curtain with his wrench, putting another hole in a wall (as if the house did have enough). Put Peter was obsessed with the floor boards. He kept trying to pull them up and destroy them with his wrench. However after the destruction that we did to the house we decided not to do anymore in case anyone heard and called the police.
Finishing the hand held filming we decided to get a couple establishing shots in the front of the house which was quite difficult due to the mass of overgrown plants. Joe then got a tilt shot of Peter standing in front of the wall with blood written on it. I came up with an idea of carving a door within the house with the sword and tried to persuade the others that it would be a great shot but they didn't agree until later and we ended up using that shot for the opening of our thriller and it works really well.
We then had to film the masked characters leaving the house, firstly Joe filmed from behind us looking over our shoulders. He then moved outside and got a shot looking at us as we left the house. We also got two extreme closeup shots of our feet as we stepped out of the house which we were influenced by "Lost" for an extreme close up of our weapons grasped in our hands. The only problems we had with this was what hand we held our weapons in for contiuinity, we had to watch our step as we walked out of the house as there was broken glass everywhere and we had to remain in the same order as we left the house myself first then Tim and Peter last.
Overall the filming in the house and of the Porsche took about 2 and half hours and was shorter than we expected. We packed up the camera and tripod and we called Peter's dad to give us a lift to our next location. During the drive to the next location I called my dad as we needed the Porsche again. We arrived at the location which was an office building behind the Esso garage in Brentwood. We had time to set up the camera, tripod and ask the security guard for permission to film there before my dad arrived.
The first shot was of the Porsche pulling up to the location. I put on my mask and I said to Peter when Joe wanted my dad to start driving to ring my phone. We drove to the end of the road turned around a Peter called my phone. The next shot was of the front rim of the Porsche pulling up to the pavement which in my opinion was one of the best shots of the day. I then exited the Porsche shutting the door but after we looked back at this shot in the editing suit we noticed that there was a problem that we had come across before but when we filmed that time we missed it. Again the reflection of Joe, the tripod and camera was in the reflexion of the Porsche and you could see it in the shot.
The last shots were firstly an over the shoulder shot hand held by Joe of myself walking towards the building and Peter and Tim appearing from behind a pillar as they had be waiting for me. The last shot was a profile shot of myself as they appeared from behind the pillar. In total the last location shooting took only half an hour bring our day's shooting to a total of 3 hours. Overall I think the shooting went very with some problems but we were able to overcome them and we all thoroughly enjoyed the day's shooting.
Oliver Fitch
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