Filming Delay: BPA Trip

My group and I went on a school trip to Orlando, Fl for our BPA club. It was quite concerning to our teacher as we would be gone over the weekend when all the other groups would be filming. He was nervous about us falling behind since we hadn't started filming and not being able to film in a timely manner. We reassured him that we would film when we came back and that our film would be finished by the deadline. While we were on the BPA trip we continued to iron out the dinner details of our film, while also getting first place in the state. We plan to immediately begin filming to calm down our teacher.

We were greenlit!!

Before my group had the opportunity to start filming, we had to make a proposal for our film. The proposal included documents such as scripts, storyboarding, risk assessment, shot list, etc. We filled out all of the necessary paperwork we needed and submitted our proposal to our teacher. We were confident in our idea and were excited to start filming. We get to class and our teacher talks to us about our film. We had been greenlit and could start filming! But it didn't come without some commentary. He said that our film was very visually boring and that he didn’t expect that from us. He said the film has been done before and we should of ways to have the movie have a visual twist…in the first two minutes of a film. I respect my film teacher, I really do but this was hard to hear as the three of us were so proud and excited about our concept.  We thought of any possible way we could make our movie more appealing to him and thought of including time travel, aliens, and even the titanic! None of those ideas made sense for our film though. So while we will keep in mind the constructive criticism, Sarah, Melina, and I plan to keep the same plan and create a visually interesting movie through camera techniques.

My Living Landline

There are no good stalker movies that do not include a creepy phone call, it is a genre convention at this point. The only problem that comes with doing that is that no one in our generation answers a random number. Melina, Sarah, and I were close to scrapping the idea together but then I proposed the idea of a landline. Many people who had landlines would answer random phone calls willy-nilly. But that poses another problem. Who is 2023 actually still uses a landline? Melina’s family. Well, they don’t currently use it, but they kept the phone when they got rid of it. Now to answer that question again but in a different way. No one actually has landlines anymore, so because of this, we have set the timeline of our movie from 2023 to the 2000s when landlines were more common.

Scouting for our Sets

I'm about to start filming with Sarah, Melina, and we're not going to be filming in a lot of different places. Yet, we still need to study the potential areas. The first location we intend to use is Sarah's house because it has large, expansive windows that enhance the creepy atmosphere of the film. Large windows in a home are unsettling, especially at night when passersby may look inside while you can only see your reflection. 

The front door to Sarah's residence is likewise extremely intriguing. It has windows all around the edge and is mostly made of windows. I can attest for how unnerving Sarah's front door and windows are at night. The problem I will probably face the most during the production is to not have me or the camera in the reflection of the windows and door. Having all these windows will help me while I am filming to catch Sarah more easily.

Winn Dixie was our next set choice because of the atmosphere the parking lot exudes, however we still need to collect images of it. Because Winn Dixie's logo is red, the parking lot won't be well-lit as if it were a Publix parking lot. It will just heighten the eerie atmosphere. We plan to film in an area of the parking lot that is more populated because the area will be better lit than in the back of the parking lot. 

A Script?!?!??!

For our last production, we made a one-minute silent film so we did not have to worry about a script. This current production has dialogue as optional. Since it is the first two minutes of a film, we decided to keep dialogue to a minimum. With little talking, we can further exploit sound to keep the environment creepy and eerie.  

I had come up with a rough idea of some dialogue sprinkled throughout the different scenes:

As a group, we decided to scrap all talking until the very last part of our film. We think by keeping absolutely no dialogue, it'll add more focus on Clara and the emotions she experiences as the film begins. The only time she will talk is when she answers her landline and after that will be heavy breathing on the line.

Shot List!!!

My shot list is finally complete for Watching Her Every Move. I added more shots than I did the first time and properly planned and made necessary notes to help with filming. It offered multiple problems with the movement of the shots. Since the camera is its own entity, it was very confusing how the movement of the camera would be classified. I eventually had to make note of the confusion so that when those shots are being shot, we understand how to execute them.

Storyboarding!!!!

I have finished the storyboarding for our movie. I think I have done a much better job envisioning what shots will be included in our production. I hope to incorporate longer takes to extend the tension and I think it will just be a fun thing artistically. To help better imagine our story, I wrote out the projected sequence of our film and broke down the different scenes from there. Doing this helped me plan out the different shots and how they would flow.

Movie Seqeunce!!

Melina, Sarah, and I had the most productive meeting ever recently. We had discussed in depth our plan for the movie and where we hope to film. We hope to film in the parking lot of Winn Dixie and at Sarah’s house. We plan to only use Sarah as an actor in the production and maybe include her dog Lexi in it. Having this productive movie led us to create a solid foundation for our movie sequence to be created. With the last project, we struggled to understand our story and it affected the quality of our film. This time around with a sequence planned out, we hope to have a smoother filming process and a better overall product.

Car is a no go

I had proposed the idea of a car possibly showing up behind the main character as a way to connect how the stalker had gotten from the superstore to the character’s house. We had a lengthy discussion about how it could be done and how it would come across to your audiences. Melina eventually pointed out that it may be confusing for the people watching because they would interpret it as a car passing, and there would be no prior information indicating that the car belonged to the stalker. I agree with that point because we wouldn’t be able to build that small detail in a two-minute intro of our film. The other point made was that the car would ruin the tense ambiance of our main character being alone at night. With all these valid points, we decided to exclude the car from our plans as a group.

Minor Change

As we sat and discussed our film more at length, we have come up with some amazing ideas. We have a rough sequence of how we want our project to appear and are talking through any other pending ideas. But while doing this, we have run into some problems with the vampire aspect of our film. We going to try and show that the stalker (camera) was a vampire by using a mirror, but I had pointed out that it would just look like the stalker was hiding and the vampire detail would go over the audience's heads. We tried to come up with more ways to include the vampires, but each one had an immense possibility of not coming through. So, we have decided to scrap the vampire idea altogether. Our film is now a two-minute intro to a stalker movie. 

Movie Research: Black Christmas (1974)

Black Christmas is a movie about a man stalking and killing a sorority house. However, the stalker’s perspective is in first person using the camera. This film was absolutely amazing for us to watch because as a group, we got to see what worked and what didn’t for their movie. When the stalker was first introduced in the film, Melina, Sarah, and I lost our minds. We thought the first-person perspective was mind-blowing and we knew we wanted to include that feature in our film.

One thing Black Christmas did that none of us liked was having hands show up. In the movie, the stalker has to climb up the wall of the house and we are allowed to see his hands. It instantly killed any excitement my group had at that moment. Including the hands didn’t make the stalker scary anymore, it was now just a guy breaking into a house.

Movie Research: The Cable Guy (1996) & The Invisible Man (2020)

These films were recommended to us as stalker films, so we watched the first two minutes of these films. They simply didn't fit our project and would have no helpful insight into our own film. 

The Cable Guy is a film about a stalker but has the underlying comedy to the story and the beginning of the film is mainly comedic. This is not the tone we are looking for and this movie only taught us what to avoid including. The film adds a sad backstory to the stalker and makes the audience feel a sense of pity for him. We are creating a stalker who resembles the boogie man, not someone who should be pitied but someone who should be stayed away from.

The Invisible Man is the next movie that did not offer us anything to make our movie stand out. The first two minutes of the movie were very interesting but not because she had a stalker but just the story overall. As a group, we felt this movie to not be useful to our own project.

Movie Research: It Follows (2014)

It Follows had such an intriguing first two minutes out of all the movies we researched. It was a classic example of media in res. The film didn't give a lot of information but leaves the audience enraptured by the little details we are given. One part that fascinated me was the very first scene of the movie. The camera shows an establishing shot of the neighborhood street and then slowly pans to the main character's house, where she is leaving in quite a rush looking very disturbed. The camera then never moves from its spot as it follows the main character in a circle while she is frantic. This whole scene was an extremely long take which made the scene even more uncomfortable. I would like to recreate this for our own film as I like the artistry of the scene and I think it would add to the tone of our project.

Movie Research: Hush (2016)

Our media studies teacher suggested we take a look at the first two minutes of movies with similar genres to understand how they introduced the story. The first movie my group watched was Hush (2016) on Netflix. Since we are doing a stalker/thriller story, this movie is perfect for that. I really liked the drone establishing shot they used as it showed how the main character's cabin was completely surrounded by forest and showed how cut off from society she is. It also interestingly used sound to show that the main character was deaf. The filmmakers used plenty of direct cuts to exhibit the variety of sounds while cooking and then slowly faded that all out when the camera had a close-up of the main character. The use of diegetic sound was very interesting to us because it added a weird feeling of uneasiness as to what would happen next. Sarah, Melina, and I would like to play around with diegetic sound in the same way.

Change in Plan (part 2)

We have decided to follow the vampire but also a stalker storyline. We had more creative ideas for the stalker and it just made sense to follow through with it. One major change to our production is our actors. We originally planned to have a bigger production starring more people, but we have actually minimized the number of people on screen. It will now just be Sarah and the camera as characters. The camera has the role of the stalker since this will be first person point-of-view we will have some obstacles that haven't been thought of but we will work our way through them. 

Change in Plan (part 1)

I had previously written that we had an idea of doing a comedy or parody as our two-minute movie intro. That has changed. I recently watched Twilight and suggested we make our production about vampires. Sarah and Melina were on board. We took it a step further by discussing the different stories that could be added to the vampire plot. Such as reincarnated love or a stalker vampire. This is such a different genre from comedy that we will have to do some major research on vampires and the different subgenres we could possibly have.

Possible Plan

Our plan for this project is to do a comedy or a parody. Our last production was a very serious story about gay lovers who end up loving each from afar during a war. One eventually dies when she is killed by her own lover. This story was serious but we were unable to keep ourselves serious during the viewing and the subplot of love was lost to our audience. By embracing our comedic genius, we should be able to properly convey the correct story and tone to the audience.

Our Roles

All of our roles in this production will be the same as the Chess Film. Sarah is the director, Melina is the editor, I am the cinematographer, and we are all the sound designers. Since the last project, I have gotten back feedback, both good and bad. I made some silly mistakes that I will not overlook for this production and I have also gained a better understanding of camera angles and how they can be put to use.

Intro

After a brief break from our Chess Film Production, Sarah, Melina, and I are together once again to film the first two minutes of a film, in a genre of our choice. The Chess Film allowed us to learn on how to fit into our respective roles with minimal arguing about the film. The Chess Film also taught me on how to be a better cinematographer and to actually care about the different techniques, camera movements, and the overall meaning of shots. One thing that I hope to be different for this production is my ability to plan our shot list and storyboard. Last time, I had winged both papers and had let my group improvise during our shooting days. I hope I will have more experience writing a detailed shot list and storyboard this time.