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.