This blog will be a short blog just about my set design, it may be a useless blog to write but I was very pleased with my set design and so thought I could write a little about it. As everyone is well aware by now, I filmed in two locations, at home for scene 1, 2 and 4, and in a barn for scene 3. I didn’t really do much in terms of set design for the first location other than the simple addition of candles, to link through to the nightmare scene, and the writing on the mirror. Everything else in the room for those scenes is always in my room and so setting up for this was just a matter of putting out some candles, making some fake cocaine, and making my bed. For my second location, the barn, I did a lot more with the set design, I brought a few of my own props, for example, mirrors and candles, but did also use some stuff that were laying around the location as props.

From what I have learnt about the horror genre over the past two years, I would say that the iconography and mise-en-scene of a horror film is very important, they help add to the atmosphere of the film which in turn adds to the suspense and chilling factor that ultimately build the whole film. Because of how important I personally view this to be, I really wanted to show this in my work and show an level of commitment to the scene that I really haven’t shown in any other projects.

My most important props to this shoot were the use of mirrors and candles, as both of these are practical props, so actually have some use to the filming. Both of these items are quite common in horror, especially candles, they have been used throughout the history of horror, from some of the very first horrors, like Dracula, to the recent modern horrors we know and love today, like Hereditary. Mirrors are also something I have seen quite a bit in horror, not as often, but I like the idea of them being some kind of portal for spirits and I have seen them used like that in many different ways, from films such as Oculus, to Halloween. These two props also linked back to my first two scenes where the rules were written on a mirror and where the candles were lit to help Ella’s character do the Tarot reading. Here are some pictures, and a link to a video, of the barn once decorated and ready for filming:

Video: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1VUx_4zg5OG34R2wlr_2GfkypPAQ9v5mD

My second day of filming was up in my other location in Cumbria and although this shoot was only one scene, whereas the other shoot was 3 scenes, this shoot involved a lot more people and a lot more involvement in terms of set design, etc. Because the set design for this scene was a lot more detailed, it involved a lot more time to make the location (linked here) look the way I needed it to, and so myself and Ella went and set up at 6pm, 2 hours before filming started. I will admit, I was definitely feeling the pressure for this shoot, I had more actors I had to rely on as well as using someone else’s location so didn’t have the lenience of taking as much time as we wanted. Another issue with using this location was that, since I was filming at night like my first shoot date, the barn we were filming in got very cold the later it got and considering my main character was wearing PJ shorts and a t-shirt, we, again, did not have the same amount of time as my first shoot and so we had to be much more disciplined to get things done within a certain time-frame.

Like my other blog on filming, day one, I will be talking about the pros and cons of this shoot in sections. This blog will most likely be a little shorter than my last blog as many of my reasons for the success of the shoot, and the possible issues, will be the same as my first shoot.

Equipment: For this shoot I used the same camera as I had for the first shoot, my Canon 750D, I used it completely in the no flash (night scene) mode and instead of using my ring light, as there were no electricity sockets in the location I ended up using the candles I had lit as a practical light. The candles were mainly for props but they did end up supplying the kind of lighting and colour that I really was hoping for, and for any points where the candles weren’t enough light, we all set up out phone flashlights around the room and behind the camera at points.

One issue with the equipment I did have while shooting this scene was the autofocus on my camera. As it was, of course, very dark, my camera did have a very big issue with focusing properly, I did try using manual focus but I found it very hard to see whether the camera was focused or not in this particular circumstance due to the darkness of the location. Although this was extremely frustrating, especially along with some of my lost footage, I think that the shot going in and out of focus will actually be a very interesting stylistic choice I can use to my advantage through the right editing techniques.

Using the lighting I did in conjunction with the camera settings, I feel I got a really great outcome and, although some shots came out a little too dark and the focus was an issue at time, I defiantly feel confident that my editing skills can fix or enhance both of these issues and turn them into pros rather than cons.

Actors & Preparation: As I have already mentioned, I had more people to rely on for this shoot, including 3 extra actors that we made up of my family. This was very frustrating as, because they were family, I feel like they were a bit less serious about it as Ella had been in the previous shoot, although this ended up not really being the case as they had made sure to keep their scripts on them on set. As I did for my previous shoot, I gave all cast members a copy of the script, shot list and call sheets, this was definitely a very crucial decision on my part as, if I hadn’t, the chances of my shoot going wrong would have been a whole lot higher.

One decision I made prior to getting to the location was that I was going to do the main structure of Ella’s SFX, so the material build up and the painting (I used alcohol activated paints which don’t smudge once dried), but did not apply any fake blood until we were actually at the location. I did this for two reasons, 1, to prevent smudging and difficulty getting Ella in position with fake blood getting everywhere, and 2, because I didn’t want the blood to dry or look clotted or old. I was striving for a very fresh wound kind of look, and for that, the blood had to be a brighter red and quite runny, and over time most types of SFX blood tend to get thicker and darker once they begin drying.

The only real issue I had with my actors was that, because we were family and my brother, who was showing off a little in front of Ella, there were moments where I had to cut due to everyone laughing or not taking the shoot as seriously as I would have hoped. Of course, this didn’t last long and we did end up filming the whole scene in around an hour and a half which I was very very pleased with.

Overall: In all, I think this date went a lot smoother than I was expecting it to. I was very much expecting this shoot to be chaotic and frustrating, and so I am very happy with the way it went and the footage I came out with.

My first day of filming was in Leyland at my first location, and only involved myself and my main actress, Ella. We filmed scene 1, 2 and 4 at this location and it ran pretty smoothly considering this was my first time filming a full short film completely individually. I will talk about the more technical aspects of this shoot later in this blog and what I felt I, or we, excelled at and what I may have failed or fallen short at, but for now I wanted to briefly discuss my personal feelings and attitude. Although I felt very prepared for this shoot and made sure all my planning was done and prepared, I still feel like I was incredibly nervous and unconfident when I started to film. I am definitely a perfectionist so when my first few shots weren’t coming out the way I wanted them to I got very discouraged very quickly. I of course wasn’t thinking about the fact I was going to edit the way my shots look through shortening the shots and colour grading etc. Other than all of my own personal worries during filming, I feel like this shoot for scene 1, 2 and 4 went very well. I now want to discuss the things that went well and the things tar may not have in terms of equipment and the use of, any changes I made and then an overall reflection of this shoot day.

Equipment: I had planned on using my canon 750D DSLR camera and my ring light with orange filters to make the light a warmer tone rather than a harsh white light, which it would be without the orange filters.

I wasn’t 100% sure at the time of planning my equipment what filming mode I was going to use for filming but ended up switching between the no flash (which is either ‘night portrait’ or ‘night scene’ mode) and the ‘TV’ shooting modes. I understand that there are some much more advanced settings on a Canon 750D but I don’t feel like I understand them enough at this point to have messed around with them during filming. In my mind, the possibility of ruining my filming by messing with the settings and modes I don’t understand was too much of a risk that I didn’t want to take during such an important and crucial project. Although I could have maybe done more with the actual shooting to make the video quality and colour of the video a lot better, I knew that I could go back in with colour grading while editing to fix any of the issues I may have with the actual look of my filming. I overall feel like I made the best use of this camera as I possibly could and am pretty happy with these results.

My only other equipment was my ring light, I actually didn’t end up using my ring light as much as I thought I would. I felt that, even with the orange filter AND my dressing gown draped over it to dull the light a little more, there were still some moments where the light was way too harsh and made quite a few of the scenes way too over exposed. Honestly very little of my final footage involved the ring light, however I did still use it on a few scenes where it seemed beneficial to include, though this wasn’t always the case.

Changes: I did write in my shot list blog that I was completely open to changing and altering some shots and the angles or framing of these shots. Although I did pretty much keep to the shot list and film many of the shots the way I had planned on, a few were slightly altered, for example; scene 2, shot 2 was originally planned as an over-the-shoulder shot of Ella looking into the mirror and rubbing out the rules. I ended up taking multiple shots with different angles and shot sizes so that I could use the multiple different shots and put them together in editing, rather than just sticking to this one shot that I ended up not being too much of a fan of.

A few of my other shots I either completely got rid of or, in some cases, added a few shots. For example, shot 3 of the first scene was supposed to be a pan of the room as Ella entered, I decided during filming that I hated the idea of this shot, and that I felt it had no real place in my film, and once I had filmed it once decided I wasn’t going to use it in my final edit so just ignored it completely. An example of one shot that I added during filming with no real preparation but that I felt fit in well with the surrounding scenes, is an over-the-shoulder shot in scene two of Ella putting the book with the coke lines on it to the side. This is only a small and almost insignificant scene but felt that filming this extra scene was very beneficial to my project.

Overall: Overall, I felt my preparation and the preparation with my Actress, giving her the script, shot list and call sheet, was extremely helpful and lead to the success of this shoot. Although there were some hiccups throughout filming and although I did make quite a few changes last minute and because of that some aspects of my filming had no planning, I am very pleased with the results of my filming. My only issue with my footage is the colour and lighting of my shots, this isn’t that big of an issue though as I can fix all of this during editing and create the lighting and colouring of the scenes that I desire.

Since my short films narrative runs over only 1 day, there was no huge costume changes whereas there were many changes with the SFX and since the filming was over 2 days, I had to keep and eye on the continuity of the makeup and costume. Keeping the continuity in the outfit was extremely easy as my main character was wearing black shorts and a black t-shirt with the hair up in a pink scrunchy, since it was such a simple outfit with only a few elements to it, it was very easy for it to flow.

The makeup and SFX was a different story completely, in scenes 1, 2 and 4 my actress had some self harm scars on her arms, where as in scene 3 these same scars had to become open cuts. Because I wanted to sell the effect of the cuts in scene 3 being the same cuts that had healed for scene 1, 2 and 4, I had to make sure they were in the same place on my actresses arms, the same size and shape so that it translated well. I had taken pictures of the scars when I did them on the first day so that I could use it as a reference for placement when it came to doing to cuts the next day. My actress had fake tanned earlier that week and so when the SFX was removed, her fake tan had been removed with it, hilariously, this actually helped an awful lot to show where the original scar SFX had been. My other main piece of SFX, that I did on the second day of shooting was the inverted pentagram on my actresses back, this was new in this scene so the continuity did not matter in the same way as the cuts. However, I had used the inverted pentagram symbol in the first 2 scenes and so the same symbol being carved into her back acted as a link between the scenes.

This has only been an extremely short and basic blog but I felt it was important to talk about this as an aspect of my production.