Filming

We did our filming on the 7th December 2010. We began filming after school at our first shot location in Coulsdon, this was the pan shot of the car. We used the road we did because it was a quiet residential road and allowed us to easily go up and down it to shoot and re shoot the scene, without any disruptions by other cars. This first shot took a couple of times to get it perfect becasue we either paned too fast or too slow we eventually got the right balance for it to look like we wanted it to.

We then moved on to Caterham to do the rest of our filming at our chosen location. We began filming here with the establishing shot of the house, this involved Sam driving into the drive and parking as well. Whilst I was operating the camera Ella and Beth took care of the directing roles.

The next shot we filmed was the one of the girls getting out of the car and going into the house. This was an easy long shot to film, the second half of the scene with the conversation between Ellie and Lucy was harder, we had to film it in three sections first a mid shot of Ellie saying her lines, then we stopped the camera and continued with a second shot of Lucy saying her lines finally we stopped the camera again and continued with another long shot of the girls walking into the house. We had to make sure we had enough room before and after the shots so we could cut parts inorder to ensure a good continuity.

We then moved to our next shot in the house in the living room, We had to rearrange some of the furniture to fit all the girls around the table, we also had to add in our props to the shot this included a bottle of alchol and shot glasses with water in to represent the fact the girls were drinking, we also had the main prop of a Ouija board which we made ourselves. The first part of this scene was a crane shot of the shot glasses and the girls doing the shots over the board. We managed to get this shot first time, slthough it was difficult as we had to hold the camera steady over the table without being in the shot itself, Ella filmed this shot becasue she is the tallest in our group and so found it the easiest to do.

The shots of the girls playing the Ouija board was broken down into several shots to compose the scene. The first was of the girls playing the next was of Lucy acting possessed, although we wanted snaps of her possessed we decided to film it in one and just cut it up in editing. The next shots were of the girls reaction shots. our final shots came out well, however this sequence took time to film as the girls found it funny at first and would start giggling as did me, Beth and Ella at points. We Then did a similar sequence for when the Lucy reveals shes joking we filmed Lucy start laughing and saying her dialouge and then filed the reaction shots of the other girls round the table. The main shot we had to focus on in this sequence was Ellies shot of throwing the board off the table as this is meant to trigger the beginning of the action. These sequences involved a mixture of long, mid and close up shots. We also had to film them a few times becasue of the same giggling problem.

We then moved on to the phone scene, also split into a few shots. We had to create the sound of the phone and so used a ringtone from Beths mobile to act as the home phones ring. We began the sequence with a cross cut of the girls looking at the phone to a close up of a phone, this is a match on action. we then move to a longshot on Lucy walking to answer the phone and then onto a close up of her picking up to phone and then we zoom in, finally we moved back to a mid shot of her slamming the phone down.

After we had finished the group shots we moved onto the individual action scenes. We began with Beth Joyce's becasue she had to leave early becasue of the ice. This shot consisted of Beth running and tripping up the stairs, this was and easy shot to film becasue we just had to set the camera up in onw postion and let her do the acting.

Our second action shot was of Sam, this was split into 3 shots first being a long shot of her running into the kitchen, second a close up of her rummaging through the draws and third a long shot of her backing away holding a knife, it was important in these shots we got enough footage before and after what we needed in order to get a good continuity.

Our final shot in the house was Lucy's action shot where she was in the bathroom and the door is slammed she had to run towards it to try and catch it before it shut and then panic when it does. This was very hard to film becasue we obviously couldnt slam the door ourselves so we had to make Lucy slam it whilst making it look as if she was trying to stop it. We eventually got a good enough shot after a few takes.

We then moved on to our final couple of shots outside. We needed to move to the woods opposite Beths house, firstly we needed a shot of Ellie running past, this was easy we just had to switch to night cam and position the camera at the side, however the ice posed a few problems becasue it made running very difficult, we did manage to get the shot after a couple of takes.

Finally we need the point of view shot following Ellie throught the woods, this again was difficult, I was the one filming the shot whilst Ella and Beth directed, this took a few takes becasue of me zooming too fast and too far, then in another me and Ellie slipped over on the ice, but we finally managed to get a good shot.

Prior to our filming we warned the surrounding neighbours of the house and the woods what we would be doing as we needed to scream and didn't want them to worry what was happening.

Preparation For Filming

After finishing all our planning we had to start filiming. In order to gather everyone and set a filming date we used variety of medias. First we created a thread on facebook to inform eveyone of the dates we wnated to film. A thread is like an email sent to a group of people, however unlike an email every body can see everyones replies, it creates a good organised way to arrange meetings and so we decided it would be a good form of communication for our filiming dates.

Unfortunately this date fell through due to snow, this meant that becasue we were all coming from different locations not all of us could attend, the snow would also have created difficulties for the driving scene as the roads were very icy.

Next we decided on a second filming date and created a text to inform eveyone of this.

This second date was successful and we were able to gather everyone and get most of the filming done apart from one scene which we are having to re shoot.

Allocation of Production Tasks

We have produced another task allocation list for the production of our trailer, magazine and poster. This is to evenly spread the work within the group.

Trailer Tasks
Directing - Beth and Ella
Filming - Charlotte
Lighting - Group
Editing - Group

Poster Tasks
Taking the photos - Beth
Production - Charlotte
Final Edits - Group

Magazine Tasks
Taking the photos - Beth
Production - Ella
Final Edits - Group

Trailer Planning - Final Story Board

This is our final story board for our trailer, it has a frame by frame representation of what will be in our trialer with descriptions of shot types, editing notes and approxiamte times. This will help us when filming and when editing our trailer as it gives us a very detailed guideline to follow. After looking again at our story board we have decided to add in an extra frame at the end, this will be of the films web address http://www.darknessawakens.com/ and the producers and directors names. We decided to add this in after taking a final look at our previous research and finding that actually the release date is usually the penultimate frame and other details were the final frame, adding this in will make our trailer follow more of the conventions of a trailer and therefore making it look more proffessional.

Trailer Planning - Final Shot List

After drawing our story board and filming it we realised that we needed to add more detail to both our shot list and our story board. This is the edited more detailed shot list.

1. Production label flashes up
2. Pan of car driving past
3. Text - Starring Eleanor Failes
4. In the car found footage girls excited about weekend away
5. Establishing shot of house with car pulling into the drive
6. Girls walking into the house two remain by the car
7. Dialogue camera on one of the girls 'i have heard stories about this place'
8. second girl 'oh don't worry it will be fun'
9. long shot of girls walking in to the house.
10. Text - lets play a game . . .
11. Shot glasses birds eye view shot with ouija board visible when they bring down the glasses
12. Girls doing the ouija board hands on a glass on the board
13. one girl acts possessed
14. shot of two girls panicking
15. shot of the other two also panicking
16. Girl possessed laughs because she was joking,
17. 3 of the girls laugh along with the original one shown in a medium shot
18. another gets angry and throws board on the floor and says 'this isn't even working, lets just stop' other girls go silent shown in a medium shot
19. Phone rings close up
20. phone rings again and girls all look
21. Text - If your brave enough . . .
22. Close up of girl picking up phone hears white noise
23. Girl slams down phone close up
24. Lights turn off and all the girls scream
25. Flashing up images ... girl running up the stairs looking behind screaming
26. Girl runs in to kitchen
27. close up of opening the draw and frantically grabs a knife
28. girls turns around and holds up the knife
29. medium shot door slams
30. girl runs up to it to try and open it screaming 'What are you'
31. girl running through the woods looking behind her
32. Point of view shot chasing the girl through the woods
33. girl trips
34. Point of view shot getting closer to the girl zooms into her face as she screams 'Somebody help me'
35. Title 'Darkness Awakens' fades in
36. Tagline 'Do You Wanna Play' fades in
37. Release date '20th July 2011' fades in

Trailer Planning - Wardrobe Choices

We have two outfit choices for each character, we have gone for casual clothes for the characters and just need to decide which outfits will work well together in the trailer.

Trailer Planning - Story Board

Today we drew up a story board for our trailer: