Today we finished off filming the rest of our footage presumably for now (as we may add or deduct footage when playing around with editing), during second lesson again. As previous we kept the black and white hue to our filming which ties in neatly with our easel scene which I am in as it gives an artistic feel to the film as well as conveying to the audience that I am the puppeteer (thus the name Puppet Strings) is altering reality leaning towards fantasy elements. Prior to filming we helped alter Zoe's cape which is a yellowy-green colour (ideal for blending in the green environment) , with a rough almost cheesecloth texture, which we cut up with scissors at the bottom. This made it raggedy and chaotic looking which was idealistic as it displays barbarity and overuse, adding to the scary effect of her character. As well as the jagged edges we used safety pins to fashion a hood, giving a red riding hood feel to fool the audience into thinking that she is an ordinary person. That way we can create more suspense and tension between the audience and her.
Primarily our first shot was an overhead high angle shot from the back of Zoe, hunched over in the grass, waiting to come and possess me. By being hunched over it can contrasted against the earlier shot of Ana, hunched over in the long grass to display the differences between the characters. The fact that she is shrouded by a cape could also suggest to the audience that although she may be adopting a red riding hood persona, she doesn't possess the same innocent, child like qualities. The weather was perfect as there was high wind speeds, making the cape billow out beneath her as though she was about to take off. It looks even better in black and white as it again conveys the unreality of the sequence footage. The audience can't see Zoe's face which gave her a sense of ambiguity and mystery , making the audience being allowed the opportunity of open ended imaginings as to what is about to happen . This also has a better effect of capturing the readers attention. The wind was extremely apparent in this shot both in appearance and audio, with blustery wind noises that we can perhaps edit in production, enhancing the sound more. This could perhaps be contrasted against murmurs in the wind, which could symbolise her mumbling to herself, almost plotting what she is going to do to me. I feel that if we put this in as a voice over it can portray how I'm oblivious to Zoe's presence, symbolising the immaturity of my character personality. Because we got this shot correct in the first go, we moved on to our next shot: a front view shot of Zoe again shrouded by the cloak, with her pale hands clasped around her throat which the audience could perceive as what will happen to me. This time however you could see her hair, moving in the wind alongside the cape, which almost seems as though the further the film goes on the more of Zoe we get to see. At this point the camera was quite jittery and slightly tilted which looked really effective as it evokes the chaotic nature of Zoe's character, as well as displaying the negativity that she possesses. At this point we could perhaps in editing darken the contrast and perhaps if we can, lighten the clouds to contrast and increase vividity. Our tertiary shot was of me again hunched over in the grass, my back to the camera to display continuity, Charley using a tracking shot to follow Zoe as she creeps towards me, slowly and slyly to increase tension. At this point we can enhance the sound of her footsteps with the addition of enhanced erratic breathing, pragmatically giving both me and the audience a shared understanding that something is about to happen.As she approaches me , she moves elegantly around me in a semi- circle and I tremble with fear, with glances to the left and right. I believe that fast editing would be really beneficial at this point in the film, for example perhaps the use of juxtaposition as we could have me looking terrified in comparison to Zoe's sinister demeanour. This transcends immediately into Zoe facing me, with an eyeline match between us to show the severity of the sitiuation and the malfeasance of her character. Perhaps at this point we could emphasize the colour of both our eyes in the eyeline match shoe ( mine is brown and Zoe's is blue) by not using black and white for several seconds. We could also darken Zoe's eyes to represent her evilness whereas for me we can lighten the hue to represent the purity and innocence of my character. Once Zoe has turned to face me, we could slow down editing, to make it seem as though the world has gone still for a moment. After we can resort back to quick editing when Zoe engulfs me in her cloak. Perhaps the use of flash editing transition could be useful. I also think that we can add non-diegetic sound in this shot, for example enhanced audio of the swish of Zoe's cloak and then a sound bridge perhaps of me screaming. We can play around with altering the tempo as the sound bridge increases, so my voice becomes louder each time. In our next shot the audience sees Zoe toying with my emotions as she hastily takes her cloak off me and the previous shot is repeated again to show particular emphasis. This time however i realise that something is about to happen and back away cautiously, with a low side angle shot of me backing away, primarily to express my vunerability and secondarily to get away form Zoe, which hopefully will make the audiences breath quicken as they wonder what is to become of me. Another sound bridge could be placed here with the sound of footsteps as Zoe comes towards me. What we have to make sure is that it has a steady paced rythm so the film continues to flow. A transition follows into a high angle of Zoe to show her dominant power as she looks down on me to show her superiority. What is good about this frame is how we captured me looking up at her to represent my realisation that im inferior compared to her an there is nothing i can do to stop her, but i continue persisting anyway . Despite my attempts to escape her wrath, she catches me in her trap by stepping on my stomach and i yelp both in fear and pain. Here we could use a sound to emphasis this e.g. a thud sound, repeated twice. This is again an example of a high angle, to remind me that im nothing compared to her. At the same she is doing this i grip the grass frantically, with a canted angle shot of this, to show the change of norms and unreality. Again continuity editing is used as she drapes me in my cloak, with a close up of my face looking a mixture of pensive and perplexed . Our final shot is a 2 shot of me and Zoe with the apparant use of synchronization, to show her possession of me. It also shows how we are both just objects of slavery as i the Puppeteer has ultimate control over us. A centered angle shot is used firstly as we are both crouched on the ground, our hands pressed in the dirt, with our heads bent down. We then used a time scale of how long each movement would take. We slowly rose up for 4 or so seconds our arms rising in harmony, mine ending in front of me whilst Zoe differentiates by doing something else. At the count of 7 or so seconds we go into a tilt to the side, our arm outstretching opposite ways( mine to right and Zoe's to the left) into a click for one second and then resulting in a quick transtion into our head becoming upright.
