Third Time Filming

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.

Quick Idea

Zoe and Charley has just thought about using a method similar to 'Paranormal Activity' in the bedroom scene by the usage of time being fast fowarded to show that it is passing quickly and to signify that Ana is asleep. This is because our bedroom scene is extremely fuzzy with a dark contrast to show that it is nighttime, which is why we thought about the comparison to 'Paranormal Activity'. If we use a mixture of fast paced editing in this scene and contrast it against the dream sequence (usage of slow and fast editing) then this will result in the increase of tension and suspension which is exactly what we are looking for. If we end up using this systematic method then we can provide a sense of normality, which contrasts against the absract and surreal nature of our other scenes.

Time Management

Over the past 2 lessons, we have been experimenting whilst editing. Primarily we have begun to cut out the footage which we don't want to use in our film, although by doing this our footage is quite jolty and jittery. In our next editing session we could perhaps use transitional methods, such as continuity editing or perhaps a sequence shot. We also been delegating different roles to each person in our group:
Charley - camera work, editing and ideas
Hannah - Blogging, time management and ideas
Ana - Blogging, editing and ideas
Zoe - Editing, director and ideas

However we had a minor problem in this lesson as our work had techincal difficulties and we were unable to open our footage. We then realised that we had accidently deleted windows media player which is why it resulted in this problem. Now Zoe and Charley are editing the rest of our footage, which Ana and Zoe did last lesson (dream sequence).

Third Time Filming

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 Hannah is in as it gives an artistic feel to the film as well as conveying to the audience that Hannah 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 me 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. What I liked about this shot was that 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. I also liked how the audience couldn'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 Hannah 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.

Second Time Filming

Today we filmed during 2nd lesson where we filmed part of the dream sequence , however we didn't film it all due to Zoe not having her cape. We decided that we would contrast it to our bedroom scene by entailing the colour usage of black and white, which almost made it seem more surreal and overall gave the scene an intriguing feel. It also conveys to the audience more clearly that it is visibly differential in comparison. In terms of Mise-en -scene Ana was bare foot to display her primitive nature, with dishevelled 'wild' hair to evoke a sense of realism as she is supposed to be asleep, as well as giving the audience the impression that she is different from the innocence portrayed in the previous scene which she was in. This appeared to be even better due to the grass which was extremely long , adding to the barbaric nature of the scene. This was a good day to begin capturing this scene as it was slightly overcast, stormy grey and would look excellent, especially if its used against shots of Zoe next week when it is sue to start raining. Despite being hunched over with my knees clenched tightly,I made sure that the camera was enabled a slight view of my face looking frightened to ensure that the audience can sympathize with my character. We tried this shot several times with various techniques to show experimentation and how we can differentiate to the norms to which were accustomed to. The shots we tried included :panning in which Ana had ensured she looked startled and used jerky movements to the left and right to clearly provide evidential basis for the audience to infer, an over the shoulder shot to show my insignificancance and vulnerability, again hunched over to represent this and finally a high angle shot of roughly 3 seconds to symbolise my fear of the unknown. During these particular shots we could exaggerate the sound of  my breathing [e.g. making it more ragged as if ana's out of breath]. Perhaps we could also slow down time during this shot to make it seem as though time has gone still. This could perhaps suggest loneliness and how no one can help me, as Ana is alone.  Our next shot was of Zoe's feet encased in brown lace up boots, walking towards the camera in the grass, which we felt signified clearly to the audience that something was about to happen to me. Finally we captured a shot of Ana running. We started off with me looking over my shoulder with the camera directly behind me, in which she looked intently at the camera, my eyes dilated with fear, as though she was asking the audience to help me. This makes the audience feel empathetic and worried in terms of Ana's welfare. Again we could enhance the sound of her breathing but this time making it even more erratic and out of rhythm as though she was hyperventilating. Ana then quickly ran off without looking behind me to show that she was to scared to do so and stopped at a certain vantage point, ensuring that we didn't get the school pylons in the footage. Ana then looked warily behind me for several seconds and then ran on a little further before collapsing in the grass.

First Time Filming

It was our first time filming today, the first scenes we began filming were: the bedroom scene and the scene in which I am drawing on the easel. We started off filming quick footage of Ana sleeping in bed and which she then wakes up staring at the ceiling which provides a sense of ambiguity  as the audience doesn't know what is going on. We had took the same shot several times due to us wanting to have the best shot possible, therefore having more than one would mean that we have more to choose from. A key part in our filming was the lighting, the concept in this particular shot as well as we wanted to reflect that it was night time but that was problematic in itself as if the lighting was too dark then we wouldn't be able to see our filmed footage. In the end we used a dimming switch to provide a natural lighting which interestingly gave the camera a fuzzy blurry quality- almost static. It worked quite well as it looked quite naturalistic which is the effect we were going for as it contrasts against the surrealistic narrative which we have composed. Our group also experimented with a tripod camera to see what effect this would have on the shots but unfortunately we werent entirely sure as to how to use it in the best manner. This shows us that we need to practice how to use this camera as we don't want all of our shots to be filmed hand held. Our next shot was of a teddy bear which was to reflect the childhood innocence of my character and again we played around with lighting: this time as well as a dimming switch we also used a bedside lamp. This was very effective as it showed the bear in an orange glow and was again quite blurry. This followed into a transition of an eye line match between ana and the bear where the conceptualisation of Mise-en-scene took place as she used facial expressions. The shot showed her looking frightened as though she know's something bad is going to happen which makes the audience sympathize with my role and also leaves them feeling tense.We then went into Charley's living room where we did my scenes. Our first shot was of me drawing a picture which comes to life later on in the film. This consisted of a hooded figure [Zoe] immersed in mist and clouds with  'It's coming' in a scratchy messy style of writing . This is to represent how I am the controller of both Ana and Zoe and how Ana becomes possessed due to the control  I am inflicting upon her. This also links in with the title of our film 'Puppet Strings'. To give an eerie effect to the film I had to write very heavily to create a scratchy, rasping noise. Charley then used zoom reverse zoom to enhance the picture which transcended into a similar shot of me drawing again but minus the writing and Ana shown in the background looking at Zoe. To represent the artistic feel of the scene I wore a checkered black and white shirt and waistcoat which almost gave her a sense of normality despite the evilness of her character. Her face was also in side profile to give her a sense of mystery. We finished off our filming session by taking a prop shot list.