Trong and I took a series of shots during the mid-break. We did both indoors and outdoors shots. The shooting took place in Trong’s apartment and the residential areas. The place was good, it was open and quiet, which is suitable for a zombie movie when it is dark.
We planned what shots we were going to take, making a list first. Then we set up the camera and started to take the indoors shots.
For the indoors shots, I quite like the shot of a hand laid on the floor. We tried several times and we had three different versions at the end. A: the hand lay on the floor without movement; B: the hand trembles at first then stops; C: the hand trembles at first then grasps the wall.
We used close shot to emphasize the struggle. I think all of these three shot are good, but I haven’t decided which one should be used in my sequences. I am thinking adding some fake blood to improve the shots, making it creepy.
The difficult one is the shot of hands patting the door. We had to crouch down so that our heads would not appear in the shot. The speed and the strength of the hand movement were also hard to control. We’ve tried many times to get one or two satisfied shots. From this I learned that acting is a hard work.
After taking the indoors shots, we went outside to find the suitable location for shooting. It was not easy to decide where to put the camera in such a large open place. We considered about the framing, but I still found difficult to make it beautiful.
We tried to take a wide shot in a high angle from the rooftop of a building, but if we raised the tripod higher than the fence, we could not operate the camera. Therefore we chose to shoot through the fence. I found that is great because it kind of creates a feeling of snooping, which makes the shot more intriguing.
I really enjoyed this collaborative with Trong. Before we started, we discussed and made a plan, which ensure the shooting went on smoothly. During the shooting, we came up with new ideas sometimes and we both were willing to try them. That was really a great time. I am looking forward to the next time.
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