Production Reflection

During the Production, I leaned into the German Expressionist style, focusing on shots such as Close Ups and Super Close Ups to reflect the main character’s emotional state and emphasise the sense of terror within the film. I also wanted to employ long takes and slow zooms, typical techniques used in the Post-Horror genre that work to draw tension and give context. My main use for lighting was to light up the space, create shadows on walls and faces and add depth onto the actors’ face. I did this because I knew we would later be colour grading the shots into a black and white colour palette, and wanted to mimic the Expressionist style of harsh lighting and use of shadows. 

When shooting halted to a stop it was commonly one of these three reasons. Technical difficulties , which included our boom mics disconnection, navigating camera storage and adjusting the ISO frame rate to ensure our camera quality wasn’t grainy. Redirecting the actors with matters such as the realistic usage of the inhaler and the believability of an asthma attack. Finally, there was time spent adapting to shots that could not be executed the way I wanted. An example was the scene in which the character, James, had no reflection in the mirror whilst arguing with the character, Mary. Unable to film the shot that I initially envisioned, with both actors in the shot, I provided an alternative, which was to film each actor individually talking to each other, and splice it together to give the illusion of no reflection. 

Throughout production I was mainly focused on rearranging the camera and lighting and directing the actors and as a result of this, I missed some of the smaller details that would have made the shoot smoother and the shots of better quality. Details like ensuring everything was focused,  the mic was out of every shot and that unnecessary objects e.g. Water bottles and laptops were out of frame. I found myself caught up in the moment with visualising shots and engaging with cast and crew that I regrettably lost track of the shot-list and ended up missing a couple of important shots that I wanted to capture. This meant that some of the story and horror aspects were lost,a disappointing consequence. In future shoots I aim to refer to the shotlist more closely, ticking off each one as I go in order to prevent any reshoots or missed opportunities.