Day One of Reshooting

We have managed to schedule two days for shooting in the health science room on our school campus: today and tomorrow after school. This will last about 3 hours from the times of 2:00 PM to approximately 5:00 PM. Today we plan on getting the first half of the title sequence done, up until about the point where Lionel examines the picture frame, as well as recording most diegetic sounds such as the dripping of the sink, footsteps, etc. I will update this post once we are done shooting for the day!

(Later)

 Well, today was a success, for the most part. We managed to get the shots we needed, however, we had issues getting the sounds in our location so we have decided to record them at another time. If there was something to be learned from today, it was how to improvise. We made great use of patient dummies in the health science room, as we used them to create silhouettes behind the curtains, and we also used them for creepy effect in the title sequence, as dummies and dolls/puppets are common things added to movies of the horror/thriller genre as they tend to scare people.

We wanted to start off the film calm and unsuspicious, however, we wanted it to be ominous and nerve-racking at the same time. To do this, we took a shot of the clock ticking and sink dripping in order to create almost an eerie rhythm, which ties into how we want to pace the title sequence, slow and steady, gradually moving into the action. The constant noise occurring at a steady pace also makes the audience uneasy and nervous, as if they're on a time limit, exactly what we're trying to achieve.

The above shots particularly came with many difficulties. With the clock, we had to move many things out of the way and watch where we stood because the clock had a reflection on it where the background could be seen. We solved this by moving everything out of the way and standing elsewhere, as well as finding an angle to shoot the clock that wouldn't just reflect the camera and person holding it. The sink dripping was hard to do, as we used the Canon Rebel T3i to shoot the rack focus, and as mentioned before this is quite a sizeable camera, so squeezing it in at such a tight angle was tough, but we managed. We definitely decided Katelyn's iPhone X was definitely the best option for the other shots.

Below is a shot of our protagonist opening up the curtain to leave the room to reveal the creepy lifeless dummy slouched over in the wheelchair outside. This part is planned to be one of quite a few jumpscares in the film, in which I plan on adding a musical sting over.

This next shot will be shown after Lionel turns off the sink and sits up in his bed; a dual-layer shot revealing the shadow of the dummy laying on the bed in the room right beside him, creating a feeling of intensity and dread as it is unknown who or what is in the bed, as well as just being a creepy sight overall.

 The shot just shown was done in a certain way. We had our production designer Bianca stand behind the dummy shining a light through the curtain to create a shadow, where our director Pierce recorded from the other side of Lionel's bed to get a view of the entire scene.

 Our cinematographer Katelyn had the idea of having many long shots and over the shoulder/tracking shots. The reason for this is to send two meanings: the protagonist is being watched, and is also being followed. This of course is because he actually IS being followed and watched which will be revealed at the end with the biggest jumpscare. Below are some examples of these shots.