Research and planning-Filming the inital establishing shot

Yesterday I used a camcorder and tripod and filmed the establishing shot for the beginning of the trailer.


I decided to plan the shot out first before filming it. In the plan I wrote

• I wanted to try this shot as a steady shot and a panned shot.
• I wanted to film it at both a canted angle and a normal angle so I could then decide which looked better and was most appropriate for our trailer. The canted angle also gives the effect that everything is a little disorientated and this matches our narrative as the main character is unstable, confused and unsure of lots of things.
• I wanted to try to film this shot both with people and cars and then again without in order to see which looked best for the trailer. However I was unable to do this because the location we picked was quite quiet and there weren't many cars or people there at any point during the day and so I had to just film without these. This might in fact be better for the trailer in the end because the lonely location reflects the narrative of our trailer where the main character is lonely and has no one and this shot shows this.

This is how the different shots looked when canted and without



















Also I planned to film the same shot a couple of times at different times during the day in order to see how it looked with different amounts of lighting so I could then decide what kind of lighting I want for this shot in the trailer.

This is what the shots in different lighting and different times in the day looked like:

At 12:00pm

At 12:30 pm. Half the shot is in the sunshine and half is covered by shadow and it darker. Could be used to show the contrast and confusion of the main character as he too has both a dark side and a light good side.

early morning around -5:30 am

 morning around 7am

morning around 7:50 am

8:00 am in the morning.

Also in my initial plan for this shot I wrote that I will be adding some props (mise-en-scene) to the walls and gates in my shot in order to get across subliminal messages and clues about the narrative in the first shot.

For the Mise-en-scene I wanted

• A wanted poster with a shadow figure and a big question mark in the centre-this helps show that the main character doesn't know who he is and that there is a mystery suspect (of the murders) but the audience and characters in the film are unsure who is it.
• Newspaper clipping of murders (which gives a clue to the narrative of the main character who has supposedly committed lots of murders) on the walls and on some on the floor
• A "Wrong Way" road sign on the lamp post - which matches the characters who is doing something wrong and continues to head in the "Wrong" direction and trust the "Wrong" people.
• Sheets of paper scattered around the shot with words that link to the narrative such as "WANTED", "ALIVE?" and "PERPLEXED" (another word for confused)
• A map of some place and directions to it but with the heading "FEELING LOST?"-Reflects the fact that the main character is lost and kind of in limbo with no where to go.

However when I started adding these bits of mise-en-scene to the shot I found out that the camera was too far away from the scene and so these props are barely visible from the camera when I film. This is a photo of what it looks like with the props. As you can see all you can see is a small white square where the piece of paper is.

This means I can no longer use this idea and so I am now going to do an extra shot of Dan looking out of the bedroom website followed by close ups of this different mise-en-scene filmed somewhere else and then use an eye line match to make these shots link together and this should create the effect I initially wanted.