Behind the scenes: First day of filming

Monday 30th February 2015- First day of filming.

Today myself, Nadiye, Katy and Chloe went to the local coffee shop Costa to film a scene for our opening scene. Nadiye, Katy and Chloe took it in turns filming and deciding which camera angles would be effective and help show me in appropriate viewpoints and angles. On the first day of filming we filmed my scene which will be played near the beginning as its a key scene which will inform the audience of whats happening in the opening and whats to come. Hopefully this will  leave the viewers gripped to the edges of their seats!

Location:
We chose to use this location as a place where the characters Tara and Ellie were going to meet and sort out their friendship.                              
We thought it would be successful as its an effective ordinary place.
We used the Coffee shop as its a local area, which has ordinary people who aren't involved with the film in it. In a thriller there is usually a scene where there are many people in shot but not main characters. We thought the location would be good here as its a place where friends would meet up which makes it reliable and not make the audience feel confused and feel as if that wouldn't happen.

Mise En Scene:

Mae(The character) wore a khaki puffer jacket, black jeans, black top, black shoes and a watch. I wanted to look quite innocent and interesting but also conform to a thriller genre. I wore the watch as a prop to show the audience i have been waiting and watching the clock.  We also show my bag to position the viewers to see its a normal day and I had been out and about. There is a mysterious storyline in this scene so I didn't want to dress really vibrant and not succeed in our theme/genre.
I bought a drink to use as a prop to make the location seem more reliable. The use of it being a christmas cup represents winter and coldness which is usually the weather type in a thriller film with parts of horror included.

Timing:
We chose to film at 14:30 as we thought it would be a lot quieter around our local coffee shop. We were lucky in which it was quiet meaning there won't be much background noise in our recordings. Seeing as its December it gets dark much quicker now so we ensured we got it done earlier in the afternoon so the lighting is successful. However there was a dimming lighting which helps conform to the mysterious thriller theme/genre.

It took myself a while to be able to get into character, as it was quite embarrassing with people walking past. However once I was in character I felt much more comfortable in acting my scene.

Camera and shots:
We are using Katy's Nikon D3200 camera for filming and borrowing a tripod from the school. Katy's Camera has a really good focus to get effective shots. The tripod also work really well in maintaining a steady shot/focus. You can tell we are using a tripod as there isn't lots of annoying movement in the shots.  
Our close up shots included showing my face and emotions, and a close up shot of me calling Tara to show the audience what I was doing and where I was.
We used a range of shots, such as close up, mid shot, behind the shoulder shot and match on action. These will hopefully help us pick up marks in our film.

Sound:
During the mid shot where Ellie (myself) is on the phone we will use a soundtrack of Tara's voicemail to inform the audience of what is happening. There is diegetic sound of myself(Ellie) talking on the phone as we want the audience to know what I'm saying and what is happening in the scene. We will also use non-diegetic sound in the background of a scary mysterious tune when I'm walking into the coffee shop as noone knows what I'm about to do.

We will be using Adobe Premier Plus to put all our footage together and get a effective finished scene.