Diary Entry

6th March

  Today is the fourth day of filming (counting the practise session with the props) and we have decided that we should film the party sequence due to the availability of the actors as they were only able to film today at an earlier time than planned.  However, this caused a slight problem as we had originally planned to film later in the day so that the lighting would make it look more like a party.  Therefore, when it came to the party scenes, we had to film away from the light window so that the party didn't look too unrealistic.  However, a way around this problem was to add some lighting effects over the top of this scene to make it look darker and therefore a party sequence.



 

  Another problem that we faced when filming was that there were only a few actors that were able to come to the shoot.  We were not able to wait another day because we needed to have some footage to work around.  Some footage was better than no footage at all.  Therefore, we decided that to deal with this situation, we should film from a particular angle with the actors at the back of the room to make it look like there was not enough room at the party and to make it look more cramped as a real house party would look.  The use of a medium shot (which can be seen in the screen shot above) enabled us to carry out the illusion of the party looking more lively because if we had opted for a long shot, the party would look plain, boring and dull which would make the scene look unrealistic and would likely put the audience off the film.

 

  One aspect which made the party scene look more realistic was the construction of the Mise-en-scene.  In the party scene, we thought that the use of alcohol bottles would make the scene look more like a party scene as drinking from a bottle would give the connotation of a party.  Putting drinks on the table as well as having actors and actresses drinking from them made the scene look less staged and more realistic.  The props of the alcoholic drinks were not real as we only had spare bottles of beer and wine that would have been thrown away.  As they were empty, we had to fill them up with a liquid that made the props look more realistic which is why we used coke in the wine bottle as it looked dark through the green tint of the bottle to make it look like wine.  For the beer bottle, we just used water as the green tint of the bottle made it look like a light beer.

 

  Costume is another element of the construction of the Mise-en-scene that was important to really pull the scene off and make it believable.  Therefore, as we planned the cotumes on the 27th February, we knew that the cotume for the girls of dresses would make the party scene look believable and the marketability of the film would be able to relate to it because it is likely that girls of similar age to the characters would wear the same clothing to a party.  If the audience can relate to a film, they are more likely to have an interest in the film and they will feel it is believable.  The character of Billy (the boy sat down on the sofa drinking from the bottle) was to wear a t-shirt and jeans because this is the sort of clothing that boys of the same age as the characer would likely wear.  However, as I played the role of both the killer and Billy, I had to make sure that the clothes I wore as the character of Billy were in contrast with the clothing worn by the killer.   Yet again, there is a juxtapostion between the plain clothing of Billy to show hwo he is plain and ordinary, innocent perhaps, whereas the killer is evil and this is shown by the different style and dark colour of clothing.