SKILLS Production Report

Production Report

As a group we have had a meeting to decide what route we will go down for the story to fulfill our brief for the cinematography module. We have to include four key elements in the film, these are; a lighting change, emphasis on colour, a sequence shot and appropriate point of view. We decided to come up with our idea before we went to Grindleford and came up with that of a writer who is being stalked by a fan of hers.


On Thursday we will go to Grindleford for a recce to look around the location and pick out different places where we will film and try to plan the shoot based on what we do on the recce so we will be prepared and organised. We each had ideas for how we could address each key element and spoke about them in our meeting. 

For the lighting change, I thought about emphasis on shadows and highlights through, with the stalker character being in shadows a lot when they are lurking around and watching, and highlighting the writer and showing her in the light to show her innocence and the naivety that she can just go to Grindleford after receiving that postcard. Also we thought about the possibility of a significant lighting change when she sees the postcard as if she has had an idea, light a literal 'light bulb moment'.This could be when she receives the postcard or when she reads what it says.

 The stalker character is supposed to be seen by the audience as a threat to the writer, and the writer is supposed to be seen as completely unaware that she is being followed, so by using light and dark to clearly distinguish this will help the audience understand the narrative better in my opinion. We do not plan to take lights with us to film in Grindleford, however we will have them for all the shots indoors. We hope to use natural light on the writer and frame the stalker in a darker setting. I don’t think this will actually be to hard - depending on the weather – as the majority of shots we have planned for him are behind trees and he is hiding, and to add false light onto him would not look right neither would it create the effect we are hoping to create.

For colour, I had the idea that we could do a lot of the work in post-production in colour correction – we could also use this to accentuate the lighting in some shots and create more shadows if we needed to. I thought that we needed to make all of the filming in Grindleford, mainly the shots of the writer seem a lot brighter and maybe even slightly over edited. This would be to represent the fact that she is going there for inspiration and everything looks rich in colour and suggests that she is seeing everything in this way because she is out of the city and working in a natural space and can clear her head and work properly without the distractions of city life. 

Also, by making it seem like she is viewing everything in a different way – making it all look unreal or ‘too good to be true’ it could hint to the fact that she is completely absorbed in her work and that this is why she is completely oblivious to whatever is going on around her, this is why she doesn't realise anybody id following her and why when he falls she is almost snapped back to reality and this would be where we could bring the colour back to normal and take away the brightness. 

The shots of the stalker would not be bright or edited (apart from the usual colour correction of making them all match up together) this would exaggerate that she is in her own world and is consumed by her creativity and her work, whereas he is in reality and when he falls she turns around and is brought back to this reality too.

For the sequence shot, we thought in our meeting about doing a very long - nearly too long - shot of the stalker following her and getting closer and building up tension so the audience think she is really in danger and that her may do something to her and then cut right at the last second and nothing will happen. We plan to juxtapose this with the short shots that will be quickly cut of when he falls and she looks round to see nobody is there. I plan to shoot this part and we decided to film it in the big clearing near the river because then it would look realistic - especially because of the time of year that we are shooting so it is muddy and slippy anyway, and because it is open and there is a drop to the river below and a bridge, so it is conceivable that he has slipped and fallen and then fell down the verge and hit his head which is why he doesn't cry out and she doesn't inspect anywhere. This part will be done with very quick cuts of a wide shot to show the situation, a close-up of his feet and then a shot of the writer turning around, and then back to the wide shot from the same position as the first but with nobody there. 

I think that the quicker cuts here will work really well just as the sequence shot where he is following her for a long time and getting closer will look better if there are no cuts because it shows how long he is watching her and will make the audience want her to turn around as they watch him in the background.

For point of view, we intend to make use of different types of point of view but will be very careful about when we use each one. We intend to use all of the shows from the stalkers point of view with the writer in the frame, and all of the shots from the writers point of view with him nowhere to be seen; however when there are wide shots and we see her from the front, we will see him lurking in the background to show that he is always there and that there are so many different opportunities for her to turn and realise he is there but she is too caught up in her work to notice.

When they are in the city however the point of views will not be as important, there will be a clear switch however and an introduction to the character of the stalker in the train station, as he will be shown at the beginning writing out the postcard but the audience won't see his face, and then at the train station we will create a shot where he is in the background a lot and people won't realise who he is or they pass each other and the camera hovers on him or it shifts to follow him and then the audience will realise he is important and involved in some way and then we will introduce him following her and watching her from a distance etc and he will be properly introduced into the story.

All in all I believe we are fairly prepared and organised for the shooting days and know how we want to include the key elements but it just depends whether we will be able to carry out all of them or whether they actually work out in practice and if not we will have to rethink some things. I think we will struggle with lighting mainly, because we have to include a lighting change rather than just use correct lighting and then explain why we have.