Filming

All in all my initial filming was spread over 3 days. The first day was spent filming in the woods by the side of my house with Heather for the running sequence at the start of my thriller opening sequence. A couple of days before I went to the woods to find some suitable filming locations and to work out where each shot would work the best. We spent around an hour filming and came out with about 11 minutes of material. Each shot had an average of 3 takes to ensure that it was the best that it could be, from slightly different angles or distances each time. I made sure I got a range of different shots including, low angle, high angle, eye level, close up, mid shot, long shot and a tracking shot. 

The second day consisted of filming the news report with Stewart White. As this was a relatively simple part, and Stewart was no stranger to having to read a news report, I only did one take as there were no improvements that could have been made. We shot the report without the graphics which I made and added on myself whilst editing the sequence. 

The third day I shot the final part of my opening sequence, which was the scene with the abductor watching the new report. This was filmed in the evening to make sure that the room was dark to create suspense and tension. The lighting was very difficult because it was so dark but some light was still needed so the audience could see what was going on. I decided to have the light in the hall of with the door slightly open to let some light in and also have a torch as a prop turned on to create an extra bit of light, and both of these put together created enough light but not too much. The torch was positioned so it shone through a beer bottle creating a shadow of it on the wardrobe which I think adds to the atmosphere of the scene. 

As a last minute idea, that was not on my original storyboards. I shot the abductor turning round and shining the torch on Heather who looked as if she was tied up on the bed. To shoot this I stood the tripod on the chair that the abductor was sitting on to create a POV shot and moved the torch round from the left to shine on Heather who reacts by attempting to sit up. I was really please with this shot as once again, it does not reveal too much but you can see the emotion on Heather's face as she is singled out by the torch.