Account of the shooting day

Today we shot our film and to the pride of our group it went very well and as planned. Infact it actually went better than planned and exceeded our expectations. Whilst we went in today not knowing exactly how we were going to execute the film, it soon came to fruition when we were filming it as we could see the location before us which gave us an idea of how to map out what we were doing on our terrain. When compared to the storyboards, whilst not being completely the same what we filmed yesterday very much resembles what was written on the storyboard. This means that there is still a victim being chased by an attacker which is himself. The only thing that changed was the ending and how that worked out. This will explained towards the end of this post.

The main shot choices that we used were fast tracking shots and close ups. The main tracking shots we had were towards the beginning of the film we follow Dan running through the forest. The close up is seen at the end in which we had evil Dan about to stab good Dan. The final shot we used, which as team believe to be the best one is a POV shot which shows the camera running through the woods as if to be Dan running away from Evil Dan. This was the hardest to execute as there were many twigs in the way which ended up tripping us up (we all had a turn at doing it). Whilst it was difficult we believe they will truly show off the film when they are edited together.

In terms of location we filmed it in the nearby woods. Whilst there are many woodland areas in the surrounding areas of surrey, we used the woods nearest as that would take us the least amount of time to travel towards, and would therefore allow us to film as much as possible with it still being light. It turns out that the forest we used was a good location as it wasnt too enclosed and gave us a lot of room to move about in, this was good for being able to film and for Dan when he was being filmed. The mise en scene of the particular woods was good as well as they made it look like Dan was very much on his own, lost and hunted. People often tend to think of more rural settings as well when thinking of such themes like being hunted and primal fear which is what the main themes of our movie were about.

Unfortunately megan knowles had to cancel at the last minute (literally being yesterday), so we had to substitute for her with Dan Ash. This turned out to be a bit of a blessing as dan has done a lot of acting before over various different student projects. This benefitted our film hugely as having a good actor does wonders for its look.
We were given a large amount of fake blood which was used to full effect as Dan put a large amount in his mouth and then spat it out to make it look as if he was suffering from profuse internal bleeding. We also dabbed a large amount below his chest to make it look as if he had been stabbed.

In terms of lighting it was all natural and was purely created from the sun shining down on the forest. This gave it an eerie quality that we would not have been able to attain if we had used the fake lighting that we were originally offered. Once again like was mentioned before the main theme of this film is being hunted, and fear which is a very natural emotion. The whole film is about instinct which is something which occurs naturally, so we thought adding light to this could end up ruining this idea.

We did not use any sounds on the day but they will be edited in later on during the editing process.

My role on the day was not huge as i am the sound engineer. I did however help out with the camera work and filmed several sequences. We all had our fair share of filming the piece however this all helped add to the constructivity of the piece. We all get on as a team and therefore found it easy to work together and managed to give each other ideas on what to day with the camera nad how we could film it. An example of this is charlotte who came up with the idea to shoot dan coming up to victor whilst wearing a hoody. This will be expanded on later.

As said before we all get on very well which hugely helps the equilibrium of the team and helped bring the idea to reality. We all came up with individual ideas that helped add to the piece and this all helped mould the finished product that we will soon have.

Like was said before we were still having trouble trying to decide how we were going to edit the film as we were still not 100% sure about the idea. Before we decided on the ending it was orginally going to be a POV shot of dan being stabbed by himself. On the day however we got victor to wear a hoody and dan to wear a hoody so that it looked like the killer is about to stab the victim again. We then got dan to pull down his hoody to reveal that he was the killer all along. During the editing phase we will then cut to the titles when the audience realise that the killer and victim are the same person.

Account of props and costumes required and where these will be sourced from.

We only use two props in this film, which is a knife and the clothes which the characters wear. This is because the film itself is fairly simplistic and the main 'prop' that we use is the environment in which we are filming. The environment in which we are filming is the forest.
The forest itself could be called a character as it helps hilight the evil which is shown within the killer chasing our victim, which has now changed to megan knowles. The forest does this by casting a shadow over them and creating a menacing and foreboding atmosphere.

The knife as a prop is used for stabbing the victim with and could also have connotations of rape as the victim is female, and the attacker we assume is male, which could make for an interesting twist in the end when we realise they are both the same person. This gave us the idea for the name. The name we ended up choosing for our film is doppleganger.
In terms of the clothes our characters are wearing, Megan and her body double will be wearing black jeans and a black hoody

Account of casting decisions made.

We cast one person as the attacker and the victim. This is Ross Gordon. We decided that we would do this because Ross is a tall and fairly well built guy. To use him as the attacker and vitim we decided would add a bizarre twist, but not only ross has a vulnerability about him that would we felt would suit the victim, yet at the same time his height gave him a presence which we felt would encapsulate the killer. Whilst audience does not know this when watching the film, it will be revealed later on. This film's theme will be very similar to the film the tenant in which a man is haunting himself. This was filmed in france but was infact an american film. Here is a trailer for it.



As you can probably see from this trailer the movie has elements of serial killing and being hunted this is a theme that will be recurrent throughout our film (if it was to be produced into a proper 90 minute film). There were several other people in our year that we could have used however they were not available. They would have been better choices as they were bigger, however we decided Ross was good enough and decided to use him.

Discussion of what kind of institution would produce your film and why

The kind of institution that would produce this kind of movie would be a small budget company as the film we are shooting would be a fairly low budget film. Examples of studios that we would use for this film would be Electric studios which produced Henry portrait of a serial killer and Lionsgate films which produced American psycho. Lionsgate is a good company as it has a history of classic films under its belt yet has been renowned for producing low budget films as well. This means that a company which has worked with low budget films, but also high budget films would be well suited to our movie.We would also use Twisted pictures which produced Saw and Miramax which produced kill bill, pulp fiction, heavenly creatures and shakespeare in love.
Here is a trailer for American Psycho












And here is a trailer for Henry Portrait Of A Serial Killer

Account of who target audience are

The target audience of this movie would be 15 and up. The reason for this is that it contains scenes of violence and gore. Whilst it is not particularly violent it is still not suitable for a twelve year old as it still contains themes such as serial killing, and a sense of being hunted which would not be suitable for a 12 year old. In terms of gender this would not really be suited to one in particular as both men and women seem to equally enjoy the horror genre. However if a gender was to be selected the majority would probably be men. This would only be by a bit however.

The age limit would most probably be 40 years of age, as most people of this age do not tend to be as interested in random violence as much as younger audiences. Most teenagers go into a film expecting to see something exciting, and not necessarily something that is of any quality. Sometimes a man getting killed in numerous different ways e.g. SAW is enough entertainment for the average teenage male. Saw is a good example as it is a film which does not have a necessarily great plot line, yet pretends to with a pretentious story which pretends to be complicated yet isnt. Saw is just an excuse for mindless violence and by the sixth film some people were wondering why the director was still making sequels. However the amount of money that the franchise the film has made is a perfect example of how explicit violence, blood and gore is attractive to the teenage eye. It is also a perfect example of how it isnt attractive to elderly audiences as you would never see an elderly couple in line to see the latest Saw film.

Account of how you then began the process of producing a written version of the technicalities on your storyboard.

In the storyboard the shots that are written down would when it comes to it probably be fairly easy to film this is because they are all tightly knit together and would therefore be fairly fluid when filmed as it is just a guy running through a forest being chased by an attacker. Filming a chase sequence through a forest may end up being fairly difficult as it may be raining which would make it muddy and easy to slip, however if using the right equipment this could easily be overcome. This would also be a fairly mild obstacle in the grand scheme of things and the main focus should be on the filming of the actual thing.
As for getting someone to play the attacker, i have been nominated as well as several other people in our year. The people we have nominated to play these parts are good because the are tall and well built which is how we want the attacker to look, afterall there is no point in getting a short and skinny person to play a ruthless killer.