For our week of production, my partner and I went through an immense struggle with our view for this film because we could not establish any coherent shots that matched our visual, but we eventually managed to and it turned out fairly decent although we possibly need to add more filler shots to make sense of our film opening.
Saturday, March 22nd
Tzitlalith, my partner, and I went to film our opening and endured difficulties of establishing a mood for our film and finding a suitable costume for our character. We did not find a white dress so we went with a white tank top and white shorts to replace it, but I did not resonate with the way the shots came out. On top of that, we could not figure out in the moment what cinematography went with our opening and struggled with different angles. The only shots we captured were the screams right at the beginning of our film opening and a few ambient noises which were the sound of leaves crunching.
Running through the woods (one through seven) showcased the struggle of my partner and I trying to film the right shot, getting the right angle, and trying to maintain our momentum. We could not figure out the first few running shots that were going to be in the opening after the establishing shots and we had the idea of inserting a tracking shot, but that did not work out as we kept repeating the same shots in roughly the same area. We also could not figure out the angle whether to show the full body or half of it and this led into our unmatched momentum. Tzitlalith, my partner, had to track me wherever I was heading to and this concluded in having a shaky camera, lopsided angle, or a shot cut short when she fell into something or was too slow and I ended up getting too close to the camera.
Monday, February 24th
On this day, my partner and I decided to film multiple establishing shots that open up to our audience and they all turned out fairly well although we barely could find any crows or birds at the location we shot. The only shot we had was an owl and it did not appear as a clear visual, but we decided to incorporate it anyhow. The issue we had was once again was filming our running through the woods shot and perfecting our costuming that fit well for our character. We tried black cargo pants paired with a white tank top, but it did not match our vision.
For the establishing shots, my partner and I had the mindset to really capture our location to give the viewers insight to what our actor is about to run through and the terror. The establishing shots where it showed a river were going to be included in our film opening, but we forgot to shoot there though it is a very nice clearing. We also tried to show the woods and give it an eerie feel to it because the woods are not portrayed to be a happy clearing, but rather a mysterious feel to it.
Instead of following through tracking shots, we decided to try and do a still frame where I run across the camera frame. We repeated this shot a few times and to no luck, we could not manage to find one perfect shot to include in our film opening and the costuming was not working well with the frame so we decided to call it quits and figure out a solution to where the costume is suitable and our issue on finding the right cinematography.
Tuesday, February 25th
We accomplished more on Tuesday by filming the end stage of our opening to get a clear mindset and a break from the running shots. Along with finally managing to find a suitable costume for our character which consisted of a black, flowy dress to match our vision which was to create an eerie mood rather than purity that was originally going to be paired with a white dress. Aside from that, our tower shots were to capture the character going mad and ending her life and we did so. The weather consisted of extreme wind which can be a problem with continuity if we decided to film more filler shots or reshoot.
We took on a different angle to show the gloomy sky and portray the emotion settle on our actor (which is me), but it did not effectively match our visual and rather showed me as a bigger, powerful figure so we dismissed this type of shot.
Tzitlalith and I decided to experiment with a 360 shot that showed the world going into chaos for the actor and also show the paranoia and hurt on the actor so the viewers can see her reaching a breaking point. We loved the outcome and decided to go ahead with the footage from our third take.
Wednesday, February 26th
We could not film this day as it was a high chance of rain around the time we filmed at five-thirty to six-thirty
Thursday, February 27th
We did not film as my partner could not
Friday, February 28th
We did not film because my partner could not
Saturday, February 29th
Our last production day was Saturday and we filmed the entirety of our film that we did not shoot on the other days. We finished up the running through the woods shot which proved to be semi difficult with the time of day because we shot around five o’clock and during our shots we captured the sun which was not how we envisioned it, but still used the shots. We then captured the last scene where our character dies and the lighting there was almost too dark compared to the rest of our film, but we had no time left and decided to use it anyhow.
My partner and I decided to try two different angles for our tracking shot, one facing forward and the other facing backwards. We took multiple shots of the same scene and even changed location for the last two shots and eventually we had the right footage to insert in our opening (tracking shot 8).
For a pan shot we filmed a few times to show me running away from my chasers, but had to re-film twice because Tzitlalith had my shoes and socks in the footage though it was an easy fix because I simply took off my shoes and we filmed the perfect shot to insert.
We decided to show a low angle shot for my feet because with the process of editing, the purpose was to indicate a passage of time and inferring that I was heading for the tower now. We filmed multiple shots to choose from because we wanted to have several backups to see which one was best (tracking shot 4).
We chose to film an eye level shot or a medium shot to give the viewers an insight to what our character is feeling.
We decided to do another tracking shot to show where our actor is now heading, kind of an establishing shot, but not really. It was to also add a bit of drama and suspense for our opening as she heads to what the viewers do not know, her final resting place.
These series of shots is what I like to call, “The bloody shots”. We used red acrylic paint to create these shots because this idea came from our title, “Driving Insanity” in which we tried to actually show our character going mad and this will result in the final blow to where she kills herself.
These final shots were the last scene to our film opening and we used an abrupt tilt shot to show the death of our character (me). We gathered inspiration from the opening scene to “It Follows” because their character’s death scene was also abrupt, gruesome death and we were inspired to do the same.
Sunday, March 1st
We did not film this day as we saved it for editing our rough cut
Driving Insanity 