First day of filming - Take 2

Today was our second attempt at filming the scenes we previously planned to do but failed. Thankfully this time, we did not encounter any problems or difficulties like we did in the first day. 

We were able to gather up all the actresses taking part in the scenes and collect the equipment quickly and easily. In addition, setting up the camera onto the tripod was not a problem since I was able to ask one of my teachers,once again, to demonstrate how to fix the camera onto the tripod as well as how to tighten the screw in order to have more control over panning the camera.

However in order to avoid continuity issues further into the production of our film, we had to ensure that we did not film outside since it was raining and our film was not set in the rain. But at the same time we needed to show that it was daytime. So we decided to film near the window but without focusing onto it so that it would be blurry and prevent the rain from being seen.

Despite this issue being prevented, we still needed to deal with another issue which was that one of the laps from one of the rooms we were filming in stopped working.Unfortunately since we didn't expect this, we didn't bring any lighting equipment. Thankfully I had the idea of using a desklap to light up the room, which luckily was enough.

Creating the Newspaper

The newspaper for the opening scene of my film, is a very important aspect of the story, since it allows the film to follow the Enigma code theory and capture the viewers' interest right from the start. In order for this to work it is important that we create a realistic looking newspaper article, which is why we have used this website to create it: http://www.fodey.com/generators/newspaper/snippet.asp

 When writting the article, we found that it would be best if we each wrote half of the story.This way we would both have contributed to making the newspaper.

I wrote the first part:

Three teenagers have been found dead after allegedly watching a homemade horror film. Witnesses claim that all three victims had previously received a DVD from an anonymous source.

In the process of creating the newspaper

“It’s not just video games anymore, people have now began to turn film fiction into reality”- Ms Begum, 37, expressed her suspicious over the motive behind the murder of her daughter.”It’s too early into the investigation process to determine whether these murders are closely linked to the Hollywood film “The Ring”- Police officer Paul.

And my partner Anika wrote the second part:

Chris Taiwan, Kevin Reed and Amber Begum´s body was found at the local cemetery. There were no traces of blood and therefore, it is still unrevealed how the deaths had occurred. The three teenagers were known to be “close friends” said a friend who knew them all. “They would always hang out together and have good jokes...”

Family members have been constantly asking for reasoning for their children´s death however, it seems like the truth behind this death still remains unknown...

Me editing the images onto the newspaper.

The newspaper without the photographs

 Initinally the newspaper had no images, because this website doesn't allow us to add any when creating the article.However the most important part in this case, isn't the writting but the photos of the victims which will allow our audience to recognise them when Rebecca begins to watch the DVD and notice that something isn't quite right about them being in that DVD. So we had to place the photos of the actors on top of Anika's part of the article, since by placing it there,the article would still make sense to those who try to read it.

After finally finishing the newspaper article, we printed it out and clued it on top of a real newspaper, so that it would look more realistic.

The final newspaper

Email to Our Location's Caretaker

The email to the caretaker

response from caretaker

We decided to email the caretaker of one of our filming locations, in order to clarify whether he would allow the footage of the cemetery park to be posted on Youtube for educational purposes or not. We did this in order to prevent any drawbacks in the filming process. We needed to know whether Youtube would be an issues or not, so that we could start looking for other possible locations to film in. Luckly he replied back quickly and with good news, we will indeed be able to share it on Youtube without any problems, which means that it will not be necessary to look for other locations to film our movie in.

Our first attempt at filming.

one of our classmates helping
 with the equipment

Yesterday on December the 6th, was our first day filming Live Evil. However things did not turn out as we planned. We faced a number of issues, the first involved gathering all of our actors (who were in a different location from us because of our lesson timetable) and collecting the equipment from the school. The second issue was transporting all the equipment to our location which is my house. Despite our actors helping us carry the equipment, the journey was still slow because of the cold weather. This caused us to think about how we could get the equipment to our location faster next time, especially since we might not always have our actors with us, since in some cases we might agree to meet up at the location rather then walk to it together.When this does happen a possible solution would be to ask some of our fellow classmates if they would like to help us carry the equipment.

The last two issues were the ones that affect our plans the most. Firstly we had problems with setting up the equipment, we were not able to fix the camera firmly onto the tripod which caused it to be wobbly. This led us to decided that it would not be worth filming anything as we would not be able to have steady shots and also made us realise that in the previous camera sessions we learned the hard technique and camera settings but not the basics such as placing the camera on the tripod, viewing the footage we had taken etc.
An additional issue that led us to this decision of cancelling the filming, was that the scene we planned to film required daylight, however since we took so much time travelling to our location and setting up the equipment, it had already become night-time which meant that we could no longer film that scene.

For that same reason we had to call our teacher and ask for his permission for the equipment to remain in my house overnight since it would be quite risky to walk around at night with expensive equipment. Our teacher agreed with the condition that I would hand it in to the office first thing next morning.


Next morning I found that it was raining and I had nobody to help me carry all the equipment back to school. The solution I found for this problem was to hire a cab to take me to school. By doing this I could make sure that the equipment would not be damaged and that I would not be late for my lesson.