Camera Shot Research

This is our camera shot research we conducted, just as a practice before we do actual filming. Below us in detail, what we plan to do with each shot, how well it went, and what we'll change.

Shot 1 - Change Clothes.

We are going to try to encorperate this into our storyline and we originally got the idea for the shot off the trailer for the film 'Freaky Friday'. It is be used in our film when Lewis will close the door as to be going to bed, in his pyjamas and then in a split second and change his clothes, as to indicate the next day. A slight problem that we had when practicisng this shot would be that the door we were using was not great, and Connor had to dig his fingers in to open the door. However, when we are actually filming, it will be a proper door, with a fixed handle, so won't be a problem.

Shot 2 - Walk through camera.

This shot is going to be used when Lewis walks from his room to the bathroom, and the following shot is where 'HELP' is wrote on the mirror. A slight problem we had when filming this would be that it struggles to focus when Connor walks away from the camera. We talked to our teacher about this and a way to fix this would be to zoom the camera lense in, so that were not having to walk so close to the camera.

Shot 3 - Stairs shot.

In our film we are going to have the scene in which one of the two boys runs down the stairs. This was just a simple exercise of having the shot at the top of the stairs and then cutting half-way down to a different camera shot. The shot worked fine and was quite easy just to cut both of the shots, get them both in the right position and then merge them together.

Shot 4 - Writing Help.

This is by far the hardest shot that we will have to do, and we have only put together a rough edit of what we are planning to do. By simply writing Help on the board, and doing it stages, then stepping back and drawing another line, we are hoping to create the effect that somebody is writing but actually nobody is there. This is by far the most ambitious shot that we plan to do in our film. We originally had a problem with the practice shot as the floorboards were not very sturdy and caused the camera to move. This will not be a problem for when we are filming as we are doing it on tiles, so the camera will not move. Also, we will be turning the shower on and writing the message on the condensation on the mirror, so this may be harder because we may get drip marks but using a whiteboard was the best way to test it.

In our actual film, the writing on the board will be done by a series of wipes which will either wipe vertically or horizontally to give the effect that the 'HELP' is actually being written by Ryan, who turns invisible.

Overall all shots seems succesful and we are planning to use all these shots in our final piece.