Account of Shoot Day

Account of Shoot Day

The night before our shoot day, our group was divided into smaller units of two’s to increase the efficiency of the group and we worked together to prepare some props for our shoot.

I was in a group with Davina, and we tried to achieve a scary and eerie feel to our shoot by burning and destroying children's toys, dolls, teddy bears etc by trying to burn the dolls to give them a scorched and destroyed appearance. We tried to achieve this effect to appeal to horror fans and people who indulge in twisted thriller movies such as The Ring, The Grudge and The Tale Of Two Sisters.(15-25 age groups).

On the morning of the shoot, we set up the dolls we had burned in our individual groups on the floor and soaked their scotched bodies to turn up the ‘twisted’ factor and put up some disturbing images of tortured, evil children and dolls which we needed to create the mise-en-scene. This was to evoke the idea of a twisted mind that was on the precipice of committing either a serious crime such as suicide or murder which is one of the components of a stereotypical horror movie. A successful example of this setting is in the horror movie ‘Saw 2’ which inevitably appealed to the target audience ( 15-25 age group) and in order to in turn appeal to the target audience we infused a similar mise-en-scene to the set of our opening sequence.

Luckily, our shoot was set indoors (in the studio) so the bad weather was not a problem for us but to our advantage because it was really wet and dirty outside so our character, dipped her feet into a dirty puddle of water to give her feet a more interesting look to match the concept of the set design previously mentioned and also considering that her feet were the only part of her body which you could see and they had to make a strong impression on the viewer and to induce feelings one would typically get from watching a thriller or horror movie ( e.g., fear, suspense) .

Our group decided to use our original storyboard which was just one continuous shot with different imagery and lightning concepts around the set. During this continuous shot we made a few adjustments such opening the shot with the pages of the diary blowing open ( to show elements of our characters mind set , as there was no dialogue, we needed to show how our character was mentally unstable so we decided to have pages of the diary scattered to give an insight of her emotional fragility and humanity) .We also chose to use the diary as part of the mise-en-scene which we assumed would be more captivating to our target audience of 15-24 year olds . There was also a part were the camera tracked down slowly down a rope which had had a doll which was hung, dripping blood which was adapted into our shot as we personally thought would be very successful as it would be unexpected for a first time viewer and would created a more disturbing effect.

We also decided to end our shoot with the characters feet hanging as she had kicked a stool in order to let her body hang to suggest that she committed suicide to create suspense and tension. While making these new decisions for our shoot, all the members of our group participated willingly and brought together our creativeness to create the perfect shot. Each person took on different roles beyond our assigned responsibility in order to make sure things ran smoothly and to prevent the loss of time to shoot.


We decided to use Petri Kimber as our main character as she possesses the characteristics which we would use to depict imagery to vivid effect, such as her natural dark hair and eyes, and with the appropriate make-up and costume we selected, she was perfect for the role of Elizabeth Carter, as she supposed to be a teenage girl with a ' dark' and ‘twisted’ personality.
Petri Kimber also posses commended acting skills and talent to help bring the character Elizabeth Carter to life in a way that the audience could experience imagery to vivid effect.


We decided to create an effect through the lighting of suspense and tension. In order to do this we used two different forms of lighting; within the main studio space, we had a bare bulb which allowed us to create a sense of darkness and foreboding within our mise-en-scene. This created the stereotypical horror effect that is featured in a lot of Asian cinema such as the original ‘Ring’ and ‘A Tale of Two Sisters’. We also wanted to create a shadow as our character walked in through the door so we positioned our lights behind the doors to make a shadow in the dark set. This was aimed at creating an in debt visual effect.

After shooting, I held up the boom mic to capture the sound of the environment but because of the rain, and pipes above the studio there was a limit to how natural the sound of the room was. I also went on to record the sound of the rocking stool and the ‘bang’ of the stool dropping on the floor .We also attempted to record the sound of the rope being tied which was successful, however trying to record the sound of our character choking was the most difficult for me out of all the recording tasks as it was hard to get a natural and clear sound from our actress Petri.
I personally believe that as a group, we got past our difficulties and had a successful shoot as we worked together in order to achieve the best possible result even if it meant attempting to re-take shots or sound recordings. I think part of this success came from our individual disciplinary skills, ability to work well with others even during difficult times, ability to improvise and lastly our dedication to our individual tasks.