Reflection of shoot day

Thursday was our shooting day, and it was a snow day, the light turns pale and blue, that helped us with the natural lighting for the cold and creepy

atmosphere. we went to Constance’s house as we planned. The reason for this location is we want a constructed room for that kind of vintage style, and Constance informed us her house where is just 10 minutes drive from school would be a perfect location for filming. Therefore, we communicated with Constance’s mother and she is happy to let us film in her house. At that morning about 9:15, we departed from the school and followed the routine Constance showed us, and we arrived at her house at around 9:30am.

Constance has already set up the scene perfectly and everything was well prepared. We took about 3 hours and made many artistic shoots which look nice in colour, lighting and composition. In this group of three students and two teachers, everyone works perfectly and tried different roles : lighting, camera, sound and so on. The shoot list was clearly classified by location, so that we made the shooting as efficiently as possible. We spent most of the time filmed in the study first. Next, we went to the bathroom to film the washing hands scene. The problem was, we did not look at the bathroom before, so that we spent some time worked around for the lighting, because the light was too dim in the bathroom, and the space is limited. Consequently, we used the touch light of the phone and bounce the light by reflector in order to make it looks natural. The most funniest shoot was the bunny scene, fortunately it was not naughty, and it never been in a cage, so it shows a bit angry which is definitely fit in our scene.

There was an accident that the fake eyes were not arrived on time, so we gave up that scene, also, as I visualized, the fake eyes actually do not fit in the scene.
We used the lamp on the desk instead of extra lighting, and we used reflector as well. 

Shoot day preparation

Before the shoot day, we print the Taxidermy book cover( Even though we decided not to use the books at the last minute). The fake eyes did not arrive by the shoot day, but that was fine, because the eyes are too small and do not look realistic. Constance stay at home for setting up the scene on the Wednesday night and Thursday(shoot day) morning. The room we film was the her mom’s office previously, and we changed it like a taxidermist’s room temporarily. Constance moves the dopine spin from the TV room to the study, and put all the tiny skull into the draw, also, the certificates of taxidermy were stick on the wall for the scene.

On Thursday morning, we had a brief chat with Matt about our final shoot list, and we took different colours of light just in case that we suddenly change our idea. As we arrived, we decided to use the lamp on the desk rather than the lights we brought, because it fit the scene very well.

Research on similar story

When I was doing the research on taxidermy, I found a real story that is very similar to our theme, which make the story more meaningful and interesting.

The Story is about a American killer kills people, and his mother who is a taxidermist helped him to stuff died bodies. This could involve in many agreeable problems, such as family education.

Props list (Update)

☑️1. Rabbit
☑️2.Cage—>Box replace the cage
☑️3.Two Gloves(We are going to borrow two pairs from the biology class, the spare one for backup)

☑️4.Certificate(Cartridge paper)
5.Taxidermy Books(Animals +Human)
6.Fake eyes
7.Family pics( in order)
☑️8.Globe
☑️9.Skull
☑️10.Tools
☑️11.Libra scale
☑️12.Armadillo
☑️13.Dophine spine

Props checklist(25th Feb

☑️1. Rabbit
☑️2.Cage—>Box replace the cage
3.Two Gloves(We are going to borrow two pairs from the biology class, the spare one for backup)
☑️4.Certificate(Cartridge paper)
5.Taxidermy Books(Animals +Human)
6.Fake eyes
7.Family pics( in order)
☑️8.Globe
☑️9.Skull
☑️10.Tools
☑️11.Libra scale
☑️12.Armadillo
☑️13.Dophine spine

How to design title

13rd Feb
Today, Matt taught us how to make fonts for the title sequence. First of all, the software that we are going to use is Photoshop.
Notes:
1. The timescale should be optimum that slow reader could read the title and it’s not too long for fast reader, the skill for controlling the time of each title is: fast read X 3 times.
2. The name should be bigger than the post he/she is in charge of.( for example: Matt director) The reason is people know the word because they have seen this word for many times, but they might not know the name.
3. The titles of Action movies are usually italics, because it looks speedy.
4. The design of the fonts should be relevant to the theme of the movie.

update of the final scene

Today, we move the scene of Taxidermy books of Animals and human to end the story, which could lead to the next step and provide a critical clue for audiences to imagine the further story.

                                         Last Scene

Props Checklist

☑️1. Rabbit
2.Cage—>Box replace the cage
3.Two Gloves(We are going to borrow two pairs from the biology class, the spare one for backup)
4.Certificate(Cartridge paper)
5.Taxidermy Books(Animals +Human)
6.Fake eyes
7.Family pics( in order)
☑️8.Globe
☑️9.Skull
☑️10.Tools
☑️11.Libra scale
☑️12.Armadillo
☑️13.Dophine spine

Shot list

New storyboard( still CU)

Today, we given up the idea of tracking, because we think that is meaningless to do, if we are showing her job, rather than the room she works. We will move onto the techniques of the camera(e.g. zoom) and the tools she uses, which could gives more areas of imagination for the audiences. The Latest Storyboard:

More details of the location

Today, we looked at the pictures of Constance’s house, especially the book room, where is our filming location.

 Also, we decided to do the track+close up, and we drew a routine of the shoots.

The book room is the main shooting area

                                          Then, we will take many close up on the objects

Location permission & casting

We have an official invitation for allowing us to film in Constance’s house from her mother:

We are very thankful about that, because this reduces the location cost and the cost of part of the props(Constance’s house is a perfect location for filming this project)

However, because our timetable is not going to work for the drama teacher, Ms. Clare Crossley. Therefore, we decided to use someone else hands and not showing her face.

Update

As we considered, opening credit( Names and Visual images, without story) will be our outcome of the opening sequence, because this is our first project and we try to make it easier and achievable for us. Also, we decided to do the credit with images, instead of visual image-dark scene with name- visual image. To expand our idea, we made a idea lists rather than a storyboard in an order.

In addition, we looked at more possibilities in Constance’s house, and we think her bunny and pet dog would be quite helpful in the shoot, however, we shouldn’t rely on animals, so we got to have ‘Plan B’ for their shoots.

Research on taxidermy

This video shows how the taxidermed animals looks like, and it gives me an idea of the how taxidermists repair the dead animals

The process of taxidermy (a bunny)

The process of taxidermy (a squirrel)

From these videos, I have a clue of how to do taxidermy
1.Freeze the animal until you're ready to prepare it. You'll want to remove the skin as soon as is possible, but it's important to keep the animal from spoiling before you commit to preserving it and caring for the skin. To be safe, freeze the animal so you can acquire the necessary materials for performing basic taxidermy in the meantime:

• Sharp knife
• Sewing needle
• Thread
• Stuffing or plaster cast of animal
• Borax, alcohol, or your preferred preserving agent

2.Prepare the form.

3.Remove the skin.( skinning the head first, and then the rest)

4.Preservation (lay the skin out, make sure that excess meat is scraped off. Sprinkle the borax/cornstarch/salt mixture inside body (in mouth if you want the tongue still) to ensure absorbency and disinfect the inside and out of body. Let sit for at minimum 72 hours with mixture in a place that does not get moisture , “pets” or children can’t reach. KEEP flesh side up. After it is dry, make the feathers look pretty, fluff them up if you want.)

5.Fixing mistakes

Before stuffing the bird sew any holes closed. Make an amateur with the cotton balls, mashing together cotton balls to get the basic shape of the bird. Size and shape differs depending on bird type but make sure neck is stuffed slim

6. Wiring

Suggestion for cheap eyes:<http://www.hidetanning.net/TaxidermyEyes.html>

Links:<https://www.google.com/amp/s/m.wikihow.com/Do-Taxidermy%3famp=1>

Update

In this week, we created our storyboard. However, we met some problems, especially in casting. According to the story, we need an kind lady as the main character and 6-8 people as the dead bodies, and the filming location would be in Constance’s house, where is 10 minutes away from the school. As we considered, it might be difficult to take many people out from the school and they don’t have specific role to play, which means this is not the best plan in terms of our situation. In addition, we had a conversation about the main character, we agreed that Clare, who is the drama teacher would be a great actress in our video. Yet, I afraid she is not going to join our open sequence, because her timetable is not fit in the shooting day, and she will be very busy at that time.

We talked to Matt about our story and problems on Friday, he provided a more easier suggestion that we better not to do the story, we can keep it as the body part of the movie, the thing we are going to do is more abstract, for instance, close up to the skulls. In another word, change it to opening credit.

Therefore, we are going to create a new storyboard next week, and prepare for the props we are going  to use in the shoot. We have looked at the objects in Constance’s house

Murderer’s diary storyboard

Idea 2 Murderer’s diary

[Psychopath diary]
Location: Constance’s House
Storyline:
we see two men carrying a body in a bag down steps towards a house

one knocks at the door and an old woman opens the door and directs them to a room at the end of the corridor

in the room there are dead people sitting, stuffed

they carry in the body and place in on a desk and unwrap the body

as they do this we see the old lady pouring tea for the stuffed people and 'interacting' with them

she goes over to the body and hands the men some money

the men say goodbye to the bodies and leave the house

panning round a house

- you see people, dead and stuffed, sitting completely still 'going about their lives', eg sitting on sofas, playing cards etc.

- entering a room, we see more dead people doing similar activities

- we see a diary with logs of the killed people, there are head shots of the people after they had been killed, info about them and their finger prints

- pan over to a woman sitting at a desk

Edit2– Dialogue & Sound

On today’s lesson, we edited the footage shot in the previous session.
We start working on our pictures straight away, and then, we learnt how to edit  the sound:
Firstly, unlink the sound—>delete the audio back up tracks to one channel—>cross fade
To make the audio sound more fluent, click on the sound—>go to the effect—>choose””—>drag it down and put it on the gap between two sound track.