Mise-en-scene of our chosen location

Before filming, looking more closely at our chosen location of the house we recognised to get the best shots in the rooms that we will be filming in we will need to clear out some of the school related stuff such as posters and books. They would have to be either replaced with items that are found in traditional haunted houses such as cracked photo frames and broken mirrors or avoid getting them in the framing of the shots overall.

Front room

Front room 

Kitchen 

Bed room 

Chosen location

Our chosen location is a house within our school which we find convenient to shoot in after taking out test shots there. Doing the test shots has helped us realise how important mise-en-scene is and after taking pictures of the rooms that we will be shooting in, we have seen potential things that could be noticed whilst we're filming, and is a reminder to make sure everything on screen fits within our genre of horror and doesn't have the atmosphere that we're filming in school.

Front entrance to the house and my group carrying out test shots

back garden of the house

Shooting schedule, props and location list

Here is a copy of our shooting schedule that will be followed for filming next week:

Test shots - shot no. 32

 Today we carried out test shots for shot no. 32 as we throught this could be a complex scene to take. This shot consist of the mother pray for guidance and safety. To create a spiritual atmosphere we have decided to use candles as the lighting, instead of any studio lighting or natural light.

Wide shot consisting of the mother pray

A group member arranging the candles 

The final framing of the scene as a test shot

Myself testing out the shot 

From carrying out these test shots we've realised we will have to be careful of the framing. As you can see the image above you are able to see the black back drop's stand and poles which when it comes to filming, will need to be taken care of so that it doesn't ruin the atmosphere of our mise-en-scene and looks more professional. 

In addition for this shot to work we will need to make more religious references to ensure our audience are able to identify why this shot is so significant towards the build up of the climax in our trailer.

Test shots - shots no. 24 and 30

Today we attempted to test out shots no.24 and 30 of our storyboard which consist of the mother rushing up the stairs and back down. We chose to do these shots hand-held to gain the scene of chaos, rush and panic for the audience but from the perceptive of the mother.

Shot no. 24 from our storyboard

Shot no. 30 from our storyboard

One of my group members testing out this shot

 After carrying out these test shots, we now have realised that hand-held shots won't be the best way forwards in terms of filming it, so alternatively we will be using a tripod and with a slow high to low tilt for shot no.30 as the mother rushes down the stairs and low to high tilt for shot no.24 as the mother rushes up the stairs. During editing we will be able speed up this scene by increasing its duration which will add to the chaos and panic atmosphere that we were originally going for.

Carrying out test shots - shots no. 6

This week we will be carry out test shots from our storyboard. The first shot we've attempted to do is shot number 6; the key entering the door at an low angle extreme close up.

Shot no.6 from our storyboard

Whilst testing this shot out, I found that it was quite difficult to film and get the framing of key in along with the low angle view and extreme close up. I chose to do it hand-held so I could get an extreme close up with a slight zoom from the camera to gain variation within the different shot types and just to see how it would look with natural lighting.

pictures of me attempting to film shot no.6

As an alternative we tried taking a low angle mid shot of the key enter the lock to see if this would make a difference or help create a better shot with the distance, but this resulted in problems mise-en-scene wise. Although the door used below isn't the one we will be using, but taking into consideration the natural lighting and surroundings, this shot was prove to be unsuccessful. However, next time we take a shot similar to this, we will use a tripod instead of a table to keep the camera even more focused on the object within frame.

A member from my group attempting to take the low angle mid shot

Overall, this shot within our trailer is only on screen for about 2 -3 seconds at the most, and isn't a very important shot, so in regards to this we will be taking it out of our storyboard and replace it with just a shot of the family enter the house instead.

Potential locations

After writing our narrative we started looking for potential locations that we could visit for our trailer filming, this resulted in finding a suitable house that we could use. The location would have be creepy, with a sense of fear gained through mise-en-scene. These were potential houses that I found that our group could use: