Shooting Round Two

This shoot was a lot more conventional and straight forward. It was more of a familiar environment for me as I am most at home shooting in a guerrilla style with natural light and realistic environments. I felt a lot more at home as a filmmaker when I had a natural environment with natural lighting. I could work with bokeh and framing in a more familiar environment. 

I already had an idea in my head of exactly what the shots would look like. Again with it being so simple and focussed of an idea with such a short timeframe to shoot for it was a very straight forward shoot. I wanted to get two shots to tell the story that I have wanted to tell in this project from the beginning. I wanted to capture the feelings and atmosphere that I mentioned in all the earlier posts but my previous experience and tests had shown that subtlety was key. I decided to use subtle framing cues and practical elements to tell the story of uncertainty turning into familiarity. I very roughly drew out each shot as a quick guide:

 To accomplish this I wanted to use a close up followed by a medium shot. The close up would take place within a tilt shot moving over a background window pane and eventually end tight in on the spout of a kettle as it it is boiling. Steam will rise through the shot throughout it's duration coupled with a sound effect. This shot is restricting the viewers perspective of the scene and intentionally withholding information. This is unsettling and subtly confusing to witness. I will then harness the style of Edgar Wright and wipe the frame with my body as I move the kettle over to a mug wiping left to right. 

My body will be completely silhouetted and obscured to add another layer of mystery and uncertainty. only to reveal a normal situation of me pouring boiled water into a mug on a work surface in a  kitchen. My body will then wipe the frame to black. This is simple filmmaking to imply emotions and atmosphere that contains a lot of hidden depth yet doesn't smack the viewer in the face or draw to much from the beginning of each episode.

It was a pretty simple principle and was very quick to shoot as it was only two shots. They came out really well too. Very close to the original storyboards which is good:

Shot #1:

Shot #2:

Like I said. It was a simple shoot that I think came out looking really nice. It fits the style I was going for and with some colour correction and sound design I think it is all going to come together to make a really strong piece.