ACOUNT OF SHOOT DAY
On the first day of shooting we first started out on the studio doing the x-factor like shoot presenting the characters with the lights on them and the green screen background. We added a few actors for the montage of Ella Denton killing in the past game, we did this because they were too few actors to create the needed effect when editing. We got rid of the illegal African immigrant because he wasn’t available when shooting and also didn’t come with the required props. We used young actors and had an interview with each of them talking about their certain problems and why they needed to be in the show which is similar to what’s going on in the society and young adults between 16-25 are facing which are drug use, smoking addiction, this kind of helped us with our target audience because they not only enjoy the thrill of the show but also relate the problems the characters are facing.
We used the studio and also were creative in the different locations we used for the characters interviews and the certain actions they were doing to kind of highlight their problems, e.g. the smoker was outdoor around the woods, having a cigarette. For the Asbo’s interview he was also outdoor sitting behind a dirty white bus with all sort of rude words written on the bus. For the winner of the last years show we used different locations for her flash back, such as when she was homeless, she was sitting on a park chair with a dirty hoodie, holding her baby and with a red blanket rapped around her, then her next shots were of her killing other contestants (which is when we added other characters) We used o location of her running through the woods, at first we tried a tracking shot but that didn’t work out as planned and it didn’t go so well with the time of situation we were trying to create so instead we used the tripod and shot at different angles, we did a wide shot, a close up and an over the shoulder shot, with these different shots we can edit it and make it look more intense. We also did an over the shoulder shot of her killing someone in the car, this was not part of the original plan but we needed more scenarios of her killing people. We did a shot of her trying to hid and kill someone while she was inside a dumpster and this worked really well because it created some sort of dirty environment in which that kind of game will be taking place.
The characters meant to be contesting for the game show, came with the right props and we also used make-up to alter their looks a little and make it go with their character and costume more. For e.g. the asbo had a snap back on and grey trackies bottoms, this is the usual stereotype and we also wanted him to have a chav edge to his character as well, The females wore a lot of dark make –up on their eyes because we also wanted to keep it thrilling the audience with their scary looks. The smoker had scattered hair because she kept touching it and touching her body all around because she was meant to be a very depressed person which was conscious about her body a lot. The druggie had a shirt with ‘nicotine, caffeine and alcohol’ written on it, which just made her look bad and careless she had a lot of black make up around her eyes to also make her look young and rebellious. The winner of the Last show looked rather decent in her interview but when shooting the flashbacks of when she was homeless she had smudged black make-up around her face to make her look very unkept and she also had very large hoop earings to make her look like a tramp
We picked our actors/actresses because they looked very basic for their roles, the druggie Ollie had blonde scattered shot hair, pale skin and we thought she would fit perfectly for the druggie, Ella Denton looks very deterministic facially so we thought it would be a good idea to use her for a winner, the smoker had dark eyes and the Asbo looked like a basic chav and could fake the accent really well so we thought it would be a good idea to use him.
We used a three tier lighting system while we were in the studio filming the different characters in the x-factor like manner, with back lighting and fill lighting, while we were in the studio. We didn’t take cameras in the shot because it would reflect badly on the lighting. Outside we used natural lighting which was the sun but sometimes it didn’t work really well for us, e.g. if we weren’t facing the direction in which the sun was, we would have to face behind and turn the other round so we would be facing the sun. We adjusted the aperture on the camera e.g. like when we were filming in the car, it was very dark because of the enclosed nature of the car so we had to adjust the aperture to make it brighter.
We use two microphones which were both connected to the main camera, one directly connected to the camera, while we had to hold the other one, we used the second one so when editing we would see which sounds better with which shot and be able to choose from the different ones we also used them because one which was called the boom mic , could trap the wind sound if the wind was heavy to make it sound more high quality. Also because we wanted friendly fire to become more of a documentary type show in some areas such as the interviews like x factor, because this was mostly out door , sticking out the microphone which you hold and making it show in the scene, made it more like a documentary.
I helped around holding the sound and choosing at which direction to hold it, whether at the left side or at the right side which determined mostly on the camera angle. I was the director when we were filming the smoker and when we filming the druggie, I told them what to do and shouted and yelled at times they seemed down to try and make them get hyped to the moment and get in character, I also had to tell the person in charge of the camera (when I was directing) when to roll and told the characters when to take action. I told them in which manner they would raise their head and what time. I also was in charge of the camera at certain times, so doing the white balance and making sure of the focus and aperture. I also knew when the place was too bright or too dim
My team worked very well together we switched in between roles like sometimes I’ll be the director and Chloe would be in charge of the camera and sometimes Ivan would be the director while tom would be in charge of the camera, we did this not to be selfish with any role and let everyone learn from each bit from each section of the filming section.
I think we were all very pleased at how fast pace the filming process was going, we did everything very quickly because everything tended to fall smoothly into place. Leith Hill was a problem, because we couldn’t get permission to film there we had to film somewhere else and add extra shorts for e.g. the shots in the woods. Also we kept on having problems with the script and what characters had to say, we kept on changing what we wanted the characters to say, but at the end of the day the changes we made were better than what was on the original script, the reason for this was because the changes varied according to the environment and the actual character.
