We showed the two media classes our group's rough cut and asked them to give us feedback as well as ideas on how to make it better as this is only the first rough sequence of our film opening and there is a lot of room to improve and change. The reaction of the audience was also filmed as shown :
The class were given sheets which each group had to fill out about our rough cut and here are some of the responses we received:
After returning from filming the next step was to produce a rough cut for our film opening and plan out the basic sequence and order of the clips to get an idea of how the final product will look like. During the class me, eye and prima got together to go through each clip we took during our filming day and which to include in our rough cut and what to leave out. Here is our final rough cut video(sound included)
We returned back to the Bangkok Condohotel where we booked our room to film in. Because we had a limited budget we only booked it for one day and all the filming has to be done on the day. Once we arrived we quickly got into action and started setting up the desk and filming spaces as well as work out the lighting with a good balance of natural and synthetic lighting.
Because I was to play the character of the antagonist, I brought a green vintage looking dress to change in to and had to get my makeup done to look like an old woman. Eye was in charge of doing my makeup as she had experience in basic special effect makeup learnt at home from youtube and helped out during halloween events. The materials used include: non toxic glue, tissue paper, eye shadows, contour palette, concealer, fake blood, and face paint.
Here is a Time lapse of Eye doing my makeup :
After completing the transformation, we started filming. We start of by filming the scene involving the desk and collage board for the title sequence then moved on to the toilet scene. For the ending shot, we painted red on eye's leg using face paint and used the shower curtains to cover the rest of her body.
Due to the fact that the week we decided to film our opening was an extremely busy week, Our original cast(Tan) for the psychopathic woman character had to be changed as she was preoccupied with her school work. We decided last minute that I would play the character of the psychopath instead as I had features that resembled our original cast.
EQUIPMENT
In our original plan, we wanted to include a vinyl player to emphasise the character's age and build an unsettling mood with old music playing in the background, similar to the "tip toe song" in Insidious. This idea was forfeited because we could not find an old vinyl player and in addition to that it was too complicated and bulky to carry around to the hotel to film.
SEQUENCE
In addition to the changes of casting and equipment, we also decided to change the sequence of our opening to fit with the resources we had on the day of shooting as well as work with the closing deadline we had to work up to. Firstly, we decided to omit the peep hole effect as it was extremely complicated to achieve and our initial footage we decided to use looked better the way it is, giving it a creepy mood.
During the same day as the Location Hunt, we also decided to work on a prop that we will be using in our Film opening, a collage board of facial features and skin of beautiful young women. To help create the mood of uneasiness and give hints to the audience about the nature of the psychopathic woman(main character). This will be hung up upon the wall of the character's workspace. Here is a clip of the process of us creating the collage board.
On the 22nd of January, Me, Prima and Eye met up together to go on a location scouting where we tried to find the best place to shoot our film opening as we required quite a specific setting. (A simple plain old room with a desk near the bathroom that also has to give out a creepy atmosphere) Our first destination was Eye's old house where she no longer lives in and her old room where it looks rather old and worn out. However, we quickly decided that it would not be a suitable location as the room looked lived in and friendly with bright orange lights from the curtain and sun. Her room also lacked the desk which is extremely important to showcase our character's daily routine and workspace. However, we did find many useful props that we could use later on such as a sewing kit, old comb, glitter and an old makeup holder. With the option of filming in Eye's old house crossed out, we had no choice but to go with our original idea, old hotels or motels that are relatively cheap and we can use for a day. Although the idea had some safety issues, we made sure to never separate and only asked for help from friendly looking people in public spaces. Our first source of information came from a kind taxi driver who introduced us to some safer hotels that are cheap around Ari(very convenient). We visited two Hotels and were extremely lucky to find a good match very quickly. It was the Bangkok Condotel, where we were originally on our way to visit the Elizabeth Hotel and found the entrance tucked away in the corner shown below:
We asked the hotel staff to show us the rooms before we decided to book it and the interior matched what we needed very well. We decided to use the Bangkok Condotel for shooting our film opening.
Here are more photos and clips from our location scouting day.
