My Reflections on the Test Shoot
I found that the test shoot was extremely fun but also very helpful as before, everything looked fine on paper but I wasn’t so confident that the practical would work out as we wanted. As planned, we did our test shoot yesterday (24th November) from 12pm to 8 pm which at first we thought would be much too long, however as we learnt, things take a lot longer than you think. I found that the test shoot was a great success as we learnt a lot from it as it enabled us to visualise the real opening sequence better, seeing in practical terms, what works and what does not work.

We spent around the first 2 hours planning our shots in more detail and I drew up a final storyboard for the test shoot whilst Alice and Mel began to set up the equipment and mis-en-scene, an efficient way of working. We then came up with a shooting script, which we found was very helpful as we did all the outside shots first, then the staircase shots followed by all the kitchen shots, and finally the bedroom and bathroom shots, which seemed like a practical way of doing things. We also decided to go out again to test our street shots in a different light so we can compare and contrast seeing which is better for the final shoot. This was one of the very helpful aspects of the test shoot as we got to experiment with different lighting, angles shots etc and means that after choosing what we like, we will not waste too much time on the actual shooting day.

Things that went well:

-Some nice experimental shots inspiring us to use more interesting ones than the shots we had planned (for example the spooky track and tilts of the guy walking from different angles)
- Mis-en-scene looked really good especially in the kitchen
-nice use of red props
- Mel’s lovely make-up looked good but at the same time scary
-Alice’s House is perfect for film- just as I had imagined it!
- We all really enjoyed ourselves and stayed motivated throughout the day with some Maryland cookies, hot chocolate, coke, hoola hoops and chocolate fingers to keep us going =)


Things I learnt from it:

- An extremely detailed storyboard is essential (especially for parts with continuity)
- Shooting script is very useful
- Practice is need to make my pans smoother
-Filming must be done between 4-5pm because after it gets too dark and the street shots particularly are difficult to see.
- We should plan our time better so we don’t rush towards the end
- Dress up warm for the day of the shoot!!