Filming 'Paralysis Of Fear'

Through out my half term, I have been concentrating on making my short horror film 'Paralysis Of Fear'.

Filming

On the 30th of October, I shot the third scene and some of the final scene with a Z1 HDV camera. This I thought went very well but there were a few issues. I had trouble using the tripod because it was a different type that I've never used. So to avoid anymore troubles, I remember a particular method from the director, Stanley Kubrick, making the film 'The Shining', where one of the cameramen didn't use a tripod through out filming a scene. He had to hold the camera very still wile filming. So I tried this method and it worked successfully, although it was challenging.


This was for the POV shot

The other issue was lighting. I wanted to use a dim effect by closing the actress's curtains. This went very well to start off but then as the day went on, the sun was setting. So I continued filming and I thouhgt I could fix this issue on post production.


Actress reading the script, preparing for the scene


Except these issues, the day went very successfully. The actress did a great job and I thought the camera angles look really good. I asked the actress if she can create her own makeup by putting on smudged lipstick to make herself look really ill. This unfortunately didn't show on film, but it was there just incase.

Post Production

Straight after filming, I went onto editing. I had truobles beforehand because I couldn't find the port for the firewire. I did find it at the end which was good. The footage I shot came out really well. In the scene with the main character and her sister, I shot the younger sister's parts first and then on the 30th, I shot all the main actresses parts. I realised that some of the colours looked slightly different, so I used the colour correction method to fix this. The colours then came out very similar to eachother which I wanted. The footage of the last scene came out very dark so I decided to increase the brightness and contrast. This didn't come out as well as I hoped. I have now made the decision to reshoot this scene.

I also realised that through out the converstaion scene with the main actress and her sister, there is no diagetic sound at parts. I thouhgt of a plan to download a particular part of the film that was playing in the background. But I looked back and thought it would sound different, so I decided to record just the sound of the film and put it in the background. This came out successfully.

The next filming date will be next week Tuesday.