Filming went smoothly. We used my brother Liam's iPhone 11 Max Pro for filming, as it would give us the best raw quality for our footage, even if we knew we would down grade it in post to make the film feel more gritty. The iPhone doesn't have the ability to natively film video in 4:3, but it does however takes pictures by default in 4:3. We used the photo camera boundaries and marked them with tape so we knew what would be inside the frame once we switched to video filming. It wasn't the flashiest setup, but it got the job done.
Another problem came once we realized started to set up the TV/NES. Ethan's NES was a newer version which only used HDMI outputs, which obviously wouldn't work with a CRT television from the 80's. To work around this, we burnt footage of the NES game Rampage onto a DVD so we could play it through the TV, and use the NES controllers to pretend like we were actually playing. This seemed like a perfect solution, until we realized that the only input the CRT TV had was only compatible with cable boxes. After this, we decided to scrap the idea of us playing videogames, and instead used Ethan's recording of The Breakfast Club to develop the scene's mise-en-scene and the characters' friend dynamic.
After all these dramatic changes, I suggested to the group that we use this night's filming to make a rough cut of the movie that we could use to pick out flaws in our process, and refilm the movie the following week at Corey's apartment when we were more prepared.
After all these dramatic changes, I suggested to the group that we use this night's filming to make a rough cut of the movie that we could use to pick out flaws in our process, and refilm the movie the following week at Corey's apartment when we were more prepared.
Nonetheless, we continued the filming process. Since I was starring in the first couple shots, I had to direct Liam's cinematography work. I did this by setting up some mock shots, which I have displayed below. I also had to switch around a couple of the lines of dialogue in the script to fit the new changes to the scene.
For the next shot, we weren't able to pull off the original one shot take of Corey walking from his room and into the kitchen due to the layout of Ethan's house. Instead, we decided to film Ethan walking down the hallway from inside a closet to convey the sense that he was being watched by the same presence from earlier.
In the shot where Ethan was supposed to be cutting up chicken, we realized that we had forgotten chicken from Corey's house, so we had to improvise. We replaced cutting chicken with eating pizza and now Ethan would feed pepperoni to the dog, Snowy.
The scene progressed normally from here until Ethan had to go investigate the closet at the end of his hallway. Due to the house's lighting and the colorful contents of the closet, the opening appeared vibrant instead of dark and ominous. To combat this, we hung trash bags from the top of the closet door frame so it look completely black from the inside.
In the final shot where Corey had to stab Ethan, we encountered a couple staging and acting issues. The cramped nature of Ethan's room made it hard to film our desired angle, and his closet was tinier than Corey's closet, which made it hard for Corey to simply walk out of it. We decided that it would be best for Corey to hide inside the closet with the door closed, and then bust out when he needed to.
We had to refilm the shot a couple times because Ethan kept blinking when he was supposed to be dead. After reinspecting the footage, we also realized that we would need to hire a makeup artist to make it appear as if Ethan's throat was cut, because as it was, it appeared that Corey had merely whacked Ethan with a knife, and had not stabbed him.
After the first night of filming, I definitely knew that we had to reshoot everything again a Corey's house, but the "Ethan's House Cut" gave us experience and brought things to our attention that previously had not been. With a night of filming under our belts, we knew we would be prepared to reshoot everything the following Saturday at Corey's house.
For the next shot, we weren't able to pull off the original one shot take of Corey walking from his room and into the kitchen due to the layout of Ethan's house. Instead, we decided to film Ethan walking down the hallway from inside a closet to convey the sense that he was being watched by the same presence from earlier.
In the shot where Ethan was supposed to be cutting up chicken, we realized that we had forgotten chicken from Corey's house, so we had to improvise. We replaced cutting chicken with eating pizza and now Ethan would feed pepperoni to the dog, Snowy.
The scene progressed normally from here until Ethan had to go investigate the closet at the end of his hallway. Due to the house's lighting and the colorful contents of the closet, the opening appeared vibrant instead of dark and ominous. To combat this, we hung trash bags from the top of the closet door frame so it look completely black from the inside.
In the final shot where Corey had to stab Ethan, we encountered a couple staging and acting issues. The cramped nature of Ethan's room made it hard to film our desired angle, and his closet was tinier than Corey's closet, which made it hard for Corey to simply walk out of it. We decided that it would be best for Corey to hide inside the closet with the door closed, and then bust out when he needed to.
We had to refilm the shot a couple times because Ethan kept blinking when he was supposed to be dead. After reinspecting the footage, we also realized that we would need to hire a makeup artist to make it appear as if Ethan's throat was cut, because as it was, it appeared that Corey had merely whacked Ethan with a knife, and had not stabbed him.
After the first night of filming, I definitely knew that we had to reshoot everything again a Corey's house, but the "Ethan's House Cut" gave us experience and brought things to our attention that previously had not been. With a night of filming under our belts, we knew we would be prepared to reshoot everything the following Saturday at Corey's house.
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