Second Day of Filming

On the second day, we filmed for a lot less longer than the first day of filming. This was because we already knew what we wanted to film. It didn't take very long to get prepared, and we simply filmed the same main narrative sequence in the house as we had done on the first day, with a few small sequences added to try and add some variety to our product.

After the actors made sure that they had the same costume on as the first filming session, to make sure the continuity remained, it didn't take very long to get all the footage needed, as we already knew what we needed. Once we were ready to film, we made sure that the lighting was our key focus, so that we didn't have to organise yet another filming day to record the same footage.

Changes

The initial idea was to have two male actors to play the main characters in the film, as they would be like typical zombie films the 'last humans' on earth, and unable to re populate. However, we couldn't find anybody willing to fill these roles so had to seek other options which was one female and one male actor.

We had decided to have establishing shots to open the film with to create the desolate feeling and to build a sense of verisimilitude as there was nobody left on earth. However, we decided against this, as although it did create the verisimilitude it didn't give the effects we were looking for. So we decided to film a different sequence for the opening of a male character running, and shown from a variety of shots to create enigma and build a sense of panic straight away.

We had also initially decided to use a grandfather clock, as the clock is a significant feature in the film as it shows the countdown to the characters' deaths essentially. However, after reviewing the footage of the grandfather clock we decided that it didn't work well with the rest of the footage and so we decided instead to use a digital clock. Which would also be clearer for the audience to understand and to read what the time actually was.

Location

After coming up with the idea for the film, we came to the conclusion that there was only one suitable location to set the opening which was in a house. It was an ideal location as we could film at any time of the day and we had access to the house whenever we wanted it. The modern internal decorating within the house fits well with the modern genre of the film as well.

It also added to the verisimilitude of the product, because the story itself was set in a house where the characters where taking refuge from the zombies, and therefore it was perfect.

Within the house, we only plan on using one room, which is the living room and there is a brief sequence that uses the hallway when the female character is entering the room.

First Day of Filming

On the first day of filming we tried to get as much footage as possible. We filmed for a total of 3 hours, and decided that we would get the main narrative sequence filmed first, as it was the longest sequence within the whole film. It will give us an early chance to get a large part of the film opening edited as well, giving us spare time to cover anything that we have missed. As we were filming we followed the storyboard as accurately as possible, but altering our filming slightly enhance the quality of our product.

We hit a problem before we could film however, and that was arranging a day to suit everyone. At first we had a completely different male actor to the one who is in the final product. However, we decided to use someone else because our inital actor wasn't available as much as we would like.

Another problem that we encountered after our first day of filming was some of the quality within the footage was lost, due to the low level lighting that we filmed under. At first we decided have low level lighting would be perfect for the mise-en-scene and created the atmosphere within the scenes perfect for our genre. However, when we uploaded the footage, and tried to edit it, all the footage was grainy and poor quality due to the lighting.

Although we were disappointed with the outcome, essentially we hadn't wasted a day on the filming, because we learnt from our mistakes and decided to make the lighting a priority, and we knew that if needed we could edit the level of lighting through 'iMovie'. It also gave us something more sincere to follow, as we had already filmed everything once.