Shooting practice; horror scene recreation

 This post contains a mini project that helped us learn how to shoot a cinematic scene. We did this as a group. (Maxine, Bamz, Kenneth and me )

My teacher told us to find a scene from a movie and in our groups case a horror movie. Our groups task is to recreate it. We choose a scene from Jennifer's Body 2009. 

This is our story board ⬆️

This is our finished video ⬆️

edited by Kenneth & Max

Camera

Problem : The camera was sometimes shaky in the middle of recording due to constant imperfections within the camera angle or movement which can make some scenes with no sense and context ( character wasn't in the camera angle thus, talking to nobody or the camera movement was too far from the characters to be seen clearly )

Solution : We could possibly use a stabilizer or a tripod for the recording part to prevent
shake or weird angles within the recording session.

Next time : Most likely practice for the camera stillness because, purchasing a stabilizer or a tripod can be too far out of our current budget and we might need another cameraman that has a stable arm just incase for the camera movement.

Editing

Problem: Lip-syncing to the original audio was a bit abnormal due to the characters while recording can be either nervous, embarrassed or not good at acting for the sound to be synced to the audio.
 

Solution: Retake many shots to see if we can perfect it the original audio or get actors that are good at acting like doing a Screen Test with various actors we picked out that could be good within the context of our video to prevent weird lip-syncing to the audio.

Next time: Remember to take as many shots as possible to have a higher possibility that the lip-syncing wouldn't be as abnormal or off-synced.  

This part in green was written by Bamz 

Mise en scene 

Problem: We couldn't control the lighting as we were filming outside the classroom. The lighting for a horror movie especially for this one requires mostly low key lighting and since it was sunny today we didn't have access to that. 

Solution: Our teammates Max and Kenneth decided to adjust the video's lighting using the video editing apps to get the same feel as the clip from the movie. 

Next time: We will find a place with artificial lighting so we can easily control the lighting without much help from the video editing app to give it a more natural look instead of artificially increasing something. However, if this is not possible we will use the solution mentioned previously. 

Problem: In the first scene an actress looked at the camera. It's a subtle detail but our goal is so it would match perfectly to the scene we are trying to recreate. 

Solution: Our team tried to edit the video. However they couldn't fully fix that scene so we didn't find the right solution at that time. 

Next time:  we will rehearse and practice many times before we actually film the scenes. If not we can do multiple takes at the time and carefully look at the footage before deciding on another take. However, if all these repercussions fail then we can figure out how to edit it out. 

Sound 

Problem: We didn't have any problems with the sound as we use audio from the original clip which is very clear. 

Next time: I think we will continue doing this and for our upcoming project we will pre record the audio for the dialogue so we can get a clear sound. I also learned it's best not to record audio while we are recording a scene 

Self reflection:

This is my first time doing a shooting practice and I think it is quite fun to do. The hardest part is the fact that our group had to find a scene from a horror movie which is quite complicated due to our limitations. However, through our practice I learned that we need more practice and better team synergy (as we forgot to do the behind the scenes).  Overall, I think this shooting practice help me and my group learned many valuable lessons.