Production: Behind the Scenes

This blog post contains the behind the scenes of our filming process. This post was made by kim

Production: Behind the Scenes

Roles:

• Mother: Eileen

• Daughter (Cassie): Cassie

• Director / Editor / Videographer: Tisha

• Videographer: Kim
  
  

Behind-the-Scenes:

Scene 1: Bedroom Scene 

During the filming of the bedroom scene, we experimented with different angles that would be able to show Cassie and the props on the table. We tried to do the takes from different angles such as from the side or from the laptop’s webcam. During this scene we struggled to keep the continuity, as the make-up props were in different places after every take, Cassie’s hand placement was also different, and one time she used the wrong make-up prop from the previous take. There were many mistakes that we didn’t notice while recording, leading to us having to re-shoot all the clips for the bedroom scene. This made us learn that we have to be very careful when filming to make sure there were no mistakes and there will still be continuity in the final opening. To make sure no mistakes happened, we had to recheck the previous take to ensure that all the props and the character’s position were the same. 

Since we didn't have a clapper, we made one out of a piece of paper and labelled the take number and the scene. 

Scene 2: Party Scene

During the party scene, we needed alcoholic drinks for the party. We used tea to replicate it, since the color was similar and it was cheap, so we can easily buy more if we need more or have to re-shoot some scenes. 

We still needed alcohol bottles as a prop for the background to create realism, so we decided to use Tisha’s parent’s alcohol bottles as a prop for our project. This tells the audience that the party drinks were alcoholic 

Scene 3: Kidnaping Scene

During the kidnaping scene, we decided to film in a supermarket parking area, we chose this location because it was a large open space where we could easily try different areas to shoot out scene, it was also convenient as we could buy props for our party scene, such as the drinks. 

This clip we had to shoot a clip of Cassie’s phone ringing from a call from Mom. We used Eileens’ phone to call Cassie’s phone and renamed her contact name to Mom♥️. Here we had to make sure the phone started ringing at the right time when the camera approached the phone, sometimes the call came too early or sometimes the call was too late. Another problem we experienced was that the camera didn’t focus on the phone screen which did not show the contact name, leading us having to keep re-shooting until the final take. 

Here we had to film the dragging scene, at first Tisha our director had to demonstrate on how to properly drag Cassie. We used Cassie’s personal driver to help act as the kidnaper. We had to try different angles where Cassie can still be shown while also not exposing the kidnaper’s face. There were also times where Cassie’s driver could drag out Cassie properly, or the car door didn’t open wide enough to show Cassie that clearly. 

Self reflection:

During the behind the scenes, I have learned that it is important to be very serious during filming in order to not retake over and over again. We also had to be very percise with the mise-en-scene and the angle of what we had to film. This had taught me to concentrate more and follow along to not waste time.

Screen Test: Audience Feedback

This post explains how we showed a rough draft of our film opening to some members of our target audience in order to receive helpful feedback. 

The purpose of a screen test is to gain audience feedback about our work and see if there are any improvements that can be made. We decided to use google forms to create a survey to share with our audience because using google forms would be an easier way for us to filter out the response. Here are our questions: 

1. Would you want to watch the rest of the movie? Yes or no, if so explain.

2. Which part of the movie opening did you really like? Explain

3. Which part from the movie opening that looked goofy / out of place?

4. What do you think we should add and improve for our movie opening?

5. What plot points do we need to make this opening less cliché/unique?

We chose these questions because it gives us a more in-depth explanation on what our opening lacks and excels in, allowing us to make improvements to satisfy our audience. Since this is our project, there may be bias when we ourselves answer the questions above, meaning we need a new perspective. We showed our rough draft of the opening to 3 members of our target audience to ensure that the feedback we receive will reflect the probable feedback of our whole target audience/other members of our target audience. Finding people for the screen test was relatively easy because we had several friends who are editors or enjoy watching movies similar to ours, making them good candidates for our screen test. Here is the draft that we showed our respondents:

https://youtu.be/O3vvr_vzE5U

Here are the results from the audience feedback:

From the feedback, we learned that our opening was too fast as it jumps straight into the action and it doesn’t hook the audience due to that lack of suspense. Our opening was too predictable, making it boring and not effective as a movie opening. 

From the responses, ⅔ respondents prefered the name “Missed Call: text me when you get home”, however we disagree as it is too long of a title in our opinion, and it doesn’t really fit the vibe we were envisioning. We prefered something shorter to bring more focus to the title and increase its impact and importance. The title “Text Me When You Get Home” no longer fit our opening, because we scrapped the idea that the mother would send the main lead the text “text me when you get home” and replaced it with a missed call instead to emphasise the lead's absence. So, we decided as a team that the title “Missed Call” would be the best choice. 

Since the opening was too fast paced, we decided to add more scenes to build up the story and context, while trying to build suspense. Audience’s will likely get more curious and invested as they follow the story and witness the drugging and kidnapping, hooking them and likely to continue watching. 

This screen test was a useful part of our process because it allowed us to see different perspectives and to know what the audience wants. We chose these 3 people to answer our form as getting the opinions from our target audience (teens) will be beneficial to identify the strengths and weaknesses of our opening, which is essential to make improvements to it. With this feedback, we are able to make changes to our opening e.g. drugging scene to add what our opening was lacking e.g suspense. This makes our overall opening more interesting for them. It’s important to see from the audience’s perspective as movie openings are made for them, meaning we need to meet their expectations and make sure they enjoy it. 

Self Reflection:

From this activity, Ive learned that audience feedback is very important as all our ideas and feedback to ourselves may sometimes be a bit biased.

Audience feedback tells us things we may not have noticed while directing, shooting and editing. Or ideas toward our Title and Font choice.

Which is why audience feedback is necessary for our project to seem more inclusive for wider audience ranges.