Mise en Scene and Lighting Checks

To prepare for the filming of our two minute supernatural horror opening I had to do some lighting checks for the garage which is outside of my house and we have decided will be the place we are filming, to look like a basement where the possessed girl is kept. I also had to find some scary looking houses from the outside which we could shoot using an establishing shot right at the beginning to make it look as though that is where it is being shot.

I took these pictures at about 3 o'clock before it got dark, I think this would be a good time to start our filming as in a video it generally looks darker than it actually is, and we still want to be able to see the room and what is happening. Also we can take lots of different shots so we would also get some with it being slightly darker so we can compare them to the lighter ones.

There is some work to do in the garage, we have to put some white paint over the smiley faces that have been drawn on the walls, tidy away some of the clutter that is around the floor and board up the windows to make it seem more closed in and also so that less light gets into the room so it seems more like a basement.

This is the first scary looking house I found which I thought would be good to film at the beginning of our opening, it is only round the corner from my house so would be easy to get footage of and also looks very creepy. It is called 'the long house' it goes back quite a long way, I think people live there but I have never seen anyone go in or come out and it is usually very dark and quiet. I took the picture at about half 6 which I think was a good time as there was still light from lampposts but it was dark so added a scarier effect to the house.

This is the second scary house I looked at for the beginning of our filming, it is also only round the corner of my house so would be easy to get footage of, and it has some distinct features about it that I liked which I thought would stand out for our work, such as the top arch shaped window at the front of the house and how it is shaped it is very slim and goes back quite far. It distinctively stands out from any other house on the street which would work well at fitting the convention for our genre. I also took this picture at about half 6 which I thought was a good time as it looked effectively spooky.