The Shoot

We started the day with a meeting, to decide on our location. Originally, we decided to film in a flat in London, however we were also considering shooting closer to school, at one of the boarding houses. In the end, we decided to go with the boarding house, because we felt that as our main character is an illegal hacker, she would not have a fixed address, but rather that she would move locations quite frequently, and the house we chose looked like a hotel.

Because of the long corridors in the house, with the numbered, hotel-like doors, we decided that we would change the idea slightly. We thought it would be more exciting to have a chase sequence down the corridors, which also had numerous staircases and corners, enabling us to get different shot types. The finished idea was not very like our story board, as our previous idea was set in one room, whereas our new idea was filmed in many different corridors, but we took the basic idea from our storyboard. It was still a hacker trying to send vital information to someone, and a hit man trying to kill her, but instead of having the hacker unaware she was being watched, we shot it so it looked as if he was only seconds behind her. Also, when shooting the Hit man we tilted the camera slightly on an angle, to give a different perspective and signify that he was after the hacker.

When we made the decision to have a chase scene, we went around the house to find corridors that suited the purpose, and also to see what different types of shots we could do, so we had a detailed idea of what we could achieve. We also felt that by having a chase sequence, it would tell the audience that they were watching a thriller, because our previous idea was bordering the horror genre with the tension and gruesome murder being the main focus, whereas our new idea has a lot of action in it from the start, rather than anything stereotypically scary in it, such as blood, making it unmistakably 'thriller'. For most of our shots we handheld the camera, which was beneficial as it gave more of a sense of a chaos and fast-paced action, because we wanted to create tension and drama that you associate with a thriller.

We used only a few props (a laptop for the hacker, and a gun and walkie talkie for the hit man), because that was all we needed. In terms of the location, we didn't need to set anything up, because we didn't want anything to detract from the chase. We used a gun as the hit man's choice of weapon, to make him look professional and also to show we were filming a thriller, as guns are typical conventions of thriller films. Had we been filming a horror film, a knife would have been a more appropriate choice. In the opening shot, before the chase, the Hacker is sitting on the sofa and we carefully positioned papers beside her which were covered in information about the wiki leaks, relating back to the inspiration behind our original idea. We used these papers to signify what the film was about, and we also wanted to make it contemporary to the audience, because people could easily relate to as it has been on the news recently. We used some tracking shots, showing that she was being followed, and also some close ups to get show the audience she was feeling stressed and panicking. However, in our fight scene we only used one shot (a wide handheld shot), which we felt was effective as it showed the quick movement of the fight, and made it more realistic because there were no cuts of shot changes.

Our casting choices were also different from what we had originally planned, because at first we thought it would have been better to have a male hacker, but as we progressed  and came up with new ideas, we thought that it would be less stereotypical and less obvious to have a female hacker. Our idea came from the film ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ which takes away from the idea of women being less important than men. We had our hacker dressed all in black but still in everyday clothes, to make her look powerful but so she didn't stand out as being out of the ordinary. Our Hit man however, wore a suit to show he was important, and to signify his government status. For most of the shoot, we used the natural light in the house, because it looked authentic and realistic. However, it got darker towards the end of the shoot, and we still had the fight to film, so in order to keep continuity, we used a light with a blue gel to create a similar light to the rest of the film.

There was no dialogue in our film, but the hacker had very heavy breathing, and with both actors you could hear heavy footsteps to show the intimacy of the chase. Also in the fight we added sounds to emphasise the hit man's head being smacking on to the table, and to emphasise the gunshot. In the shoot, we all took responsibility for different parts of the filming because we had changed our idea so much. I contributed but filming lots of shots, and came up with the idea of having the opening shot of the hacker on her own with the laptop. At first, we were just going to start the film with the chase sequence, but I suggested that it would be better to have the opening shot of her alone, to show the audience what her purpose is, and to focus their attention on her.

 As a team, we all worked well and the shoot went very smoothly, as teamwork was vital to ensure that the filming was a success, so before each new scene, we decided together which would be the best shot choice in order to make it as exciting as possible. We also discussed the different ways in which we could use the new location to our advantage, and what would be the most appropriate course for the film to take. So after  we had decided on a large chase scene, we all decided that we wanted the majority of it to be filmed handheld. We also kept changing roles, making sure we all got an equal amount of time with the camera. Overall, I was very pleased with the result of our filming day, and although we were unable to use our original location, I feel that it may have been beneficial because as it gave us a new idea to work with, which actually was much more exciting and fitted much better in the thriller genre.