My Creative Choices

Happy 300th blog post!

This post will discuss my creative decisions for the Digital Production module (as director of the 2nd unit material, and the second half of the show).

• The lighting - as lighting designer, I also had creative choice over lighting. I decided to use 5 lights (3 point lighting set up, and two to eliminate shadows), with a red gel on the key light. This illuminated the tent to make it look red with a "spooky kind of vibe" (as scripted). I also planned for another light to be used at the back of the tent, with 2 blue gels on, to act as a police siren for the happy ending (which wasn't picked in the end).
• The vision mixing - I wanted fast cuts when Benny found George's bloody hammer in the bag to create tension. I also wanted to cut to a wide when there was long pauses to add comedic awkwardness (especially when George said "where you trying to kill me?" *pause* "why? Why would you do that?"). The violent ending was the hardest to choreograph, having to time a cut to black just right, before George killed Benny (otherwise the magic would be lost). We did it! My friend also messaged me saying she liked the cut to black as it make it feel "chilling". We faded back in to some improv. to fill the time (which showed the deaths gradually). I also planned to fade to black on the happy ending while they were exiting to make it look like they turned the lights off and look satisfying. For the spooky ending, I planned to do a straight cut to black for George to exit and fade back in to May and Benny (the straight cut to show that it's sudden and chilling, a fade to show that the lights are fixed and to make it look more appealing, and slowly reveal to the viewer what has happened).
• The cameras - I wanted camera 2 to stay on a wide as a safety camera. Camera 1 was mostly a close up of May and camera 3 was mostly a close up of George (or Benny if George was not in the scene). The spooky ending involved some complex tracking for camera 3 as George fell to the floor, which didn't happen in the end. We did a quick rehearsal on the day of the improv. at the end, where camera 1 tracked George, camera 2 was a wide, camera 3 was focused on the exit. I told camera 1 to get a close up and track George but didn't happen for some reason.
• The make up - Another aspect I had control over was make up. I did plan with the original May her make up: purple eye shadow, lipstick, etc. But that all fell through, so our other May did her own make up with anything we could find in the make up bag in Uni. May's dishevelled hair also looks cool as it shows she has had a long day and has been through a lot.
• The set - Even though I am not set designer, I used a lot of my own belongings as props, since I'm into this kind of stuff. I used different crystals, runes, books, even included some handmade lights I make myself. In the end, the set looked great, filling it up each day, and adding more production value to it (such as getting a wooden shelf).