After establishing my characters, I began to devise a script. I learnt many things in this segment as I learnt that certain aspects of the script have to be different distances from the margin as others. An example of this is dialogue has to be 2.5"- 5.5" away from the margin as oppose to action which only needs to be 1.5"-7.5" away. The script also helped me add more details into my characters personalities and appearances. alongside the script, I was also developing costume, make up and hair ideas for each individual character. this helped me get to know the characters of which I was making, as well as making it easier to write them. when writing the script, I ran into a few issues with making the dialogue sound natural. To combat this, I took my actors and actresses out for a table read. This helped me change the parts I was not satisfied with.

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after my script was complete, I began to storyboard. I thoroughly enjoyed this task as art is one of my passions. I began with the first shot of my sequence which is a shot of the sister and her friend talking. all of the sketches in my storyboard are quite simple as all I needed them to do was help me visualize my shots before taking them. this also helped me peace together my story.

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The next step that I needed to complete, was my shot list. I ran into a few issues with this task. In the beginning, it was going smoothly until studio binder, the software I was using, decided that in the free version you could only have a certain amount of shots. to work around this, I downloaded a word template to use instead. This set me back a few hours as I needed to rewrite what I had already put into studio binder. After I had completed that I began finishing my shortlist, which, yet again went quite smoothly. I made a shot list per location, so that I organized when and where to film my scenes. This helped me fill my scenes out of order because if I didn't, I would have to continually move all my equipment from one room to another.

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After everything was ready, I began ordering my mise-en-scene. I ordered decorations for the rooms of which I was filming and costumes for my actors and actresses. I had to delay my filming by a week because all of my shipments were taking too long to arrive. for next time, I will order everything I need a lot earlier in the process. 

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At this point in the process I was ready to start filming. First up on the shot list was the mintage. we filmed on a Friday and took a leave out of lessons for a couple of hours to go to York House Parks in Twickenham. we began with getting everyone dressed up and I did everyone's make up. The makeup that I chose was loosely based off of paintings you would see in the Renaissance period. The blush was on their face to represent the youth of my characters. this adds another layer of tragedy to my story as Celeste is dying While she has so much more ahead of her. I got them dressed up in the outfits of which I've chosen. they both wore white dresses with a form of corset over the top. This was also a throwback to how fashion was in the past. all of these elements, give the viewer the impression that this film is set away from present day.

 

For the montage scenes, I tried not to instruct them, too much as to get natural shots of the two interacting. I gave them loose instructions such as 'plat each other's hair' and 'stand up that bridge and look at the sky' I let the two talk as they were completing these tasks for me and just naturally let these activities flow. because of this, I got more shots from the montage scenes that I hadn't even thought of putting in my script. This method made me more creative and improved my work astronomically. I am happy with the changes of which took place.

 

We managed to wrap up the montage scenes in under two hours. I was over the moon with the results.

 

After this, I invited everyone I needed over to my house on a Saturday morning. we began, yet again, with getting everyone dressed up and I did everyone's make up. All the make-up was the same as last time, but with the addition of Celeste make up, making her look ill. I created this effect by making her pale by the use of an extremely fair foundation. I also accentuated her bags under her eyes using brown and purple eyeshadow. are used to contour to give the effect that she had lost weight to her face and added concealer onto her lips to give the effect that they were chapped. everyone else's was still based off of the Renaissance period make up. I dressed Willow and Celeste in different outfits than the montage scenes as to get the impression that these were taken on different days.

 

we began by filming the other part of my non-dialogue scene, which is the scenes where Willow was playing the violin to Celeste. I'd realized that Ellie, my actress for Willow, had never held or played the violin before meaning I had to teach her how to hold the instrument correctly as well as the bow. I kept in mind that this instrument is one of the hardest to hold hence why the final product have violin playing looks unnatural. I obviously couldn't teach how to play the violin but this is perfect as all of our scenes in this half of the film were unable to have on-set audio. I Believe this effected he final product and broke how real the scene comes across. I don't think people will notice unless they watch her movements closely. 

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I believe that I could've lit these scenes better but the equipment that I had had was minuscule, and the natural lighting was poor. I also think that I could have made sure my camera was slightly more in focus. although this detail is not majorly obvious, I think I would've liked to have gotten it perfect. next time I might get myself an external viewfinder just so I can make sure everything looks the way I would like. I find that the view finder on Camera is far too small and looking through the lens, myself can be difficult depending on the height and angle of which I need to take the shot. another thing that I would've liked to have done would be to use a tripod on these scenes as my hands are very shaky. the room was very small and hard to get all of my equipment into.

 

My next scenes were my dialogue scenes. As my shot list instructs, I began with the scenes set in the living room. the scene opens to wisteria and Cedar chatting. One thing I'd like to change about this shot was that I wish the shot was wider. while editing I came to the realisation that there are no shots where you can see the full table. the table included props such as hyacinth flowers (see props section) tarot cards that describe the situation such as the death card, the hanged man And the lovers. the tarot cards are to represent that the events happening are fate. The next scenes after this were ones with Willow sat where Cedar was next to wisteria. Cedars on the other sofa. one thing I am yet to mention is that my dog, Daisy, decided to sit herself on the sofa of which we were filming. this added another layer of struggle as she would continually move and break the continuity. At one point, she decided to jump down from the sofa, and we had to bribe her back up with treats. I will not be filming with a dog again. 

 

The rest of the shots and the scene I believe went very well, especially the ones while Willow was doing her monologue. these consisted of close-ups from different angles. I did this to amplify the intensity of the situation and the heightened motions of which Willow is feeling. we struggled a bit to get Ellie (the actress for Willow) to look as if she was crying. we started by putting peppermint lip balm underneath her eyes as we read that peppermint oil was way to achieve this. we struggled with this, and a very small amount of tears actually came to be. we also chopped up an onion and held it to her eyes ( I have apologized profusely) which also failed. I eventually ended up getting a water bottle and just pouring drops onto her cheeks and smudging her mascara.

 

After we wrapped up the dialogue scenes which took place in the living room, we moved to the hallway to film the shots where Cedar opens the door to find Willow standing outside, distraught. we ran into a few issues with the lighting as yet again my equipment wasn't the greatest. we worked around this though in post production. we also ran into an issue while recording audio. The recorder run out of charge midway through recording. We thought we would have to wait for it to recharge, but we're pleasantly surprised that the recorder could still record while plugged in and charging. Next time I will charge everything the day before.

 

Post-production was the next stage of the filmmaking process. I exported all of my footage onto my computer and imported them into Premiere Pro. I firstly made a rough cut of all of my footage together just to peace my footage into the right places. I synchronized audio with each video which I am getting better and quicker at every time I do it. I then worked on the transitions I have taught myself how to fade clips together, rather than making all of the cuts, sudden and snappy. I used this transition whenever Willow was talking or thinking about her time with Celeste. this is a nice little touch which shows how comfortable she feels with Celeste. I also added graphic slides at the beginning of the film depicting, the name and the 'studio' of which it comes from. this was very easy and I, yet again used my fading transitions. I then went onto colour grade. I originally did this by nesting my scenes so that's like a colour grade them all equally. I have now learnt that I can use adjustment layers just like in Photoshop. I use the typical S curve to make my footage look more professional. 

 

The next step was to look at the sound design. firstly I found background music for the dialogue scenes. I did this by looking at Adobe essential sounds and picking out a piano melody of which I inserted behind my dialogue. I also also added knocking noises to my dialogue scene to signify willow knocking at their door. I also added in sounds of opening a door as I didn't like the original audio picked up by the audio recorder. I found these sound effects on freesound.org. The harder part was the non-dialogue scenes. I added slight ticking in the background instead of music before Willow walks in. This is to show how Celeste is running out of time. I was originally going to get my friend wren to record violin for me, but she was unable to do it in the timeframe of which I needed so I found a YouTube cover of the song that I wanted her to play and dubbed that in instead. I tried to match it as well as I could with Ellie's hand movements. The music of which was being played was a cover of cherry wine by Hozier. I thought it matched my montages vibe. I did, however, make the sound stop abruptly while Willow did a harsh movement of the bow. The screen then fades to black. The sound of clock bells ringing sounds over the darkness, this signifies how she's run out of time. 

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