The second shoot was centred around filming the green screen parts of the film, which made it a bit easier in terms of set as we didn't need it as it was all filmed in front of the green screen.
The first thing we filmed was the part for the bedroom scene which was Paul - the little guy getting knocked off the fireplace so we had to do a few different shots of him scratching his arm and then jumping forward for the bit where the book would be knocking him off. The arm scratching was to mimic that of what he does when he's in bed scratching his arm because he is smaller doppelgänger and he scratches his arm because later in the film he realises there is a bug under his skin. We got mid and long shots of Paul from different angles as well to cover having to then place him on the fireplace during the edit because if filmed wrong it might not look very convincing when we then transport his image onto the fireplace. We also placed a mattress for Paul to fall on so he could convincingly look like he was falling. Another thing that Paul the director and the camera man needed to take into consideration was where Paul was looking because his eye-line needed to be at the right level for looking at his larger self and also looking behind at the book coming towards him so he needed to judge where to look. We wont know if this is right until we put the image of him into the fireplace shot when editing.
We then filmed the crazy woman chopping scene so the art directors set up the table with the potatoes, cooking dish, chopping board and chopping implements which were a metal scraper and saw. The potatoes had lots of sprouty bits which I thought was good and looked a bit like twisted fingers which linked to the fact that she would also be chopping fingers off a hand. Having the scraper and saw as well for the things to chop was I think worked well as it helped to make the character look even madder that she uses these sort of tools to chop with.
She started off by chopping the potatoes and placing them in the dish, Paul then sat down at the table and we took a shot of Ali (crazy woman) about to cut one of Pauls fingers off with pliers. We then swapped Pauls real hand for the fake one so she could actually chop the fingers off. Inside the hand was a tube which was fed down Pauls sleeve so out of shot someone could squirt the fake blood down it which would start to spurt out as Ali was cutting the fingers of the hand. I think this worked well but we had a bit of a problem with cutting the fingers off because the hand was made out of rubber I think which was hard to cut through with the scraper, a couple of us suggested using the saw instead which was a bit better and then finally she used the pliers again to pull the fingers off. This was something to learn from as we know for next time to use a different material if making a hand that needs to be cut up.
I think what will be one of the best shots from this scene though will be when the cut off fingers are in the dish with the chopped up potatoes because when looking at it I thought it looked more gruesome and realistic when they were in there then when they were being cut off.
For the last part which involved Alice acting out a 'Jacobs ladder' scene I was one of the art directors so me and Luke helped Susannah dress Alice in a creepy costume. At first she had a cream coloured corset that looked a bit like a straight jacket on which I thought looked good but it was on over her jacket which ruined it a bit so I suggested she take the jacket off and put it back on so she had more of a smoother seamless outline and then I asked her to see what the stockings looked like on her hands as I thought it might look weird with no defined fingers and also add to the smooth outline of her body. We then used stockings to put over her face and head which pulled on her eyes a bit which looked creepy and made it look like she had no hair accept at the back of her head which again added to that look of smooth and roundness of the character as her head looked bald with just a bit of crazy messed up hair spurting out the back.
she then had to move her head from side to side so this could be sped up in post and look like she was losing her mind or something. Susannah then asked her to crawl backwards as she said it would look good when reversed because the body movement would look unnatural and her hair would look like its not following the conventions of gravity.
I enjoyed doing this scene as I like being creative and it was a weird scene to plan. If we had had more time I would have liked to experiment even more with costumes and also make up for the actors. I think we did well with what we had though and it just shows it's not about having a big budget but using your mind and being creative by making the most out of what you've got. I think it applies to all aspects of film as well that is the imagination, creativity and problem solving are some of the most important things not having the most expensive camera or props etc.
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