Scene 3 - Filming the Party Scene

12/04/12
Today we have shot our next scene for our thriller which was the hot tub party scene. We felt that the shots and camera angles that we’ve used were good and worked well together, however the part where Rose is talking to Maddie the lighting isn’t very good, however we wanted to create this effect to show that it’s a party and the whole party of that is unclear as all the teenagers are drunk.
When we created this scene we really wanted to try relating to “Lock, stock & two smoking barrels” film, because we love the beginning of the film as it really captures and makes its clear what the genre is. We really liked the camera shots that they used such as tracking shot so we tried to do that when we filmed this scene.

The images below shows the scene’s that we used for scene three. We chose to do the first part of the scene in a living room, because we wanted to set the scene so we started the opening sequence in a living room with teenagers partying in a house. We’ve used high angle and bird’s eye to film this part of the scene. We wanted to have the room lighting, so we only had one of the room lights on. At this part of the scene we will also add party music to create the party scene. This part of the scene is very quick, because we wanted to make this an establishing shot, so the audience are aware that the scene has changed from the girls getting ready to the party.

The image below shows a screenshot of the film that we created and going to use in our thriller. We wanted to set the establishing shot in a house party so on this scene it shows boys and girls dancing around at a house party with loud music.

The next scene was in the conservatory where the scene continues as the teenagers continue to party. I’ve taken this scene at a high angle too, so the whole scene can be seen and what people are doing. At this point the party music will continue. This scene is also very short, because we wanted to film this scene to only to set the scene of this part of the thriller.

The image below shows the scene that we have filmed and going to use in our thriller. It shows teenagers partying and having a good time from a high angle.

The two screen shots below show Rose coming into the room just before she speaks to Doug and then the conversations between Doug and Rose. We filmed this part as long shot then zoomed into the two people to create a mid shot.

After Rose and Doug walk off together outside, Maddie starts looking for Rose and that’s the next scene that we shot for our thriller. I’ve attached a print screen of the shot to show what it looks like. We used a mid shot and tracking shot at this part of the scene, because we wanted to use a tracking shot in our film and we felt that at this part it was mostly appropriate to use it as Maddie lost her best friend and there are lots of drunk teenagers around the house which sets the atmosphere of Maddie being worried about her best friend as she’s drunk herself, so she doesn’t know 100% what she’s doing. We’re hoping to add an effect onto this part of the scene to make it look Maddie is lost and confused, which will make the scene look worrying and scary. We really liked this type of shot, and felt that it really sets relates to the genre of the film that we’re trying to reproduce, as we got this idea from the film ‘Lock, stocks and two smoking barrels’ because at opening sequence of the first 5 minutes of the film there are three men in the shop and when they walk to the back of the shop there is a tracking shot used, which we thought looked very effective, that’s why we’ve decided to use this shot in our thriller – the print screen underneath shows how the tracking shot was used in the ‘Lock, stocks and two smoking barrels’.

 We tried to use the rule of thirds just like in the film ‘La Haine’ however it was very hard to use tracking shot and be able to get the rules of thirds into the scene at the same time. We tried to get the two lines of the doorway to create this effect, which can be seen on the image below. 

This final part of the scene 3 that we decided to shoot was the hot tub scene. This is the part of the scene where the two best friends have an argument because Rose is taking drugs and Maddie doesn’t agree with it. Most of the shots that we’ve planned to use in this scene were; mid shot, over the shoulder and long shots.

At this point of the film Rose is talking to Doug whilst the others are partying, smoking weed and asking them two to come into the hot tub. For this part of the thriller we used simple mid shot and two shot to show the conversation between the two characters.

The next two shots that we have chosen to film were over the shoulder when Rose and Maddie have a conversation. When we filmed these shots it was dark which meant we had some trouble with filming properly so the characters faces could be seen properly. So we tried to shine torch onto the characters faces so it was more clearer to see what they were saying, however this didn’t come out very successfully. But as a whole we are happy with this scene that we’ve filmed.

By Anastazja Stanowska