With this film, I was trying to create tension with just one subject as opposed to two for the typical chase scene.  I believe that the unknown is scary, so I wanted to do my scene without anyone ever seeing the thing or person chasing the main character.  I was hoping that by not showing the thing chasing her, it would create suspense, kind of like in Jaws () or The Others ().  It was much harder than I thought.  I realized once I got around to edit my footage that you can’t just show a person running and expect that to have tension.  A few of the shots I got of my actress running actually take away from the tension.  I’m not quite sure, to be honest, how to do this effectively.  I guess I need to do more research next time.

           

I learned a lot from this shoot.  I learned that it is imperative to know your location.  I showed up to the lake we shot at with a blurry remembrance of what it looked like.  And this affected my shot list and it affected the way the footage looked.  I didn’t know what I wanted before hand, really, and that affected the way the footage looked.  I didn’t get enough coverage because I didn’t have a clear idea of what I wanted it to look like, and that affected the result.  Basically, I learned that you can’t just go into a shoot with a fuzzy idea of what you are going for.  It doesn’t matter what you have to do to make things work: just do it.  Go to the location ahead of time, work on your shot list until it’s perfect, know what your scene means, etc.  Do what it takes to make something meaningful.  Most of all, I learned that you have to be passionate about the project you are doing, otherwise it won’t turn out right at all. 

           

 I don’t think I’m entirely successful with this film.  There isn’t a lot of tension, there isn’t a lot of deep space, there isn’t really much there at all to be honest.  I think I wasn’t attached to this project enough and it really shows through with the scene.