Evoking Childhood
Children sometimes get a bad wrap for having less years behind them than others. We sometimes write them off as naive or ignorant or foolish because they don't have fully developed brains and haven't been to University. They are not adult beings, and so it is common for people to overlook them. My view of children is very different. I think younger humans are some of the most intuitive, wise, and open people on this Earth. Something happens with the loss of innocence that clouds the judgment and infects the brain. Adults become tainted and worn down and they lose their abilities to see the good in everything. Children, on the other hand, continue to love and love and love with everything that they are. They put all their love out for everyone to see and take.
I, as a kid, had a lot thrown at me while growing up. My family was always moving, and I was always switching schools and being forced into environments I wasn't comfortable in. I had to continually change my life, and I think I had to grow up faster than I wanted to. It would have been easy for me to act out against my parents, or to throw fits and tantrums about the things I didn't want to do. But instead, I accepted responsibility, I took care of my little sisters, and I swallowed my fear and trudged on. I took every bad or hard situation and I treated it like it was wonderful. I looked for the good in everything. This is something I wanted to convey with my film. I tried to think of the worst possible scenario for anyone to come upon, and then put a kid into the equation and had that kid do what she thought was necessary to help. She approaches the bad with good. She approaches the hard with love.
So tonally and visually I wanted everything to be kind of uneasy and sad. I wanted the dead person to be in mucky water to add to this horror filled situation. The messier and uglier and grimier, the easier it would be to convey that this child is doing something unexpected. Why would she not run away? Why is she not afraid? I achieved this by having the colors be very desaturated and having there be contrast in lighting and color. These elements add to the eerie atmosphere and make things seem more dramatic.
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ReplyDeleteWorking with Sariah on this project was great. I learned a lot about how to work with different lenses and how to move the camera the way that the director wanted it. Luckily there weren’t too many complicated camera movements, and we communicated well enough that I was able to get the framing that Sariah wanted and I knew where to position the camera and how it should move. Since most of the scene took place in a tiny bathroom that couldn’t fit the lights, we had to make do with the natural light coming from the window. It ended up looking how Sariah wanted it, though, so it was all good. The scariest parts involved most of the scenes shot in the bathroom. The room was so small that I had to climb into the tub and wrap the tripod legs with plastic bags. I was just praying that the camera was secured firmly to the tripod. Luckily it stayed on and didn’t fall into the black water. That would’ve been hard to explain to the checkout.
ReplyDeleteThe dolly shots that we attempted were tricky because of the narrowness of the bathroom. Originally we planned to have me sitting in a rolling chair holding the camera, and Sariah would push me through. However, because of the chair’s arms, this was difficult, so we had to remove the arms and kind of force the chair from the carpeted hallway into the tiled bathroom. This worked well enough, but it resulted in a little shakiness in the dolly shots. I wish I could have stabilized it better. I also wish that I knew more about how to light a scene. We only used lights in the beginning of the film, but I just feel inadequate in this area. I hope to learn more about proper lighting techniques as the semester progresses.
Working with Sariah on this project was great. I learned a lot about how to work with different lenses and how to move the camera the way that the director wanted it. Luckily there weren’t too many complicated camera movements, and we communicated well enough that I was able to get the framing that Sariah wanted and I knew where to position the camera and how it should move. Since most of the scene took place in a tiny bathroom that couldn’t fit the lights, we had to make do with the natural light coming from the window. It ended up looking how Sariah wanted it, though, so it was all good. The scariest parts involved most of the scenes shot in the bathroom. The room was so small that I had to climb into the tub and wrap the tripod legs with plastic bags. I was just praying that the camera was secured firmly to the tripod. Luckily it stayed on and didn’t fall into the black water. That would’ve been hard to explain to the checkout.
ReplyDeleteThe dolly shots that we attempted were tricky because of the narrowness of the bathroom. Originally we planned to have me sitting in a rolling chair holding the camera, and Sariah would push me through. However, because of the chair’s arms, this was difficult, so we had to remove the arms and kind of force the chair from the carpeted hallway into the tiled bathroom. This worked well enough, but it resulted in a little shakiness in the dolly shots. I wish I could have stabilized it better. I also wish that I knew more about how to light a scene. We only used lights in the beginning of the film, but I just feel inadequate in this area. I hope to learn more about proper lighting techniques as the semester progresses.