The Woods- Location Test

For one scene within our opening, we have decided to have the idea of a young girl running through a wooded area. I have tested this at both daylight and dusk, as night time would be far to dark and light sources would not work very well as it is not professional equipment, e.g high tech cameras or studio lights.

This is a young girl walking through the wooded area in daylight. It is not typical of a supernatural horror as it is not creepy or tense, and it also not the favourite of our target audience as we gathered from the survey.

This is a picture of the wooded area in daylight. Again it does not typically fit into the supernatural horror genre and does not provide much to lend to the frightening mood that is supposed to be created. Having said this, if we wait half an hour or so (half 3-4pm) the lighting will be dark enough for a spooky atmosphere but light enough to actually film.

This is a picture at around 7 pm. I feel that this is the perfect darkness for the scary effect we would like to create, however I would have to do some test shots at this time in the woods, as a lot of the light in this source is due to the screen lamps. If it is too dark to film at this time in the woods, then an hour or so earlier should provide enough light to capture what we want efficiently, whilst still looking creepy to link to our supernatural horror genre.

 I visited the place for our possible forest location at around half 4.45/5pm. Here is a picture of it without flash. As you can see it is far too dark, and due to the time of year (winter) it would be better to go earlier, as our filming will have more clarity due to more sufficient natural lighting.

Here is the same setting but with flash. The deep sunset adds an eerie feel that links to our supernatural horror genre, but due to lighting issues it would be better to do it when it is lighter, perhaps as soon as the sun begins to set.

This video was filmed with the flash on. As you can see the girl is easy to see at the very start, but she soon becomes almost invisible against the darkness. Again this suggests that despite the dark purple sky giving the desired effect, it is a much more sensible idea to film at an earlier time due to lack of lighting.

 

Evaluation:

• The lighter shots that we taken at around 3pm will be much better after half an hour or so
• Due to the time of year, the lighting changes dramatically very quickly so we must be efficient when filming
• The darkness shows up more on the camera, and so it must be done earlier than you would orginally think