Test Shoot for my Thriller Opening Sequence

To help us get a clear picture of what our opening sequence would look like, we did a test shoot using our phone cameras and the editing software of iMovie. As we wanted a church-like setting, we decided to use the Common Room as without the furniture and from certain angles, it looked quite similar to the inside of a church.

At the start of the sequence, we see a priest praying - being very particular in showing him from low angles as to give the audience the idea that this religious figure was both powerful and intimidating. The dark lighting in the room also helped us to set the mood for the piece as it gave off the impression of a gloomy and terrifying setting, which is something that goes against the stereotypical expectation of a church (or other religious setting).

In order to give the impression that the nun character is in a confessional, we filmed a shot from the other side of the window (to symbolise the small grate that sits between the confessor and the person confessing). For most shots, the same dark lighting was fitting and went well with the iconography of our piece but when we tried an extreme close up of the nun opening her eyes, it was quite difficult to see due to the shadows upon her face; we would have moved the position of her hands as we noticed this issue whilst filming, but that would have gone against the continuity of the other shots, so we had to keep her in the same position.

Ideally, in the final opening sequence we want to have the priest character spilling red wine onto a white cloth (symbolic of purity being ‘spoiled’) but as we did not have the resources necessary for the test shoot, we had to settle for pouring coke onto a plain, wooden table - simply as a placeholder.

After filming the test shoot, we edited it and added diegetic and non-diegetic sound which was of singing monks and heavy pleonastic breathing, and by having these it helped to create atmosphere and suspense. In my opinion, the test shoot was okay, but if we had been more prepared it would have definitely have gone down better. Regardless, I think it gave us a good idea of what our sequence would look like, and will certainly serve to help point us in the right direction in terms of developing our idea further.