Pre-production Experimenting: Lighting

The above photos show the pre-production lighting experiments we conducted during our location scout of the River Shuttle woods. At this point in the production process, we were unsure as to the exact lighting concept we'd follow for our opening, whether or not we would conform to the Supernatural Horror genre by using either low key lighting, where each shot is dominated by shadow, or challenge conventions of the genre by using high key or natural lighting to create a false sense of security for the audience. To help us visualise our lighting concept, we took the above photographs with half hour intervals to get a clear sense of the different options we had concerning lighting. We knew that we wanted to film at an outside location, as it fit with the narrative- which meant we would need to be efficient when filming, as otherwise the natural lighting would quickly change, and it would therefore undermine the professionalism of our final piece if our lighting was inconsistent without cause.

        

The above photos were taken as a part of our Day 1 of filming, which incorporated a brief lighting test. After analysing both the photos taken from the location scout and the results from our research survey, we decided to challenge genre stereotypes by letting natural, high key lighting dominate the majority of our shots. Previous to the villains first entrance, our opening uses consistently high-key, natural lighting, manipulating the audience's positive connotations with sunrise and bright, natural lighting to enhance the Supernatural Horror genre. The bright lighting emphasises that the antagonist is able to manipulate even a natural, human environment- and does not need to operate within the confines of a supernatural world. The bright lighting lulls the audience into a false sense of security, making the eventual reveal of the villain and the victim's tragic death all the more horrific.

The above photos show some of the photos which featured as Polaroid stalker photos within our opening. As is the case within our final piece- high key lighting is used to show that the antagonist is still able to access the human, natural world-despite their status as a supernatural/subhuman being. This effectively demonstrates their power, as well as creating a sinister outlook on the events captured in these photos, as it serves as a representation that even though she has previously been oblivious to it, the antagonist has been haunting the victim's every waking moment- despite the feeling of happiness or security she may have felt then.

The image above is of a screenshot taken from a time lapse we filmed of the sky gradually darkening to get an idea of the range of lighting concepts we could include in our final piece whilst still filming outside and using the natural lighting. We included the time lapse in our opening- both to demonstrate how the antagonist has such immense power over the environment, and to introduce a very dark, low-key lighting concept in which to introduce our villain, so as to add to the frightening nature of their presence. The photo on the right is from a lighting experiment we did on Day 3 of filming, in which we tested different lighting concepts for the antagonist's reveal. As part of our final piece, we decided to use a small, bright torch to light up Maria's face- as this made her stand out more clearly within the shot, and it also highlighted the details of her gory makeup.