To film my Thriller Opening, I used a Nikon D3100. I chose this as it was my own camera, therefore I could use it as freely as I wanted to without having to worry about damaging school equipment. Also it made it easier to be able to film when I had the right environment and not having to book it in advance.Another reason I chose this camera was because I was able to edit things such as the white balance and also film in HD. This meant my clips looked better and were clearer. I was also able to manually adjust the focus and the zoom, something I used to my advantage during filming. This meant I could both make the clips look much clearer and focus on what I want. It also meant I could use the focus for artistic effect.
Most of my filming went smoothly, with me filming each shot 3 or 4 times, meaning I had several shots to choose from. However, I did come across a few problems I had to overcome.
The first problem I came across was the rain. The night I filmed it was very rainy outside and instead of not filming, I decided it might make my introduction a bit more interesting and since it was only for the first little portion, I decided it wouldn't mess up the whole of my opening sequence.
This meant that I had to come up with a way of keeping my camera dry but still usable. As I didn't have anything I could particularly use to keep it covered, like an umbrella, I tied a plastic bag around it, that was transparent so I could see the screen, this meant I could still use the camera but it didn't get rained on and it isn't visible on the shots.
The next problem I faced was when I was inside. For lighting, I did not want the lights inside the house on, instead I wanted more of a bright spotlight effect, to make him seem like he was on show. This meant I had to crate a spotlight as somebody else had booked them for the day.
To create a spotlight, I took an already bright desk lamp and rolled up some cardboard. I then taped the cardboard over the bulb. This meant the light couldn't spread as well and gave more of a centred spotlight on my character. It also gave my character more of a 'hotter temperature' with the light. I did this by making sure the light was a warmer coloured one. This made the character look more 'hot and bothered', the look I was going for in his breakdown sequence.
