Day 1: filming evaluation

Day 1 consisted of filming indoor shots which used low-key lighting. We decided to film the shots with the cocaine and heroin inside because we wanted a black background to make the drugs stand out. 

For our drug scenes, we used extreme close up shots with a black background behind it so the fire from the lighter would stand out more. However, we could see our reflections on the black background so to overcome this, we had to make it quite dark by putting a large sheet over us. 

For our second shot, we used low-key lighting by only using the lamp next to Verity to cast a shadow as this shot will be used when she's going through her rebellious stage. In this scene, we wanted it to look as if Verity is injecting the needle into her arm. To ensure that she didn't get hurt, she used a blunt syringe and pressed it onto her arm to make it look like heroin is being injected. This was a successful shot as it looked quite realistic and we had the appropriate lighting for this scene.

For our opening title, we used flour to replicate cocaine. First, we wrote 'Eighteen' in the flour which is the title of our film then we used a hair dryer to make it blow away as we were thinking of speeding this up on final cut which would make it look quite effective. However, this scene was not as successful as the others and took quite a few attempts because you could see the hair dryer in the reflection and some of the flour didn't blow away.

The next shot we filmed is of her running away from home and smoking in the park. To do this, we drove to the park. On the way to the park, we attached a go-pro onto the front of the car as we were thinking of speeding this shot up on final cut. The shots of Verity smoking didn't work as well as we would have liked it to because the lighting was too bright and kept on changing. Also, since we used fake cigarettes, there was little smoke coming out and it was quite hard to light. To improve, we could have filmed this scene slightly later so the lighting was less bright. However, we filmed an extreme close up of the cigarette which turned out to be successful as it was focused and had the appropriate lighting.