Omama’s Blog

  Here is the link to our final film which we posted on YouTube. Bad Omen : Film Opening

  Here is a link to the four evaluation questions I answered and have posted on Google Drive. CCR Questions

We chose OHAH Production because it consists of the initials of our team. 

These are the two posters of our film.

The final product did not have any risks since we were shooting at a group member’s house. This was a safe space to shoot without any outdoor risks including traffic, crowd or a shady area. Hence, we were able to shoot comfortably knowing that even if there was some inconvenience we could calmly sort out the problem.  For the previous film that we were to create, there was a risk factor as we had to shoot the last part at a risky location. It was risky because the area is in the middle of a large park. It has no crowd, traffic or noise near it but since we had to shoot after sunset it was unsafe. 

  We took all the shots at Azwa’s house. This was the safest option and was suitable for everyone.  However, for the previous film that we were to create we had taken a few shots at F-9 sector, Islamabad. 

Here are some of the shots we took that we could not use because they were not as good as the ones we did use. This is the extra footage.

  We took many shots for the same scene to select the best one at the end and so we dumped a lot of footage. Here is some of the dumped footage. Here we were working with lighting and deciding if we should have the lights on or make it dark. We also took an establishing shot of the house but later decided not to use it since it didn’t match the theme. 

  Since our only location was Azwa’s house, we chose to shoot the first scene in her dining room and then her bedroom. For the dream part, we used her drawing room since it was easy to make that room look disoriented by shifting the decoration pieces here and there around the furniture. And finally we used her bathroom. 

  The script of our film opening is written by Azwa Ameer and Abdul Hannan.

  There were a few major challenges we faced in order to produce our opening.  Firstly, we could not decide the location. After a lot of discussion, we decided it would be most convenient to shoot at one of the group member’s house.  Secondly, most of the shots we took were shaky. Our cameraman took multiple shots but they kept turning out shaky and that disrupted the cinematic outcome. For this, we decided to use a gimble.

  As we were shooting a completely different story before we took two days during which we made multiple mistakes. This was definitely a learning part for us as our teacher guided us to make our shots better. This helped us a lot when we were creating the final opening as we tried to avoid the previous mistakes.  On the day of shooting our final opening, we started from the first shot and continued filming the shots in the same sequence as were to sequence these shots in the final cut. After taking multiple shots for the same scene, we continued throughout and finished our shooting.

Before planning anything for our film, we knew the first thing to do was to select the genre as it decides the narrative, the setting and theme of the film. We had to go through a bunch of genres and their pros and cons. We also had to go through factors like whether or not a suitable setting would be available for the genre or if we could find suitable actors during a specific time of the day. After a long discussion and some guidance from our teacher we decided to go for a horror or thriller genre. We believed it had the most pros and wanted to immediately start working on the narrative. 

Since we do not have any shots outdoors, the weather forecast did not concern us much. However, we checked the weather forecast to check for rain so that we could bring an umbrella just in case and so that we could put on some extra layers to stay comfortable and warm during the cold weather. 

To film at Azwa’s house only required permission from her parents that would permit us to shoot at their place. However, in the previous film we were to create, we did not need permission for shooting at the location we had decided as it is located in a public space. We only needed our parents permission to go their for shooting.

  The character of our film is a young girl. She has short brown hair and brown eyes. She is neither skinny nor bulky and her height is five feet seven inches. She suffers from depression and prefers solitude and darkness. She has nightmares but does not wake up until her alarm rings. She gives the impression that she does not need help when in reality she is hiding her emotions to keep away from attention.

  Our story is about a young girl that is going through depression and is all alone in her house. She is shown siting in solitude when a friend of hers calls her to wish her a happy birthday but the main character pushes away her friend. She then goes to sleep and in her dream sees a dark figure in the corner that slowly gets closer and closer to her. This is when she wakes up to the sound of her alarm clock ringing. She is panicking as she goes to the bathroom to wash her face. When she bends to do so the same dark figure from her dream appears in the mirror. The main character lifts up her face to see the reflection of that figure when the camera cuts to black.

  In order to visualise the scenes put together, it is was important to make a storyboard. And so I printed the templates and roughly drew on them with the scene descriptions. This is what I was able to create. 

  The equipment we need for this project, keeping in mind the budget of our film, include : iPhone 13 pro max iPhone 12 pro iPhone X Boya Microphone Portable LED Light Mono Pod

We made sure that the film we create was on the lowest budget possible. This was done by borrowing some equipment from a class fellow and our teacher. This included a microphone and LED light. We also did not have any special  props that we needed to spend extra money on. Even the black gown one of our team members, Hannan, was wearing in the film to act as the dark figure was owned by Azwa already. As for the travelling part, everyone’s house was closest to Azwa’s so we were all able to reach there easily.