Path Of Shadows
(2017) dir. By Claudia KJ, Claudia Grace & Thomas Good

The Path of Shadows
Last Rough Cut

The certification will be a 15, as it will contain threat, and violence later in the film. It will not contain any discrimination, reference to drugs, and unlikely to more than mild language. It is 15 not 12A or 12 as the horror sequences would be too frequent.

Final Soundtrack

This has a more greater creshendo and increase in tempo at the end in order to make the final moments of the film feel more dramatic. It also uses strings at the beginning for a more subtle introduction than the piano.

Music Score

This is the first draft of the music for the film. It builds tension with the ominous piano chords throughout the piece. And uses a slightly discordant, high-pitched melody reminiscent of a child's lullaby to evoke the idea of a child hood past coming to haunt her.

Rough Cut 2

This is the rough cut with the final edit of the clips, but before the addition of music, or credits, and without sound editing.

Filming
Sunday 29th January 2017

We did a final filming session of our main protagonist to re-do shaky shots, and to do the sequence in the tunnel at the end of the story, as we didn't have the toy prop the first time so were unable to.

We started in her house, re-doing the shot of her getting out of bed and walking down stairs to make them better. And re-shooting the conversation between the protagonist and her mum as we decided it would look better staged from the front and then cut to the back.





We then went to Shillington Park to do the tunnel sequence and a few other shots that we thought could be better.













We also did some sound recordings so that we would have good quality sound of the conversation between the protagonist and her mum and the train as it goes overhead. We also did a three minute recording of the ambient sound in the park, so we would have consistent diegetic sound throughout the opening.

Rough Cut

This is the rough cut of our film opening. It shows the structure of the story line, but includes imperfect shots that we won't use in the final product, and music and sound has not been added or edited yet.

Filming
Sunday 22nd January 2017

This was our day of filming in Shillington Park with the younger actor.

This day posed different challenges, as though we had alit less to film it was much harder to get the younger girl to act convincingly, however we were pleased with the result.

We initially planned on using the shot of her front on, but then realised she had gloves on in one shot and not the other, and decided that it was better to shoot from the side, as the reveal of the figure is better as she could have been there the whole time.

Filming
Saturday 7th January 2017

Our second location was Shillington Park, for her journey to the playground and tunnel.
As well as looking aesthetically pleasing and having the right atmosphere, this location also provides interesting diegetic sound as there is a railway bridge going through the centre of the park.



I like this one because it shows her walking behind the bars of the gates, which demonstrates her feeling of being trapped in a physical way.

Filming
Saturday 7th January 2017

Our first location was inside the protagonist's house, as she goes through her morning routine, we included this sequence to create a sense of normalcy that makes the odd and creepy occurrences later more alarming by contrast.

This is the first shot of the film, so it starts as she wakes up.


This was a difficult shot to get as it involved standing in the limited space of the back of a wardrobe. We used this and two other shots as to convey that she got dressed without showing the whole process.


When filming in the bedroom we re-arranged objects in the room to create a sense of character and atmosphere. Such as the paint brushes and pencils to create this idea of her being artistic, that links in with the drawing she did as a child that she was sent. This and the other mirror shots also display a painting in the background that close up is a ballerina but from a distance could be a person hunched in pain, so is a subtle hint of bad things coming.

Ident
Filming and Editing

After filming the smeared paint, we increased the saturation of the colours slightly to make them brighter. Then put in a title to appear in sync with the movement of the pallet knife. I used the style shock, to give it character, and the font .

Ident Design

We decided our production company Acrylic Productions, so for the ident we decided to smear paint across the screen, and have that reveal the name.
We initially smeared the paint across a glass pallet, but found we preferred the visual of the paint on paper, and decided to use a pallet knife, as the spatula we used the first time was covered in dried paint.
We tried multiple colours and ways of spreading the paint, before deciding we liked putting the paint on the pallet knife so it appeared on the paper, rather than putting the paint on the paper first and just using the knife to spread it.