On Friday 8th of November my actors and I set out to get as much of the filming done as possible, and it is safe to say that it went fairly successfully. After reviewing the footage I feel confident that the end product will look good, with enough of the original "Psycho" included and some fresh ideas also in place.
The actors (Charlie Taylor and Max Lamb) were optimistic about filming which created good morale over the project and so after reviewing the storyboard and the original scene from the 1960 film we were happy to get under way, fortunately both were fairly sound in knowledge of the scene beforehand and so not a lot of actor preparation was needed.
We ran into a couple of problems immediately, such as we did not have a wig for Max's character (Norma Bates) to conceal that he is a man, however we overcame this by covering Max's head with a scarf instead which in turn gave the look of an older woman.
Another problem was that as we began filming it began to rain, which meant that we could not film external shots, such as Arbogast approaching the house, as it became extremely dark outside and the visibility was low meaning that the shots that we would have filmed would not have looked very good at all. This means that we will need to conduct a reshoot to get these shots.
The interior shots with actors went well, with the actors getting very much into character. From previous media and filming projects I have found that some people get impatient with having to reshoot sections over and over until correct, however Charlie and Max were happy to do so, and in many cases this was necessary, for example when Arbogast opens the door to enter the house we did not take into account the fact that a key must be used to open the door, so we had to be careful to keep the key out of the shot each time as it had to potential to ruin the scene. The weather also caused some problems with this shot as the weather conditions lead to the wind coming fast down the alleyway to the door which would either make it difficult to close or , in the most extreme case, would cause the door to slam.
The shots in which Norma Bates attacks Arbogast turned out to be more trickier than first thought, as the birds eye view shot as Norma exits her room needs a high ceiling in order to show both characters, and the distance between the two, prior to the murder. This proved a problem as the ceiling in the house used would not allow such a high shot, whereas Hitchcock had a specially built set that allowed a camera to be pulled up higher, and so I already feel that the shot (though good) is not as effective as less distance is shown between Arbogast and Norma in my work before the stabbing occurs.
My main criticism of Friday's shoot is something that I should be able to change as I feel that the colour of the shot is quite orange, as for lighting we simply used the house lights. I should be able to correct this using the free DaVinci Resolve Lite software that will allow me to manipulate the reds, greens and blues (RGB) of the shot in order to get a darker shot, or even completely change the composition to a fully black and white piece.
In conclusion I am very happy with the shots I have filmed so far, even though I am highly critical of them, and believe that the shots will lead to a great looking piece. From now on it is a matter of arranging a reshoot day, thankfully the shots featuring Norma were fine and so only one actor is needed, and getting editing under way, beginning with Color Grading.
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