Two days ago on Sunday, we finally filmed the hallucination scene. This scene was hands down the most difficult I've ever had to film.
I don't think I was on my A game, because I feel like I didn't shoot enough footage or pay close enough attention to continuity. The techniques and movements I was going for with the content was maybe too ambitious. For example, I may have to scrap this segment where the rapist character, played by Alek, runs into the hallway and turns around the corner and its the same hallway. Its very difficult to edit, and I didn't spend too much time with it.
I didn't like how the choking segment turned out either. We couldn't fit Emerson, who played Jane, behind the bed the way I wanted to, so she could've only choked Alek with one hand and it looks kind of cheesy. I should have at least put some makeup on her arms.
Lastly, the scene where Jane cuts her throat and spills blood all over Keith. This. Was. A. NIGHTMARE. We were working with a real sword that was relatively dull but could definitely cut. We took extreme care when Emerson was handling the weapon, but we couldn't get the movement we wanted. I tried working in different angles with her but she made the movements way too slow. I had to film the sword by myself yesterday to get it right, and even that took a while. As for the blood splatter, we had to do it TWICE.
We set up the camera on the tripod and I held the batch of fake blood with a large ladle. I found an excellent recipe for this fake blood online, and it happened to be edible. I used red beet juice (because I don't like food coloring... and I couldn't find it at the store...), 14 ounces of powdered sugar, a tablespoon and a half of cocoa powder, and BLEND! It looks great. Anyways, The first time we shot, the blood completely missed Alek and hit the floor, the wall above him, and a tiny bit of his shirt. So we had to get a new white shirt and film again. The second time it also mostly hit the wall, but at least it looked cooler and was more visible. I refused to film again because I was running out of shirts and the mess was already insane, I didn't want to clean the wall just to get it messy again. It took 45 minutes to clean, the blood got EVERYWHERE. The floor was soaked, the wall was a mess, and there were tiny droplets that reached far, even a drop on the ceiling!
I think it will all be okay. The footage is decent enough to put something together. But we'll see. I was really stupid that I made things dark again... why do I do this to myself...?
