When we looked at the script we saw it as being more about loss than simply turning into a dog, someone acting in that way because his dog has died. We didn't like the script so we thought we would make our own interpretation of it, we came up with the idea about a girl who is depressed and drinks heavily because she has suffered a loss of some kind. We thought we could perhaps keep the loss as a secret leaving the audience to guess or make it be about losing her boyfriend and show her holding a photograph of him at the end. We were going to create a stop frame scene showing the glasses pile up and her drinking like the heroin scene in 'Requiem for a Dream' (Directed by Darren Aronofsky). We were going to film this in a flat using a dim light to make it seem gloomy, perhaps using one light with either an orange or blue gel. With this idea I wanted to capture lots of interesting shadows covering the girl, the shadows being her depression. Shadows work well in abstracting and distorting, which would look effective over her face making her seem quite scary. For the outdoor scenes we would have filmed when its just getting dark. I would have liked to film long shots and high shots around trees to make her look isolated and overpowered. The shadows of the trees towering over her, making her look trapped in spider-webs. I also wanted to film a lot in hand held to create the look that she is out of control and drunk or the world look out of control to her.
We couldn't go forward with this idea in the end because the actor kept letting us down so we had a group discussion to talk about our options. We then came up with an idea which didn't require us getting an actor and wouldn't take to long to film as we didn't have long to get this done. We thought about filming from the dog's point of view who is neglected by his owner and takes on more of a human role; completely reversing the script. I filmed this all in hand held from a low angle to the height of a dog. I had to keep moving the camera from side to side to create the look of a dog moving which I think I achieved well. We didn't need a tripod or lights and didn't need any real acting so it saved us a lot of time. We only used the legs of a member of our group and the hand of the owner of the flat.
I found the dog drinking the water scenes the hardest to do as I had to splash the water with my finger whilst moving the camera up and down without getting the finger in the shot. This took a while to get right.
Although I got quite a sore back from bending down a lot to film I did enjoy this a lot and I am pleased with how I filmed it. I have seen point of view filming before such as 'Jaws' (Directed by Steven Spielberg) who filmed from the shark's point of view as it approaches it's victim. The way he has done that makes the audience feel uncomfortable as we don't want to be in that position. I am also very happy with the sounds and editing that Ajay and Amanda did. We filmed in a noisy atmosphere and had to completely remove all the sounds from the video and add new ones. I am pleased with the group edit but I did find a few problems which I corrected in my edit. Part of the voice over was cut off missing out a word so I had to find the original, import it into Adobe Soundbooth to remove the noise and increase the volume. I increased the volume of the voice over more in my edit so its easier to hear over the dog sound effects and I noticed the finger been seen in parts when the dog is drinking the water in the cafe so I cut them out. I changed the titles so the members of the group are at the beginning and all the other credits are at the end and added a much more upbeat music track at the end as I found the other one slightly depressing. I am very happy with the edit I have made and the effort we all put in as a group.
If I was given another chance to do this project I could take a completely different approach perhaps focusing on a man who loses everything, becomes homeless and starts to beg. I could create a film of someone going insane, a film about a prisoner or even someone completely transforming into a dog, such as growing hair and claws, like a werewolf.
