Dollhouse Production

DaRachel setting up the camera

Day 1.
With production of the box going well and us both plotting the measurements of the footage in the boxes, we have managed to begin filming now that I have decluttered, cleaned and put the dollhouse furniture back in place. Rachel had managed to collect some lighting and a tripod from home, whilst I have taken a camera out from Uni in order to get going with our filming to ensure we keep to our time plan and ensure that there is plenty of room for trial and error as this is going to be an important part of us getting our perfect shots.
We decided to shoot some stop motion pieces of footage using the camera, as we had the idea of having cluttered areas of the dollhouse reappearing into tidier areas and clicking with box noises as it did so.

props and set design

 We produced these pieces of footage within roles that naturally formed between us. Rachel suited the camera work and directing of the filming, as she has technical skills in terms of focusing and balancing the colours within the frame, whereas I controlled the lighting elements and the small intricacies of the props and stop motion movements of the footage. In addition to the stop motion performances we produced some close shots of the dollhouse rooms, to trick the audience into a false sense of security with knowledge that they're in a dollhouse, whereas really it will reveal the fact it's a storage box and that the rooms metaphorically represent the aspect of a home life stored away.

Adjustments to props 

Example of 'Clutter'

There were some problems that we have faced in the filming of the footage, and that is with the camera footage being grainy through lack of light, therefore we chose to film the majority of the footage in the peak time of natural light, such as in the earlier hours of the morning and afternoon. However, some problems such as overcast skies etc. did delay our production, but it was important for us to replicate the aspects of natural light coming through the window, as this was an aspect that we wanted there to be in our footage. However, we wanted some vacant movements of light to replicate the aspects of light travelling through windows alike to that of your home. We had some UV lights that we were able to use to shine through the windows off the walls to look interesting and like a vehicle was passing, this was an effective technique that we felt should have been carried through to all the rooms, and hope that the footage is effective when edited.

As part of our research we also found this piece by Anton Mishenin on Vimeo, and were inspired by the lighting used and the aspect of lights flooding through the windows, using the lights as the movements in a stationary room. I think this could be an effective overall composition if we manage to replicate the style as it imitates the movement of the sun and lights in a  real life home that we may not necessarily see or notice. We are using UV lights to replicate movements of the sun in the windows of our doll house in order for a similar effect to occur.

Doll House from Anton Mishenin on Vimeo.
Day 2.
Whilst reflecting on yesterday's production of footage, we were able to look at what did and didn't work in terms of the compositions, lighting and movements etc. We revisited the shots in the room, making sure that we concentrated on certain elements such as the gaps in lighting, as some of the shots were blurry or grainy so we decided to reshoot them but rethink the lighting. We filmed the bottom room first as we knew the natural light wouldn't light the room as well as the others, so needed the best of the sunshine, whereas we used extra lights also to illuminate certain areas.
We also decided to start to gather the footage together so that we could make the most of what we have, and delete what didn't work as well as other pieces that we had made previously.
In addition to this, we also worked on the lighting elements more in terms of shining it through the window, as we liked the effect it created but wanted to do more. Using small UV lights and one larger one, we were able to capture lights passing through the window alike a normal house, inspired by the research we had previously developed. We also developed the wide shot for our piece as this was the shot that finalises the very element of the house actually being a storage box, we tried to make this precise, however we may have to reshoot if the footage doesn't quite match up to the 3D box created.