Analysis of Jemmas Car and Car Scene

When we decided that we wanted to film Megan sat in a car with Jemma driving. We had to pick a car that portrayed Jemmas lifestyle, she's 18, middle class and probably been only driving a year. We decided that a fiat 500 would be most practical, they are chic, feminine and easy to drive. Jemma is from a family that pamper her and would have got the car for her, unlike Megan who are middle class but don't splash out on lavish gifts. They spend a lot of time telling her the value of money, most of there money has gone on saving up for Megan to go to university and for her to live in london. Another reason we had Jemma drive it and not Megan is because, we wanted to be able to film Megan looking out the window, the windows in the back are small and its going to be hard filming Megan looking out of them. Especially since we cant fit a tripod in the back to stand the camera on, keeping my hand still while holding the camera is going to be a real difficulty. Its important we get these shots though as we want to show the viewer Megans initial perspective of her new home. We are taking the audience gradually into Megans world. They need to feel like there on the journey with her

Before we filmed the car scene properly we did some test shots of our actress Reanna sat in the back of the car being driven up and down the road. i liked the way her face was just a dark outline compared to the outside of the car. This way the focus was more on the setting then on Megan, however the audience were still aware of her presence and that this was her journey not just physically but mentally. The whole film is essentially about Megan's journey from slightly stable to extremely unstable. The scene with her in the car represents this is a more physical form, that is more obvious for the audience to pick up and take on board.  However just as i suspected it was difficult to keep the camera still, especially since the road is covered in speed humps, which shook the camera every time we went over them.
After the test shoot, we went back and looked at the footage, i was nervous that that it wouldn't come out well and that we may well have to change beginning of the storyboard all together.  Lucky enough the shots wernt too bad, sure they went completely smooth, but surprisingly the stiltedness of them gave them a more realistic edge. Suddenly these images wernt part of a film, they were what Megan was actually seeing. Though when we actually film it we will have to make some alterations to lighting, as Megans face is far too dark. This can be solved by using a torch or when editing, lightening up the images more.