Research and Planning: Make Up Test (With Claudia Downs)

Last week, we did a trial run of Claudia’s make up. We wanted her to look pale and ill, so when she looked in the mirror and exclaimed ‘I look like a crazy person!’, we weren’t offended; if anything, we were pleased.

Since I know nothing about make up, I set up the camera and left Jess and Claudia to it.

Claudia wore the dress we plan on using for filming, and Jess used the make up she bought specially from eBay to whiten Claudia’s face and add darker make up around her eyes to make her look gaunt, tired and kind of ill. We felt this was an unnerving look, which is what we’re aiming for.

We then took the footage and sped it up to show the process, and I added before and after pictures of Claudia to show the transformation from being ‘normal Claudia’ to being Patient 439! We added some music to the video to make it less dull to watch, but since we can only use copyright free music, we were limited to what we could choose from… This particular piece of music is called ‘The Voyage’, and isn’t quite what we were looking for…

 

Planning: Thoughts on Mise-en-scene

Props:
So far, our prop list includes:

• Pill bottle (plus pills)
• A simple bed, including plain sheets and a pillowcase
• A suitcase, including contents (ie, clothes, shoes, etc)
• A piece of paper (list of victims)
• Medical ID tag (and scissors)

Costume:
We want our costume to be plain and simple, which is the general rule with all of our mise-en-scene; the plainer the better. We were thinking of a white dress and plain black shoes and schoolgirl white socks, but because we’ll be filming in late January/early February, we’ll allow skin coloured tights and a black cardigan – we’ll also have a massive coat ready to ensure our actress doesn’t freeze!

Make-up:
Again, we want it to be plain, as though she’s wearing none; however, we do want her to be almost unnaturally pale, so we’ll do a make-up test on our actress using our new professional make-up set from eBay, bought specifically for this task! We’ll lighten her skin and add in bags under her eyes, to make her seem unnerving.

Acting/Casting:
For patient 439, we have someone specific in mind; she’s sixteen, which isn’t quite the age we imagined her to be, but this doesn’t affect our film opening particularly. We can also use make up to make her look older if we need to. The girl we’re hoping to act for us has taken AS level drama, and is a lovely, reliable person, so hopefully we won’t have too many problems when it comes to casting! I also decided to write her an official invitation, outlining what she’d have to do and when we’d need her, to avoid any unpleasant surprises later on. Jess and I will have one last discussion about whether or not she’s right for the part, then hopefully get it delivered to her sometime soon! Our film opening also features a doctor, who we both picture as being male – however, the shots we have planned don’t actually show his face in focus, it is mainly focused on his hands and his feet, so we can use someone of a similar age to us again without it being a problem. Again, we have an idea of a reliable actor; he will, of course, receive an invitation too.

Colour Palette:
We want our film opening to be mostly in varying shades of grey, black and white, and have quite a pale look to it. Although it will not actually be shot in black-and-white, it won’t be as bright as modern cameras allow… With it being supposedly in the 1970s (which is really just us making it hard for ourselves), it should look relatively old, hence why the colour palette is dull and dim.