Pre-Production: Lighting Development

We wanted to start thinking about developing our ideas and came up with some alternative things that could happen within our opening thriller sequence to make it more exciting and this allows constant improvements to be made.

For example, my group and I wanted to create original, effective ideas to keep our audience engaged, so we wanted to play with time in an interesting way. Primarily, we thought of just have light bulbs hung from the ceiling at different lengths and consisting of a dim brightness. However, we thought of using the light to show that time was running short. For instance, we would have 10 lights hung and each light will go off individually every 12 seconds, allowing him to realise time is running short. 

We also thought of having two light bulbs to turn off at the same time to confuse the actor. For example, the actor will think he had more time left if 3 light bulbs are still turned on but if two go off at the same time then he will realise he has an even shorter amount of time. This will be effective as the protagonist won’t be able to see the keys in order to get out. We initially thought when the first bulb went out, the character would look up with confusion and look up to find loads of keys hanging instead of the few directly in front of him.

Similarly, we also discussed considering an alternative of having the 10 sugar glass light bulbs cracking every 12 seconds to build even more pressure instead of the bulbs turning off.

However, my group and I understand it will be very hard to film in these low, dark conditions if the bulbs turn off and also similarly health hazards would occur if we smashed the light bulbs and the cost would unnecessarily increase.