After analyzing Hitchcock's 'Psycho,' our class was assigned to reverse engineer a scene from the studied film. My classmates and I worked together in a production crew, where I took on the role of the camerawoman/cinematographer. During the pre-production, our team spent some time discussing on which scene we would re-engineer. The controlling factor of the decision was the location for the scene to be shot. Joah, the director of our crew, commented that in order to make the shots look authentic, the scene should be shot outside of the school building. This made us narrow down the scenes to ones that did not take place in an interior setting. We thus exempted the police station scene, which was proposed by Kat, and the scene of Marion and Norman's final conversation in Norman's office, which was proposed by me and Eloise. Finally, we selected the scene of Marion's confrontation by the male police officer which took place on the roadside. After choosing this scene, our crew discussed furthermore about the filming location. Joah proposed that we meet outside of school and film the scene in a park, but considering our busy schedule and how our homes were dispersed we decided to film the scene at school during school days. Because we did not want the scene's background to show any implications of our school, we've chosen a location which did not show the school building and resembled the setting in the actual scene.
After selecting the scene to shoot, we proceeded to discuss issues regarding the props and actors. We decided to borrow Mr. Johnson's car and make Erim, one of our peers, play the role of the police officer. As the cinematographer of the scene, I went on to make a shot list that incorporated shots from the actual scene.
This visual aid made the camera work easier for me during the production, as I was able to refer back to the shot list and set the angle and composition with proximity to the actual shots.
Production
During the production, I've encountered certain limitations of the shooting location. The car's location that our team all agreed to was on the driveway inside the school and was near the school’s main gate. Due to this, cars kept passing by as I filmed. This hindered our shooting by having us pause the recording so the sound of the car would not appear in the audio or footage. Also, the space to the right of the car was almost blocked with bushes and trees. This made it hard for me to take a side view shot of Marion, and the elevation of the land made it difficult for me to set the tripod in the optimum height so the shot I took matched to the shot in the actual film.
This medium shot of Marion was taken at a slight low angle.
However, due to the elevation of the ground and blockage of bushes, I could not achieve the low angle shot.
I thought of taking this shot inside the car, but there was not enough space for the camera to sustain a certain distance from the subject (Marion), which made it impossible for the camera to produce a medium shot of Marion.
Another problem that I had was taking the frontal shot of Marion in the car. In the actual scene from Psycho, this frontal-medium shot of Marion contains some significance as the frontal image of Marion's face captures her fearful expression.
I could not take this shot due to the strong reflection on the car window, which made the actress’s face to be barely seen. I figured that if the shot could not capture Marion's facial expression, then it would be meaningless. After discussing with Eloise who played the role of Marion, we decided to take the shot out and substitute it with another shot during the edit.
A missed detail that I realized during the edit was the lighting of the scene. Here, the close-up shot of the police officer and Marion features chiaroscuro lighting, in which a contrast of light and dark appears on their face.
However, considering how the shooting took place in an outdoor location under daylight, a lighting kit might not have produced enough artificial light to cast a strong shadow on the side of the actors' faces.
I believe that throughout the production, I struggled to focus entirely on my role as a cinematographer. This was due to the director's absence during the second production day, which was the day when our crew filmed most, and basically all of the required shots. While working with the camera, I also gave directions to the actors because my shotlist that I've carried was annotated with instructions for the actors. With the extra role, I could not put all of my effort on the camerawork and ended up spending more time on instructing the actors and having the scene organized, which should have been the director's role. As I still prioritized my role as the cinematographer during the production, I believe there has been a lack of guidance towards the actors and the production crew, as well as a sense of cohesion between the crew members. This resulted in some acting mistakes, such as not pausing to given time for transition between dialogues and Erim (the actor of the police officer) forgetting to glance at Eloise's purse after receiving her driver's license. This became quite noticeable as I edited the scene. This overall experience made me realize the significance of the director's role in a production and the need for separation between the individual production crew's roles.
Conclusion
Overall, I believe that I was mostly successful in producing shots that closely resembled the shots of the scene from the actual film. The type and angle of shots were carefully planned during the pre-production stage, and the shotlist that I've created made the shooting process be done in an efficient manner. During the process I've become aware of the responsibilities of the role of a cinematographer and the impact it has on the overall production.