Test Shoot

The next step of the production was to go on a location test shoot where I needed to experiment with various different types of shots. For the shoot I used a Panasonic 151. In the first video you can see a few different shot methods I wish to use in my final piece.

Test Shoot from Laura Johnson on Vimeo.

I had quite a lot of trouble on the shoot using the depth of field on the Panasonic. To alter the depth of field on this camera I changed the ISO setting, this allows more light into the lens thus giving a higher depth of field. I feel that the depth of field isn't fantastic on this camera, so I have decided to use a Canon 550D for my final piece as the size of the CCD chip will give a look and depth of field that is closer to using a 35mm camera.

I also found that a lot of my footage came out on my iMac quite darkly, I will look at colour correcting this in my next post.

Choosing a Location

To get a similar effect to that in The Lovely Bones I decided that it would be best to shoot in a forest or wooded area. The closest and most convenient area is at Trentham Gardens. Before renting a camera from University I decided to use my own SLR and take some photographs of the area.

This location looks very similar to the location used in The Lovely Bones. There is a lot of dense tree cover with little light falling through. The only difference is the time of year that I am going to be shooting. It seems that The Lovely Bones was shot in either Spring or Autumn, so there is a lot of nice yellow colour to the trees and the surroundings. However, as I am planning to shoot in the Winter there will be little leaves and colour left in the trees. But as you can see in the above pictures there is a lot of nice colour in the leaves that have fallen to the ground.

Second style I wish to study

The second section of my assignment will follow the style from Susie’s Heaven; I will look at some of the more natural and realistic shots of her walking through the forest when she enters heaven. These shots are very nice in the way that the colours of the forest are emphasized through the use of green and red tones. In this particular scene of Susie that I am looking at there is the use of a pull focus, which I think looks fantastic. Because using focus to draw attention to a particular area is a part of the assignment brief I will replicate this type of focus pull to suit my piece.

Style I wish to study

 For my assignment I would like to try two different styles from The Lovely Bones. The first style I will be looking at is the overall style of the shots of Mr. Harvey. The majority of these are close up’s, some are often out of focus, obscuring the character from our view. The grading on these shots is often quite dark with a lot of dark areas, to portray that he is lurking about in the shadows. I will try to replicate the kinds of shots used in order to portray my own narrative.

Mr Harvey

When the character of Mr Harvey is introduced he is obscured from our view, many of the shots throughout the film obscure him. He is either lurking in the shadows or is out of focus. The images of him are a lot more desaturated and provide quite a stark contrast to those of Susie before she dies and Susie’s heaven.

The first time we see Mr Harvey is in the same scene where Susie is riding her bicycle in the street. In this scene we only see very tight close ups of his hands, we never see his face. However, as this scene is through Susie's eyes it is still very high contrast with the bloom effect.

When we are placed into Mr Harvey's world it is a very dark place; quite typical of what you would see in a horror film. However, we still don't see his face. This automatically puts the audience on edge, especially as we have already been told that he is Susie's murderer.

One of the main scenes for Mr Harvey is when he actually murders Susie. In this scene he is always on a higher position than Susie, denoting his power. There are a lot of extremely tight close ups of him which makes the audience feel uncomfortable. Here is an image from that scene.

Another scene which is pivotal to his character is when the police knock on his door to ask him questions about Susie (at this point he is not under any suspicion from the police). In this scene he is shown as being creepy and lurks about. One of the policemen asks to look at the dolls house which Mr Harvey is building. Some of these images use frame within a frame techniques to give quite a voyeuristic feel to the scene. Mr Harvey is creepy!

My name is Salmon, like the fish. First name, Susie.

Susie Salmon is the main character and also the narrator of the story, She is a 14-year old girl who is murdered by neighbour Mr Harvey. The image below is taken from the opening of the film; a lot of colour is used to portray the normality in their lives.

After her murder she proceeds into the after-life, which is depicted in two different ways, depending on her emotion. When Susie is happy, Heaven is a sunny place with a lot of high-saturated colour. However, when Susie is sad the images become dull and lonely.

Before the death of Susie the film is bright using highly contrasted colours and quite a bit of satuation. There also seems to be some sort of flow such as bloom to the images, this creates quite an angelic feel to the film; she is portrayed as a young girl who is enthused with life. I especially love the shots at the start of the film where she is riding her bicycle in the street taking pictures of her family, shown below.

When Susie enters the after-life her Heaven is very bright and colourful, with a lot of surreal imagery. The brightness of her world is heavily contrasted against the darkness of the real world. This image shows some of the surreal imagery that is seen in Susie's Heaven. These kind of images say a lot about childhood imagination.

However, I do prefer the more realistic scenes in heaven such as when she is walking through the forest. The next image shows Susie in her Heaven just as she realises where she is.

When Susie's emotions become darker, so does Heaven. In the image shown below she is about to enter her murderer's house. The kind of angle on this shot makes Susie seem less powerful than the house, but also as though the house is beckoning her.

Andrew Lesnie: The Lovely Bones

For the Cinematography assignment I will be looking at the style of Cinematographer Andrew Lesnie, especially in relation to his work in The Lovely Bones.


Here is the trailer for The Lovely Bones:



The Lovely Bones is set in the 70's and follows the story of a young girl who is raped and murdered. Her narration drives the story forward as she lives in the 'in-between' or her own perfect world. The visual style of the film changes at many points throughout the narrative. At the beginning of the film, before Susie's murder the shots are highly saturated with a lot of natural, diffused light. However, the images of Mr Harvey are low-key and have a low contrast, he is often lurking in the shadows. Many of the scenes later in the film take place in Susie Salmon's perfect world; these images have a very surreal feel to them. They are very bright and colourful, and the images we see within them are also very unrealistic.


Andrew Lesnie is heavily inspired by the work of painter Andrew Wyeth. In the following two images you can clearly see his inspiration for many of the images in The Lovely Bones.





Here is an image from The Lovely Bones, where Andrew Lesnie's influences can be clearly seen:




The majority of the film uses motivated lighting, which is predominantly naturalistic. This light is often dispersed over a wide area, which leaves little shadows. However, in the scenes underground and of Mr Harvey the light is highly contrasted, leaving the majority of the shots in shadows.