Dance Video DOP and Director Meeting

Myself as Director and Sugini as DOP got together after our tutorial on Monday 27th Feb to discuss the visuals in terms of the camera shot list. Sugini wanted to create a rough shotlist based how I had been describing the dance to look. This shot list would then give her a good basis to work from and practice with during rehearsal meaning it could then be refined before the official shoot. I felt like this was a perfect opportunity for me to also write down all the dance idea that had been in my head while we discussed this so that I had them noted down. This would then allow us to begin really thinking about the structure of the piece from a dance point of view but also from a technical point of view with the shot list. Here are the basic scores I was noting down during our meeting so we had a good basis:

Now that a rough choreography (will be changed and developed with the dancer at a later date) had been written out for each section me and Sugini were then able to write a rough shot list for this. She had a lot of good visual ideas that worked really well with what I wanted so I was very confident and happy with her as DOP. Here is the rough shot list she write down during our meeting:

Arachnophobia

Wide Shot - blank establishing shot to show the empty black space
wide shot - dancers crawls into side of spot light from the back, half in light half in shadow side view shot, panning movement. entering
low angle shot, dancer crawling over the camera.
birds eye view movement shot of dancer entering.

mid shot to give details of dance (still)
mid shot to give details of dance (shoulder rig for movement )
close up shots of dancers being half themselves half spider
extreme close ups of fingers down the legs (get audience feel uncomfortable )

as dancer becomes spider, camera gets scared of dancer so do slow back track camera movement with stedicam
orbit around dancer as dancer gets closer and bigger in dance movement
close up of feet, legs, getting stretched out, legs crawls in and out of frame

dancer gets erratic, crazy movements as they have become the spider,
jump scare shot: camera glances away in fear, looks back at the same spot, spider is gone or possible look back to 2 dancers on the floor scared. camera glances away one more time and looks back to empty space, dances then jump up into frame from below. (scare audience)

close up of the crazy movements, possible edit to a faster pace. close up of their faces/ express facial expressions
birds eye view shot of them both going crazy, get the camera to spin

pace of dancer movement slows down and so does camera movement, slow panning shot from below moving up to reveal dancers body slowly up to face.
sliding horizontally across, one vertically in and out
one long take of big wide shot, to make dancers look small in the big dark space .

birds eye view of dancers when one gets on top of another,
moving birds eye view, camera entering the action, camera in line with spider and capturing victim face.
low angle shot mid shot, to get dancer head into frame when dancer heads lays down on floor, leaving a 1/2 sec empty frame gap, then spider face gets into shot.
orbit shot when spider moves around victim

close up shot of chest raising up and down, close up of fist from a side view build up the pace with the close up shots
tracking the hand / finger movement of the spider on the human

extreme close up of eye closed and creased in utter fear, then eyes open and sees no spider one wide shot from side view of the of victim dancer slowly sitting up in the spot light area.

handheld camera movement shot to track her body moving up, close up shot to introduce the Claustrophobia  fear next.

Claustrophobia

starts off with victim sat up mid shot audience see nothing around her, looks around space then moves, point of view shot of dancer looking around, camera turns out into the space. camera does a 360 turn (mid shot) to see second dancer boxes dancer 1 and traps her.

pace picks up again, close up shots to show dancer 1 panic
camera moves back and forth with dancer 1 as she tries to escape, camera doesn't capture dancer 2 in frame, but only sees dancer 1 in fear,

and then curled up into ball, dancer 2 curls up around her, birds eye view shot turns around to the side to estenate the curl motion of dancers.

when dancers try to escape and reach out, dancers climbing over another, untangling them. free hand camera movement every time a limb try to elapse. camera moves in and out the of the body. going under legs and going over,

dancer 2 pulls dancer 1 back into space, long wide shot. tracking shot.
dancer 1 stood up right being frustrated and angry as she cant escape. clutches fist and zooms in on that to get extreme close up. scenes ends with clinching fist like scene 1ends with closed eyes.


Astraphobia

dancer 1 is stood in middle of space looking around suddenly lighting happens, drops on the floor in fear. dancer is on floor waiting for the next thunder, as waiting for the next strike she is pulsating on the floor with the lighting. mids and close up shots.

playing with focus in some shot, out of focus shots when lighting occurs and re confusing

birds eye view shot when dancer stretches out and looks up at the lighting as if she's getting taken over.

dancer 2 appears in the next lighting strike, dancer 2 suddenly appears when lighting comes back on after thunder hits. wide shot to show whats happened. this is good to show a lot of integration between both of them.

two dancers circulating around the dancers when they curtailing them selves, low angle shot from below when they leap

dancers fall down to end. wide shot when they drop to the floor in fear. end with a flash and fade to white, or black.

Extra footages:
quick flashes of the dancers looking vulnerable and weak in-between thunder shots. twitching, reacting, fearing etc 

I am very happy with this rough shortlist and I feel like the visuals are really coming together. This meeting has been very productive and useful. Sugini is going to write this shot list up officially for us to use during rehearsals and then refine before the official shoot.