Take 3

Here we go again...

COVID-19 has affected our production once again as even more serious pre-cautions have been taken to prevent further spread of the virus. To be exact, the park we were supposed to film in, Markham Park, is closed until further notice. All other parks are shut down as well. Filming in a spot outdoors and filled with a lot of nature was essential to the core of the horror concept I had previously discussed, which ironically was set that way to be safer from the situation. There's no room for blame as lives are literally at stake, but there is also no time to complain. The deadline has not shifted at all and at this point it isn't even creeping closer, it's straight up sprinting at me full force.

What now? 

An obvious route would be to make the film opening a drama instead of a new genre. This will save time in the pre-production phase and as well be more useful since we already have copious research about these types of movies. The only shooting location realistically available to us will be limited to our houses and their surrounding development, so the plot has to stay grounded, or at least grounded enough that it can be filmed at home. Due to the entire quarantine happening, we cannot get anyone to act, not even anyone from our group. It might be a good idea to attempt to tell the story visually instead of heavy dialogue because of this, or have audio cues indicate what the film would be about. An example that comes to mind is the opening from the dystopian film Children of Men (2006, dir. Alfonso Cuarón), which has its central premise of humans being unable to reproduce revealed through a news broadcast. My group and I will attempt to come up with an idea in these upcoming days that will both be excellent yet achieveable with this ongoing pandemic.