Friday 21 March 2014

Editing (8)

Week 11: Tuesday


I stayed behind after school today to fix the credits, as Chloe had made the font black, yet we needed it white against the dark background.


I also looked into production companies that were well known for making horror films.  This was for the opening of our title sequence.  I looked at production companies such as:



  • Universal Pictures - A well known company, too well known to suit our independent film.

  • Blumhouse Productions - Unique introduction which suits our genre perfectly, yet is too over the top and shows a young girl which is too like our characters.

  • Dark Castle Entertainment - Subsidiary of Warner Bros. and Universal Pictures, two very well known companies.

  • Ghost House Pictures - Suits our genre but not sure if it suits our film.

  • Rogue - Created films of the same genre, very simple introduction.




I decided on the After Dark Films introduction as this company has created films of the same genre as mine and is very simple yet eerie, fitting our title sequence.


Editing (9)

Week 11:  Wednesday


Due to me being ill Friday and Monday, I was not able to continue editing and the mac Chloe was using did not have the same programme installed which we were using for the effects, so we had not added much more to our title sequence.

During my free lessons before our usual lesson I continued editing.  I added some more shots at the end which I didn't include in our rough cut.  I also put the updated credits in place and added a jittery effect on them:






At the beginning of our lesson, we were given time to add any finishing touches and then export our title sequences so we could view them in class.  Chloe and I added another sound from Audio Network to our title sequence called Nightshade.  We added this near the beginning of our title sequence, starting from the shot where the older girl character is in the background as the young girl wanders along a path, when the atmosphere becomes more tense.  Our intention was that the music does not fit with our other piece Nightmares Before Bedtime, which makes you feel very uncomfortable.


This is our first cut which we showed the class:




While viewing them, we were given individual feedback sheets to fill out about the other groups' title sequences, discussing which things worked well, which things we needed to work on, and which things that didn't work at all.

These were the feedback sheets we were given:










Overall, we received positive feedback about the two different colours differentiating the characters and the Bad Film effect used.  People also thought the music used was very creepy and effective, fitting our genre well.

From these feedback sheets, we know we need to focus on cutting the length of clips down and editing the ending of our title sequence.  Suggestions included adding another shot of the two characters going to hold hands, with the desaturated 'Bad Film' effect added as soon as their hands touch.

Thursday 20 March 2014

Editing

Week 8:  Monday


On our first lesson back, I brought in my memory card with all of our footage on.  Chloe and I sat on the macs, went through all of the footage and chose which shots we were going to use.  We asked how to convert the files, yet were told we didn't need to.  This took the whole lesson so we planned to start editing on Wednesday.

Editing (2)

Week 8:  Wednesday


We were given a short run through of how to use final cut pro, yet luckily I already had some basic knowledge of the programme.  We were also told that now everyone had to convert their clips, so Chloe and I converted all of our clips and then placed them in the order we wanted in final cut pro.  Unfortunately, we had problems with the macs as they kept freezing, so this was as far as we got.

Editing (3)

Week 8:  Friday


During my free lessons I edited some of our title sequence.

We continued editing on Friday, focusing on the cuts instead of effects and credits, as we had a rough cut of our title sequence due for Wednesday.

We included jump cuts, match on action and some cross dissolves.

Editing (4)

Week 9:  Monday


This lesson I continued editing the cuts in time for when our rough cut was due.  While I did this, Chloe made the credits for our title sequence on photoshop.  We used a font included in our questionnaires from Dafont.  We downloaded Black Asylum as we thought this font best matched our horror/thriller genre and would suit the jittery style we wanted to achieve.

Editing (5)

Week 9:  Wednesday


I missed this lesson as I went to a university taster day, so I discussed with Chloe that she should show our teacher our rough cut, receive feedback and make adjustments to our title sequence.  She did and re-cut some parts of it, such as the jump cut.  She also added effects to all of the footage, which made it much more consistent and created a very different, almost whimsical atmosphere to it.

Editing (6)

Week 9:  Friday


Today we downloaded some music for our title sequence from the website we were looking at before, Audio Network.  We chose Nightmares Before Bedtime, as it includes a piano piece which sounds like a nursery rhyme that fits our main character of a little girl.  We added the music to our title sequence without editing it to see what it would be like.  We then showed it to some of our class, who gave feedback that it was creepy and fit the genre and our footage perfectly.

We decided to go back to editing our title sequence by adding some of the credits so that we knew when to cut our music.  Our teacher looked and gave feedback that we should change some of the effects.  We tried more desaturated ones which worked really well.

Editing (7)

Week 10:  Monday


Chloe was not in this lesson, so I showed another teacher our first draft of our title sequence:





She thought that there were too many effects on it, which I agreed with.  I tried taking some off and I found there was a theme of the colour purple throughout; a purple flower, the leaves looked purple, purple lips on the ghost girl.  I decided to take the effects off of the clips with the young protagonist, and added a desaturated, jittery 'Bad Film' effect to the clips of the older ghost girl.  This worked really well and showed there was a time difference between the two characters.

Monday 17 March 2014

Filming

Week 7: Half Term


We looked at the weather forecast and decided the beginning of the week would be the best time to film.  We thought this because it was overcast with a little sun which would help with good camera quality and fit the atmosphere of our film.  Myself, Chloe, our friend Lauren and her little sister (who we decided fit the role of our young, innocent protagonist) met up and walked to Bostall Woods on Monday.

We managed to film all the shots we needed on Monday, which helped as the weather was the same throughout the day, which would make our shots more consistent and it easier to edit.

When I got home I uploaded the shots to my laptop to double check the footage we had got and I was very pleased with what we had.

Wednesday 12 March 2014

Continuing Planning

Week 6: Friday

Today we continued planning everything we needed to before half term.  This included looking at more title sequences, updating our schedules and creating an equipment list.

Equipment List:


Sound

Week 6: Wednesday


Today we completed our storyboards and decided to find appropriate sound for our title sequence.  We looked at copyright free music websites, such as Audio Network.  We searched for 'horror' which turned out very successful as there were many sounds that we liked and fit our plot.  For example, one music piece named 'Nightmares Before Bedtime' included piano which sounded like children's nursery rhymes yet with a creepy atmosphere.  We thought this would go perfectly with our storyboarding ideas of our young protagonist walking into the woods.  We found another piece (Nightshade) that included a low, rhythmic beat which would blend well with the first piece, so we are definitely going to mix several music tracks together.

I made a list of all the pieces of music we liked:



My teacher also suggested making our own music, using Logic Pro, so we played around with various sounds on that programme.  This included an organ, violin and piano.  However, we thought an existing piece of music would sound more professional.

Wednesday 5 March 2014

Storyboarding Continued (3)

Week 6: Monday



We continued storybarding, adding in the length of the shot and sound.  We looked at other title sequences, focusing on what credits appeared when.  We decided to keep our current credits in the same places, adding the details of the other credits as we added more frames to our storyboards (the cast and crew).

Monday 3 March 2014

Organising Filming

Week 5: Friday


Today we created a shedule for the next week at school and over half term.  This was to plan what we did in lesson and when we filmed over half term.

These were the schedules I created:





Typography

Week 5: Wednesday


In today's lesson we focused on typography.  We looked at films of different genres and discussed how the credits fit into those genres, as well as the size and colour of the font, and where they were placed on the screen.

Firstly, we looked at Catch Me If You Can (2002).  This placed two different fonts next to each other.  The serif font reminded us of a typewriter, which we thought could relate to Tom Hank's character of a policeman.  This was because he would have had to type up reports on a typewriter, also relating to the time period the film is set in.  The second font was a sans serif font, which was used to create parts of the images on screen.  It is much more fluent than the serif font; changing and flowing into different objects.  This could represent Leonardo DiCaprio's character, as he is a con artist and constantly changing professions and identities.
The fonts change positions frequently on the screen, yet nearly always keep to the same size.  They are placed at the sides of the screen a lot, to allow the audience to focus on the images telling the story.




Lord of War (2005) was the second title sequence we discussed.  It had very blocky, square font which was all in capitals and sans serif.  This would usually make the credits the focus point of the title sequence, yet they were considerably small to allow the audience to focus on the things happening on screen, like Catch Me If You Can.  The exception to this small font was of course the title of the film, which was larger than the other credits and centered.  Unlike Catch Me If You Can, the credits were completely separate to the action, placed in various spaces on the screen where there was either little or no action.




The last title sequence we viewed was Forrest Gump (1994).  The genre of this film is drama/romance, therefore has a centered serif font, which fades in and out.  The text is very plain, possibly connoting the main character.



We also established that serif fonts are considered formal, posh, classic and timeless.  In my title sequence, I will use a sans serif font.  As my genre is a psychological thriller/horror film, not matching any of the films we looked at, I will use a scratchy font that conveys this.

Storyboarding Continued (2)

Week 5: Monday


After our group feedback and looking at title sequences similar to our film genre, we considered what we had been told/seen and continued with our storyboards.  We focused on hinting our plot twist by showing more obvious pictures very quickly (for example, an extreme close up of a sliced neck with blood), and added these into our storyboards.

Sunday 2 March 2014

Storyboarding Continued

Week 4: Friday


Due to missing a double lesson on Wednesday, we continued with our storyboards.  We redrew our draft and rearranged some shots.  We also added in where our credits would be placed and the name of the shots we would use.

Here are our up to date storyboards:

Questionnaires

Week 4: Friday/Homework


This week we looked at receiving feedback about our film and title sequence ideas from our target audience.  Our homework was to do this in the form of questionnaires.  We created a questionnaire composed of 10 questions and handed it out to people that fit in our primary and secondary target audience; males and females aged 15-25.

Here are our questionnaires filled out by our target audience:
 















Group Feedback

Week 4: Friday


Today we also had group feedback with one of our teachers.  We had to discuss our film and title sequence ideas so far.  This is our recording of the conversation: