Sound Editing - Ettie Greenwood

Today Natalie and Olivia continued with editing our footage, while I (Ettie) started with the editing of the sound:

After opening up the original track that we wanted to use for our thriller opening, we realised that we had to pay £10 to download the track in order to be able to use it. Therefore we had to look again to find a new track that we didn't have to pay for.

The track that we found was from the website Incompetech and the track is called 'Awkward Meeting'. We liked this track as it builded in crescendo as the track developed, and it sounded 'journey-like' which suited our thriller opening.

However, one of the problems that we did have with the soundtrack was that it was too short: it was only 1:24 and our thriller opening was just over 2 minutes. Therefore we had to edit the track in garge band and overlapped the track to make it loop and start again.

After this we imported the track into our footage and discovered that the track fitted with our footage well -the decrescendos/crescendos were in the correct place-

We will now continue to edit our footage, then import our soundtrack at the end, and tweak it if necessary.

Editing - Natalie Sergeant

Today I came in and did some of the editing of the opening. I started off with editing the ending sound of our sequence as from how we cut it the characters crying would cut and wouldn't flow so I re-opened the clip and found a section with no talking to use. After this I went through and did some small final cuts to some of the shots to keep a flow.

After that as I looked for music for us to use due to the song of "Remember Me" wanted us to pay for the track so I searched for other option in which we could use. These are the three songs that I found on Incompetech that I though we could use, I will show the others and we can discussed if we want to use any and if we do which one.

Classic Horror 3    2:05    Kevin MacLeod    Scoring: Horror Themes   

Awkward Meeting    1:24    Kevin MacLeod    Scoring: Horror Themes

MeasuredPaces    1:13    Kevin MacLeod    Scoring: Horror Themes  

After finding the song I then went through the video again and decided to add a fade to black when our character backs away from the bridge as I felt that the shot of her being under the bridge to her suddenly walking away didn't look right and didn't flow properly. After the adding of the fade to black this problem was rectified.

I then finalized by stating to do some edits to the shots such as decreasing the color balance of when we have the sun setting and having a strong red and also made the lighting go down so that it wasn't so bright. I kept a record of all the edits I made so that changes can easily be made :

Editing today- Ettie Greenwood

Today we started editing our thriller opening. At first we put all the rushes (Uncut footage) into the editing software, then started to cut the clips down to there desired length. We even started to add some video transition effects where planned and changed some of the brightness's of some shots where the lighting was not how we intended it to be. 

I think that we made a lot of progress on our opening today and I think that we will easily be able to finish the editing by the deadline (21st March). 

Next editing session, we plan to add our soundtrack to the piece, and edit it if necessary. Then hopefully continue with the editing on our thriller opening. We may split up and do the soundtrack editing and footage editing at the same time in order to make the time as productive as possible. 

Filming - Olivia and Ettie

Here are some photos of us doing our thriller opening filming and of our lighting set up on Wednesday 5th March:

                               

When filming outside, we did find that the area was quite muddy -due to the recent weather- However we tried to place the tripod, and ourselves in areas of less mud, to ensure that the equipment was safe and we didn't get too muddy! But we couldn't change the position of our camera too much as then this would alter the shot angle/position of where we aimed to film.

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Here is a photo of us filming the extreme close up, and I have placed the animatic storyboard shot next to it to show on how we intended the shot to look like. I think that this worked out on how we intended it to look like.

 

 The last image is our lighting set up: we had a fill light and a key light on to illuminate the subjects face and to eliminate some of the yellow tones created by the light bulbs indoors. We did not need a back light as the subject was placed in front of a door.  

One continuity issue that we did have, was that we filmed both the indoor shots last when itwas dark outside. This therefor meant that the light would be different. However we tried to overcome this by using more extra lighting to add light to the room, and we may use post-production editing to add extra brightness/ change in colour if needed. We also made sure that the actor (Rosanna) did not open the door for wider than necessary to leave, as if it was opened too wide the area outside would obviously be dark and would easily show to the audience that it was nigh time. If left visible this could confuse the viewer and give a false sense of time passing.

Title Sequence - Olivia Farren

When planning our thriller opening, we planned how the title sequences would run through it, and then we added our idea for the titles into the storyboard.

Our idea for our title sequence is to have the titles, a black screen with blood white writing, appearing on the screen through a fast dissolve in between our shots:

This is the order of our title sequence from shot 4 to shot 11; the way this will be edited is explained in our Explained Storyboard Animatic.

Then, from shot 12 to shot 30, there won't be anymore shots of the title sequence as the opening progresses and the audience focus on what's happening. As the tension is being built up in these shots we decided not to put anymore title shots in between so that they don't interrupt the viewers emotions.

We have decided to put the name of the film at the very end of our thriller opening sequence:

Here, after an extreme close up of the girl crying, there will be the film title, 'REDISCOVERED', in a large font that takes up the majority of the shot.

Although in our storyboard animatic we explained how shot 30 will dissolve into shot 31 like the other title shots, we have since decide to change this to a cut. This is because the extreme close up on the girls face as she cries is dramatic as the shot size is very focused on her emotions as she has literally rediscovered something that she didn't want to, and so the cut is a dramatic movement between shots to represent the tension built in the first scene.
Shot 31, will also last longer than the other title shots, this is as there is more emphasis on the film title.
This will also signify the end of our thrillers opening sequence.

Title Sequence Comparison - Ettie Greenwood

(click to open The Impostors opening)

The film, 'The Impostors' has a similar style to what we aim to use in our thriller opening. It is very simple with cuts to a black screen, with white writing. We aim to do the same as it is a clear way of displaying the title.

Even though some title screens include more animated art in the screens, this will be hard to do due to the limited time we have to edit/make the opening and the technology that is available to us. However we also chose to keep our title screen simple as it displays the information clearly.

In the title sequence of 'The Impostors', cuts are used in between the title shots. But for our opening we plan to use a fast dissolve to introduce the title shot, and then a cut to go back to the plot line. We feel that this will make the transition feel more smooth and will fit the sequence as not much is happening when we display to the titles -the girl is walking down to the woods-

Finally, unlike the title sequence from The Impostors, which uses a font like Georgia, we chose to have our title font in something like COURIER. We liked this because it looks like the style of writing on documents and it connotes a serious tone. We also chose the text to be white as it contrasts the black background well.

Weather - Ettie Greenwood

Today's date 25/02/13
I decided to look up the weather on our filming date - Wednesday 5th March- and I found out that there will be showers throughout the day.

Therefore we will need to ensure that if it does rain, to keep all the filming equipment as dry as possible and to wear suitable clothing ourselves (wellies and raincoats!). We will be unable to change our filming date as it is hard to find a date when we are all free, but also due to the weather at the moment, it is possible that we will have rain again if we changed the date.

Therefore we will just have to hope that at around 3.30pm-5pm the weather decides to stop raining and we can film at ease!

Update (4/3/14)

Luckily, the forecast for the weather tomorrow (Weds 5/3/14) has improved and now predicted to be sunny and cloudy (around 4-5pm). This means that rain will hopefully no longer be a problem and it will be easier to film. However we will still have to be careful of any mud, as it will be muddy from rain over the past few days. 

But, as the weather will change from sunny to overcast frequently, we will have to ensure that we film in similar lights between shots. We can also use post-production editing to dim the brightness in the shots to capture a more serious and thriller-like mood.