Evaluation of Rough Cut

The rough cut was the clips that we had complied so far (we are yet to fully edit it, add sound or credits).  The main issue with our rough cut is that it is much too short. The brief was for an opening to a thriller (at least 2 minutes long) and our's is currently only 1:09. This is because we are yet to add all of the footage we recorded and also the transitions between each shot should lengthen it slightly.

At the moment, our opening looks very unfinished but I think we have a good basis to work up from. The strongest part of it so far is the shot of the extreme close up of Billie's hand tapping against the desk. With the effects that we added on Final Cut Pro, it looks eery and creates the scary atmosphere that we wanted to create. The weakest point of our opening is the sound as, because we have been working on just the visual side, we are yet to remove the sound that was recorded on each clip. This meant that the clips we slowed down or stretched to look visually better, also did the same with audio. However, this did give us an idea for the sound effects we can use in the future; the tapping of Billie's nails against the table could be used effectively as Foley sound.

Another thing we are yet to work on is the titles. After looking at different fonts and learning whilst we created the prelim, we decided that using a typewriter font could look effective. We also like the idea of incorporating typewriter sounds also. We started experimenting with possible positioning's of the text, however we couldn't complete it as we were yet to add all the footage. This, I feel, we could improve on. However, I did like the contrast of the white against the dark imagery that we'd filmed.

We wanted to draw the audience in to our thriller, and so we tried to make it intriguing and suspenseful without jumping into the whole plot. We did this through the use of extreme close ups instead of revealing the whole character, as I think it leaves the audience asking questions. However, I think what we need to improve in order for this to become more interesting is that we need to have an opening shot that will make more of an impact because, although the shot we have at the moment is an introduction to the chessboard, it doesn't do much to draw in the audience.

Overall, despite there being lots for us to work on, we have a good basis of what we want to do next.

Difficulties in filming

All of the shots that we filmed of the chessboard were filmed in a small interview room in our college. This had some advantages and disadvantages.

ADVANTAGES:

- Easily accessible, which was convenient for when we needed to re-shoot certain shots and also carrying the equipment.

- It was quiet which meant that we didn't have to worry about background noise when filming.

- There were no windows so, we were able to have almost a complete black out aside from the lighting that we wanted.

DISADVANTAGES:

- The room that we used was extremely small which limited our creative freedom. Also, four of us in a room with equipment and lights often made things difficult, space wise.

- Because the room was painted plain white, in order to create effective mis en scene, we had to create an eery setting more ourselves.

Evaluation of my Prelim

When shooting my prelim there was only one other person in my group. We made a storyboard together and came up with a script which both fitted together. We decided that where camerawork was concerned, we wanted to build it. To do this we used close up shots put together in which revealed the ending where she is walking into a room. We used close ups of feet, face and a swinging hand. Between these shots we also put in a cross cut to the girl waiting in the room.

Whilst shooting, we decided to get all close ups at once, then move on to shooting the conversation and then we finally filmed all the pieces which glued it together. This helped us organise our time and the amount of work needing to be done, we did not want to get down to editing and find out we needed more footage, luckily we did not have to.

Where editing was concerned, we decided to turn it black and white, in my opinion this added to the video as a whole. Whilst editing we wanted to have a simple title opening. We went through a few "sample texts" but felt that the scrolling txt fitted best with our short video. We also did not add any colour to this title opening. We wanted it to fit well with the video so we felt it was best to stick with plain black and white. 

The main problem we had whilst filming the prelim was lighting. We filmed a few shots but realised the lighting was letting it down. We then took out a dedo light which helped incredibly. 

As we only had two members in or group, we needed to film the script all as over the shoulder shots, we done this by filming one person saying all their lines then the other person, we then edited it so that it gave the idea of a conversation. Considering we could not get a two shot to show the conversation, I think the shots do reveal what is happening.

Things we learned whilst doing this prelim, is that planing ahead is essential. The storyboard helped us save time and not miss any key elements we needed. Another rule we learnt is that you need to work together to get a successful piece of work. Me and Cindy worked together throughout the storyboard, script, filming and editing.

Overall, I think that the prelim gave us a good rough idea on how to film well and how to be well organised. It was also a good practice run to give us a good idea of what problems and etc to expect through making our opening.

Evaluation of Rough Cut

The first issue that arose was the length of the rough cut. It was only 1 minute long and in our plan we had hoped to have it around double this. Although we are concerned about this, we still have film which was not added and will be soon.

The shots we have so far however,I feel were effective and well edited. Although we are going to re-do the credits as we felt they needed to be in for longer and at different points, the way we plan on putting them in after this will be much more effective. As you can see, the rough cut at this point looks very unedited with lots of pauses but we plan on using these pauses to include some more opening credits. We also decided to put our own names in the credits.

As you can tell from the rough cut, we have yet to add the foley sound. Obviously, we plan on removing the current noises of the filming process we have on it. The story line at this point is shown as very broad and not quite clear but we plan on changes the places of some of these shots to try and make it a bit more clearer to the spectator what the story line.

I think the weakest point of our opening so far is the long pauses between each shot, which does not allow the opening to flow. We will be modifying the credits and adding in some more to create a more thriller feel.

Overall, i would say that although the rough cut at the moment is too short and needs further work on sound and editing, i feel this is a good basis to grow from.

My Prelim

Rough Cut of Opening

This is the rough cut of our final opening. We still need to fix up our titles and sound. 

My Prelim Storyboard

Storyboard 1

Storyboard 2


Here are the storyboards Me and Cindy used to organise our prelim filming.

My Prelim Script

This is a copy of the script we plan on using in our prelim video.

FILMING.

PROPS

This is the real book we are going to use in our final opening.

Filming Pictures!

Checkmate Filming

We took some pictures during our first filming session to show some effects we hoped to achieve:

The chess pieces on our board.

We wanted to create a shadow of the pieces for good Mise-En-Scene.

This picture shows us creating the shadow with an artificial light

The end result.

As we wanted to create more mystery, we decided to use an artificial light in the dark to create shadows. We found this worked well and we will be using these shots in our final cut.

We took this picture to show the difference between using the artificial light and having the normal room light. As you can see, our end result was much more effective for the audience.

Props

The chess board that we plan on using:

Similar to the chess board used in X-Men, one of the films in which we drew inspiration from, we thought that choosing a glass chess board rather than a plastic one would add more to the creepy atmosphere that we wish to create.

Filming Location - Interview room

This is the room where most of our filming will take place. All the chess shots will be taken in here as well as the close ups of the killers eyes, mouth, hand and feet and the book. 

Location for filming

Here are some pictures of the location we filmed the walking shots in. We chose it because it was easily accessible and a fairly quiet area plus it had the right mise en scene. 

Woman In Black Review

We saw the film 'The Woman In Black', a supernatural thriller, and it gave us lots of inspiration for the creation of our own film.


The film was highly suspenseful and, as audience members, it kept us drawn in all the way throughout. One of the ways it did this was through it's use of music and sound effects. Throughout the darker times in the film, contrast was created with creepy lullabies that contradicted the visual effects . Also, another technique that we saw that we think would be effective to use in our own film, was the use of silence in moments of tension. It was very unsettling as it left the audience on the edge of their seat.


The film also used mise en scene very well; the film was set on dark, dreary moors and all of the scary moments were dark, dreary and colorless. This was something else that we think we could adapt to our film; the use of colour to add to the mood.

Adjustments to final idea.

When discussing our final idea in depth we came up with something extra to add which we thought would be more effective and make our opening look more interesting. When filming the movement of each chess piece, we will add cross cuts to the character who was initially going to be murdered at the end and show that with each movement of the specific pieces, they are one step closer to death.  

For EXAMPLE: a shot of a pawn piece moving will cross cut to the victim walking down the road, another cross cut will then go back to the chess board and show another movement which then cross cuts back to the victim and shows someone following them. 

180 Degree Rule

The 180 degree rule is a well known and important rule used when filming sequences to keep it clear to the spectator what is happening. The camera has to stay within 180 degrees of where  it has previously filmed. This stops confusion for the spectator when viewing the sequence.

Pitch

Opening Pitch on Prezi

Story Board

This storyboard is the basic outline 

Production Schedule

PROPS.

                                                

This book is an example of a prop we are planning on using. An old style book that explains the reasons for each death. 

Film's for Inspiration

As we have decided on our pitch and came up with the storyline, we have decided to look into films using chess for inspiration on shot types Mise en Scene etc.


                                                         THE SEVENTH SEAL

This screen shot is from the film The Seventh Seal where death plays a game of chess with a knight. We like the Mise en Scene here, having it in black and white really adds to the film giving it a thriller type feel. 

HARRY POTTER

This is a screenshot from the first Harry Potter film. The board here is well thought out and we thought the sounds used in this scene are very affective. When the pieces are getting moved forward, the sound that goes with it is quite chilling for the spectator.

X-MEN 

This is the chess scene from X-men. They are both wearing black and white which also have a hidden meaning as well as the board. Although in our sequence we will only be using one player, playing with himself. We are doing this because we want the killer to be more Psychologically disturbed.

DRAG ME TO HELL


We looked at the scene as we wanted a hand to be tapping the fingers we think it build suspense very well. We found the scene and whist looking at the sound we decided that the hand was creepy looking so the Mise en Scene here is used well with sound.

Evaluation of Prelim

The assigned brief of our prelim was to shoot a short sequence where a character enters a room, sits down at a desk and exchanges a few lines of dialogue with another character. In ours, we tried to make this as suspenseful as possible by focusing on the 'idea of the unknown' by not showing Emily's (who played the character entering the room) face. We did this through a close ups of her feet as she walked and shooting her from behind but not actually revealing to the audience who she was.

 We experimented with this, first by keeping the camera still and having Emily walk towards it, then afterwards putting the camera on a chair and pulling it along.I thought our attempt at this were fairly effective because it created a variety of outcomes, all the while still making Emily's character quite mysterious to the audience which was what we intended. However, the shots of just her body but not her face were not quite as successful because it didn't exaggerate the 'anonymous' feeling that we aimed for. It could have been more effective, possibly, if we focused more on extreme close ups of her instead of revealing her full body (for example, close ups of her hands or part of her clothing.)

For the sound, we tried to choose something eery to go alongside the camera work. I think this worked mostly because it was quite simple and created a creepy or mysterious atmosphere. We used folley sound to emphasize the sound of the slamming door. Although we matched the timing as best as we could, it would have been more effective had we recorded our own slam instead of using a pre-made one because this way the timing would have been more accurate. Towards the end, as Emily and Denise's character finally come face to face, we tried to create suspense by fading out the music and just leaving the sound of a thudding heartbeat. This wasn't too successful, however, as the sound of the heartbeat was too quiet in comparison to the music beforehand and it gives the impression that the music finishes too suddenly.

We tried to keep the credits fairly simple so that it wasn't too much of a distraction to the work. Also, it was difficult to find the positioning of the text where it could remain fairly visable as we used a variety of shots that we kept switching between. Generally, I think our credits could have been improved because there is risk of them being too unnoticeable to the audience either because of the colour we picked (white) or because the font was too small. However, I liked the outcome of our title because we made it flicker and disappear simultaneously with the slam of the door. To improve the title, I think a bolder font would have engaged the audience more.

Overall, I think we did a good job despite there being room for improvement, our experimentation allowed us to learn what was and what wasn't effective both camera, sound and editing wise.

Initial Ideas For Our Group's Opening

Denise's Ideas:

The first idea I came up with was a chess board. This is because the idea came to me when I was watching Hollyoaks as one of the storyline was of a killer that played mind games with his victims and that would leave chess pieces. I wanted to base the opening on the chess board this is because even though the chess board is very simple, there is a lot of details to it. It has the two colours which is white and black which can stand for light and dark, good and evil. Which is like a oxymoron as it is two opposites put together. Another reason why I came up with this idea it that because a chess board has 6 different pieces and even though people would naturally think that the king and queen are the most important pieces. They are not, this is because all the piece help capture another piece from the opponent or help defend their own pieces. So the idea of defence and kidnapping came into mind.


My second idea was more based on sound rather than a prop. It was the breath of a person. For example some ones breathing pace can mean many things. If you are breathing at a fast pace this can mean the person is in a hurry. In my head I imagined having the screen out of focus most of the time while some one was breathing at different pace. I thought this would keep the audience hooked because as they have no idea what was happening in the beginning of the film. So it would be a cliff hanger 


Emily's Ideas: 
My idea links to the chess idea. Each piece represents one of the "seven deadly sins". However, because there are only 6 different chess pieces, i'll get rid of one sin (gluttony) so there is an even amount. The six deadly sins that i'll keep are: wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, and envy and they will be symbolised through the King, the Queen, the Bishop, the Knight, the Rook and the pawns. 


The way that i will show how each sin is represented through specific chess pieces is through a book (prop). I think that getting an old, vintage styled book and having drawings of each chess piece with the corresponding sin next to it would look really effective and be an easy way to show the viewer and help them understand what exactly is happening.


My final idea also has a connection to the chess pieces but is more about sound. I thought of adding foley sound when each chess piece is being moved to add emphasis and exaggeration. I want the sound to be a hard scraping noise as it will help to make each movement more dramatic.

Nevin's Ideas:
One Idea I had, which was inspired from the opening of Citizen Kane (1941) was that we could incorporate the use of extreme close ups, shadows or reflections to add a sense of mystery. In Citizen Kane, Orson Welles flicks from a close up of the snow globe to an extreme closeup on a man's lips whispering "rosebud". Then a nurse enters but we only see her in the reflection of the snow globe. I think it would be an effective way of adding intrigue and mystery.

Another extremely effective opening I saw was in Lord Of War which showed the life of a bullet using POV shots from the bullet. We followed it being made right up until when it is shot until someone's head.

Although the use of camera angling and effects are extremely sophisticated, it gave me the idea that was could incorporate the same sort of technique. Instead of revealing the subject, we could just show it's journey through a series of POV shots.

Billie's Ideas:
Idea 1:  Clocks/Time


I like the idea of time for an idea. I think this idea has potential for great mise en scene, sound and editing mostly, although camerawork could also be used effectively to create this powerful opening.
I found some pictures that show my idea of mise en scene for this idea:

I like this picture because it shows great mise en scene and also good camerawork that could be used. I think the sound that would work with this would be silence, follwed by the ticking of the clock hand.

This then together would build a great atmosphere for a thriller opening. Some shots would include :

•     A close up to the time (shown left)       
•     Footsteps, getting faster, maybe a mid shot or close up here,
•   A hand reaching into the pocket and pulling out a pocket watch.

Aswell, the ticking of the clock could get faster paced throughout which give a great vibe or urgency. Different shots of different clocks would build where the sound of ticking over laps.
Obviously there will not only be clocks in shot, a person would continue to be shown throughout. The fingers reaching into the pocket, a walk breaking into a run, a close up to the eyes i think also would be a greatkey element to use. This would also relate to intertexuality as close ups to eyes are used frequetly in films. I found a really good example of this in the film  Fernand Léger. Not only is this a close up to the eyes, but it is used in a very creepy manner. The eyes are tired and have black all around them. So i think using elements from films like this would be a good way to go.

A shot idea: edited together with time to create tension, someone walking.

Idea 2:  Chess

 

When our group was talking about initial ideas for the opening, we came up with some things that in our opinion we thought would be good to use. These ideas came from talking about what we found quite chilling to watch in films, and ideas around objects we have etc. One idea we found that we kept referring to was a chess board. The simpleness of good and evil, shown in black and white on the board. The pieces on the board will work well with Mise en Scene and Camerawork, but also there is some ideas that would work well with Sound and Editing. For example, when a chess piece is placed onto a new square, the noise can be hightened and made to sound more dramatic for a good effect.

The chess board we thought also symbolises many things. I think this could reallt work well, we had some other idea's around chess which would also come together to create a great opening. For example, we want blood to drip onto the chess board or onto a piece, we also was thinking about another students work we looked at. In this video a murderer always left a piece of arogamie by a murder scene to show it was him. We discussed doing something similar here with a chess piece.

Prelim Evaluation

For our prelim exercise, we were asked to follow a brief with the description being "a character walks into a room, sits down opposite another character and they share a few lines of dialogue". This task was quite interesting as it enabled every one to interpret the brief in their own way. In my group, the first thing we did was discuss and draw out a story board which we then converted into an animatic to upload on the blog.

When we started filming, we came up with additional ideas that were different to the ones we had discussed earlier and put down on our storyboards. If we would have stuck to our intial ideas our final outcome would have been a bit different but we decided that the re-thought version looked better. 

The first thing that was filmed was me (main character) walking down the corridor, but only from the waist down. For our first attempt at this, we had the camera stood still on the tripod and it filmed as i walked by. We were then given the idea of sitting on a wheely chair and carrying the camera so it moved along from in front as the character was walking towards it, this was a much more effective way of capturing the movement and the footage from using this technique was then chosen as part of our final outcome. We took various angled/height shots of me for the opening of the prelim as we thought it would make it look more interesting and also extended that part to help us make up the right time (approximately 40 seconds). Some background music was added in this bit to add some suspense to my walking aswell.

After the filming of this part of the prelim was done we moved on to filming the main character walking through the door of the room she was about to meet the other person in. For this, we used normal mid shots as i walked upto the door and then a close up and match cut as i opened it. When i was in through the other side, we added foley sound to emphasise the closing of the door.

As the main character takes a few steps towards the table, a mid shot is still being used and the face/head is purposely not shown (to add mystery; this was one of our initial ideas). The other character is then shown for the first time and we had to edit (slow down) the speed of the shots of her because they were too fast, as she was watching the first character enter the door and come closer.

When the first character sits down at the table, her face/head are still deliberately not shown. At this point, we were supposed to include some sort of dialogue but we ran out of time and didnt have the chance to go back to it in the following lesson as we had to move on to our editing, however, we were only 3 seconds out of the suggested 40 seconds.

Evaluation of Prelim

For our Preliminary we was given a brief, which was to film a sequence that included a match cut, shot reverse shot and to show that we understood the 180 degree rule. We was given the outline of everything we had to do. We was given one line "a character walks into a room, sits down opposite another character and they share a few lines of dialogue" to tell us what the prelim must consist of.


We planned our prelim first, we drew out the storyboard and came up with many ideas to make the scene more of a thriller. After we drew out the storyboard we made an animatic of it and started to film.


We filmed Emily, the main person in the scene walking into the room. When filming, we got many different shots of below her waist, we even had a tracking shot. This was done by me siting on a wheely chair and getting pushed by Nevin while Emily walked. It was difficult to do this shot as it was hard to keep the camera steady as well as control the chair. We then took various shots of Emily opening the door and entering the room. As a group we could have done many more close ups to make the prelim have more suspense.


After filming we started to edit the Prelim, we put together the clips and then added credits. The credits were fairly simple which could have been improved. This is because when adding the credits it was difficult to find the right place to put text due to the background. However we still made a good job of it. For sound, we chose something that would of held the suspense like our camera shots. The sound that was consistant through the prelim was right for the prelim because it created an eerie feeling that fitted in with out idea. We decided to emphasize the sound of the door closing by using foley sound. It was difficult to find the right sound, however when we found one it matched well for timing but the actual sound of the door was different. We could have done better to emphasize the sound by making out own rather than using a pre made one. At the end of the prelim we chose to use a faint heartbeat, as Emily and myself finally came face to face. This could have worked better if the heartbeat was a bit louder. As the music ended a bit early to allow the audience to hear the heartbeat but because it was too faint/quiet it made out as if the music ended dramatically. So the heartbeat was not as successful as well thought.


Overall the prelim gave us and idea of how it would be when creating our actual opening and the process of it.

Prelim - The Messenger

Prelim editing

Extra Foley Sound Work.

In films, sound is always under-estimated and usually left until the last minute. Sound is still one of the key eliments to making a thriller movie powerful. So I was lookied into Foley sound and tried to find some of the best ways to create noises for films. I found some great tips and thought i would share. One of the best tips i got was when creating the sound, it helps a lot if you put your finished video onto an ipod first so that whilst you are creating the noise you can create it in perfect time, this makes the sound more lifelike.

• Use foley sound to enhance the movie effect. Don't just throw in loads of sounds ontop of eachother for the sake of it. This will make the movie seem ametuer and it will not work well.

• Get the easy sounds first. During and after filming, start to think about the types of sound you will need. After filming try and create most of the noises there and then so that it becomes more accurate. For example, if you are shooting outside, then come back another time to re create the sound other elements may have changed. It may have been raining when you filmed, therefore recording the sound while you are there would be the most sensible option.

• Capture the more complex and creative sounds in the studio. For example, bones breaking, you could snap celery sticks.

The most obvious movie which use a huge amount of foley sounds is cartoon movies such as toy story and i found a very interesting video of the foley sound used in Toy Story so check it out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVUgsMRvOeI&feature=related

Prelim Filming

When filming for the Preliminary Clip, we tried to do a tracking shot of the subject which was the feet walking slowly forward. So the person holding the camera sat on the chair so that she could be pulled along once the subject started to move. The difficult thing about this was trying to keep the camera steady.

Storyboard For Preliminary Shooting- Animatic

Analysis of Previous Students Work.

I chose to analyse Angeldust. The reason i chose to analyse this particular previous student work is because its different to the types of fillms ive looked at already therefore i might be able to get some more inspiration by looking at something i havent seen before.

I like the use of a bright production company logo as it is bright and the first thing the audience sees therefore it catches attention straight away.

i like the way that the group personalised the opening by including things like "facespace", i also think this is good because of the target audience, which im guessing is young adults, as they can relate to these social networking sites. Another way they made it personal is by filming the main character through a webcam. This way, she is speaking directly to the audience. I thought this was a really creative and effective way to capture the story.

Because the opening is filmed through a webcam, the use of camera is quite continuous which is good in this case because it stays relevant to the theme.

The use of additional graphics as the transitions from one shot to another was something i thought was really effective. It was a more interesting way of switching shots rather than the usual fading to black that i have seen before.

Lastly, i found the use of sound really effective. As the continous theme of the opening was a sort of bedroom use of the laptop, the additional artificial sound to emphasise the tapping of the keyboard buttons and the messages coming onto the screen letter by letter was really interesting and inspiring for my own future work.