Changes in light of feedback from Rough Cut

After creating our Rough Cut edit, it was vital we got feedback on how to improve it, because of course; any film in the making goes through a number of rough cut edits. After Mickey and Donna viewed it as well as some of our peers some points that were made is that the titles appeared and went too soon, so that was lengthened. A significant point was that our piece came to be just over 2:35 seconds, although this was okay, our title seemed to drag on, as well as considering the fact that we still had the ten second voicemail to import into our film. We had to make some major cuts on the edit. A majority of shots were of low use, such as the close up of Sarah strapping her shoe, as well as cutting the pan across the room (enough so the scene was well established). Such cuts did in fact make this scene look better as it looked more fast paced when it moved from Sarah putting on one shoe to putting on her jacket and exiting. A shot of Sarah and David was not level and looked uncomfortable do we took that out, and again everything seemed more fast paced so that every shot included some action which interested the audience rather than lenghty unnecessary shots. The slow pans across the room were taken out and some shots were slowed down in pace as well as sped up to add effect when she is drinking and quickly cut to the main part of the film. Another vital shot slowed down was when David closes the door in the final shot; it has a stronger impact on the audience to the events which have just taken place. Our final piece was 02:24sec.

Skills Audit: Creation Of Titles

I created my titles on Livetype. The series of titles that i created all included false names, these were so it seemed more realistic as well as showing that the same person didnt direct it as edited it. The first title said 'Candi in association with..' and we chose Studio Canal as our production company therefore used their logo below it. The next was a rather simple title of 'a city and islington production'. The titles i used for the actual thriller, were all a Livetype font called 'Charge'. This had an electrfying emotion to and complimented out thriller genre. The first name that showed was 'Gemma Murphy' a false name given to Sarah as she is starring init, this was in red, and placed in the shot where she is applying lipgloss. I assured that all the titles were on for atleast three seconds so it gave the audience enough time to read. The next title was the same just in blue, and was placed in the shot of the sky panning down. It is important to show titles in shots that are not of such importance, for.e.g i would not show any titles where Sarah was drinking as that was a vital part of the film and we cannot risk any distractions. The next 5 or so series of titles, were grey font to diffrentiate them from the actors titles, it said 'Written by... Directed by..' etc. It would appear as such;
Music by
Bernard Lowe
These were placed in a equal amount of timed spacing and i made sure that they appeared for a few seconds, so it wasnt too fast. When importing them into Final Cut, i had to render it as a movie and then import it to Final Cut. From there i can just drag as i would do a video. But I had to render it by pressing 'cmd' and 'r' on several occasions.
Finally the official title of the film was also in livetype font, Charge. It was big and bold, on a black bacground and appears for a total of 11seconds, whilst the voicemail plays over it.

Skills Audit: Creating Of Soundtrack

The creation of the sountrack took 1day. I seperated the music into segments on Soundtrack Pro;
1* Sarah gettin ready
2* Sarah coming to Davids
3* Sarah drinking
4* Both of them going upstairs
5* The Title
After experimenting with various sounds, to create a sinister and tension filled sountrack.

1* As Sarah gets dressed an electric melodic piano plays, this suits the atmosphere i attempt to create of it being casual and normal. A 'ticking sound plays in the background, complimenting the fast appearing shots.

2*As soon as the camera pans from the Sky the tense music begins, here it is a moderate volume, as she enters it gets louder and the ticking sound comes in once again, the tense music increases in volume up until David comes back to the living room.

3*When Sarah drinks it the tense violin quiets down, and it is only the ticking sound playing as she drinks it, again highlighting its importance.

4*The tense music gets louder the closer they get upstairs.

5*The title appears with a big drum noise, an answering machine beep that i found on Soundtrack pro was used.

The voicemail was edited on Final Cut pro using it audio features, i edited it as if it was a video clip. The sountrack was then imported on to Final Cut Pro, as a Submix.

Skills Audit: Editing

Whilst creating the Rough Cut, i organised shots into individual folders and gave them unique names so i would be familiar when transferring them into Final Cut Pro. Here I began by dragging them in sector by sector, using the various shots to create the effects i wanted for e.g Sarahs intro, fast short shots, showed her normality and gave the film speed immediatley. The scene in which Sarah is at Davids, i put in lots of Match cuts. A fade transition was used twice to show a change in time, this was when David pours the drink to when Sarah drinks it and when they are going upstairs. This is to show she has been there for a while before he takes her upstairs. The part where she is in the living room and he is in the kitchen cuts back and forth, it creates anticipation and builds tension. When Sarah drinks, i altered the speed of the cut so that it would slow down showing its significance. Also the last shot where David closes the door is slowed down, to have a stronger impact of tension on the audience. All in all editing took roughly 2days to do.

Skills Audit: Filming

On the 9th of March, we took the cameras out from 9am to 3pm, and completely filmed our entire thriller opening. To begin we brought out our storyboard, whilst attempting to follow it we found there were various extra shots we could include, this was partly because we weren't familiar with surroundings and what was there. Myself and Rosa were the directors and did all of the filming. We filmed chronologically in order of the storyboard. Firstly was the section where Sarah go dressed; I began with getting the close ups of her applying her make-up. This was also followed in order, so nothing seemed misplaced or not sho. This included, lip gloss, mascara, shoes, jacket, bracelet, earrings and bag. I took shots that showed normality as planned, so that later there would be a greater impact on the audience when suspense was built.
The next series of shots were of Sarah at the door, we filmed this at Rosa's house too, but in different bedrooms so it was not obvious. As she approached the door, we took a panning shot from the sky to the house to suggest a change of time. Many match cuts were included her, of her at the door, to her pressing the door bell. When David goes to open the door, I took a shot that was a point of view shot as well as normal mid shot, this went well together. As they entered the living room, Rosa took a shot of Sarah sitting on the sofa, a long mid shot, this suggest she is somewhat of a prey, and the shots of David in the kitchen, will suggest he is the predator. Whilst Davids in the kitchen we took several shots of him taking out the glasses, to show it significance. I took a panning shot of him entering the kitchen, assuring he was in the frame at all times. A close up of him putting the glasses down was vital to highlight its importance.
The next scene was the most significant part of our Thriller opening, it was of Sarah drinking the drugged Vodka. We included, point of view shots from David to show he is watching her as she drinks it. A close up of the bottom of the glass following her as she drinks as well as a mid shot to show clearly the whole picture, this all in all should create a sinister and suspenseful effect. We plan to use slow pacing here to contribute to this effect.
They both then go upstairs, here i took a close up of him holding her hand as he lifts her up. When they go upstairs, many match cuts were taken. A close up of their feet, an aerial shot, and a shot where they walk up to the frame. The final shot was of David closing the door, here I plan to use slow pace editing as well as using a close up of the door knob as he shuts it, as the last shot ending our opening. It will show entrapment and create suspense for the audience.

Hello group 42

Hi

As you can see, I've managed to upload the animatic, rough cut and the match-cut for Tania and Sarah. I've failed in my attempt to get the pitch up - I need the original powerpoint file to convert again. Please can you either email it to me, if it isn't too big, or bring it to class on a memory stick? ta

Match cut - Tania & Sarah

Pitch

We were unable to put up the powerpoint of our Pitch, however it is much clearer in the video. Our pitch went considerably well, Sarah and Rosa came up with the brief idea, and we all elaborated on it. Our working title for now was 'the drink' however this was a cliche and obvious title, our final title became 'taken'. We explained our plans for filming and our schedule. We told them the various shots we would use to express the events in the film, i.e. the glass being significant in the film.

Rough Cut

Animatic

Our storyboard was a total of 40+ shots, we made sure we included several match cuts and various shots, consisting of long shots and close ups. Fast paced editing is used at the beginning of the film in the extract where Sarah is getting ready. We show what our panning shots will lead to, for example the long shot of the house. Our storyboard will act as guidance and plan for our filming and shooting day. Obviously some shots may not happen, and our filming may lead to creating other innovative shots where we feel necessary.

Skills Audit:Sound

The music was the hardest part of production in making of our Thriller opening. After experimenting with various sounds our final choice for music is very menacing and mysterious.
The music gets louder, quieter and changes at various parts of the opening to build tension and suspense in the audience. The first sequence has a acoustic melody which has a menacing tone to it. On top of this we put a ticking noise which helps builds suspense.

In the next sequence of we used tense music, the ticking sound but this time we increased the volume. We used this music up until Sarah drinks from the glass. At this point we reduced the volume of the tense music and the only sound that remained was the ticking sound which increases the significance of the shot. Following this the music increase and finally the music cuts and the title appears with a loud drum noise and finally we added the recorded voicemail.

List of sub thriller genres

The following are thriller sub genres that I have looked at:

• Action Thriller Conspiracy Thriller

• Crime Thriller

• Disaster Thriller

• Erotic Thriller

• Legal Thrillers

• Medical Thriller

• Psychological Thriller - this genre is one of my favourite genres, second to Action thrillers. The most recent psychological thriller i have watch is the film 'Shutter island' starring Leonardo DiCaprio. The film is highly rated for its distractions within the film to totally mislead the audience from the truth/expections if the film. It stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a FBI agent who visits a psychiatric hospital on an island alond side his collegue to investigate the case of a missing woman. In the end Leonardo DiCaprio was infact a patient at the Psychiatric hospital and the missing woman was his wife whom he killed. his collegue was also a doctor on an island monitering his mental illness.
  
• Supernatural Thrillers
  
• Action Thriller - This is my favourite thriller genre, lastest film i have watched of this genre that i remember properly is 'Taken' starring Liam Neeson as a former agent going on a suspence quest to find his daughter who was kidnapped whilst on holiday with her friend by Arabian thugs to use them for sex-trading in france. Me and my group liked this film alot and may create our own version to it as our Thriller opeining.

Skills audit: filming and editing preliminary Match Cut exercise

Unfortunately, due to illness, I did not attend the lesson that our group was going to film the originally planned story board in. Therefore i attended a catch up class after college where we re-storyboarded the short film. When storyboarding we were careful to include possible shots for match cuts and avoid breaking the 180 degree rule.

The first shot was a long shot of our actor, Moe, walking down the corridor. After looking at the final piece I think improve this shot and make it a more interesting piece of film we could have shot cutaways of closeups on his feet however we didn't have enough time to do this. The next shot was where we choose to use a match cut. To do with this we panned the end of the first shot as Moe
opened the door one side and then shot a upper body shot of Moe opening the door from the other side.

We then filmed an over the sholder shot of Moe walking towards our Actress to introduce more of a varitey of shots. However this did not entirely work because as Moe sits down the girls head hides his face. Next time when filming we must be more careful and pay alot of attention to continuity. The piece of film finishes with a shot reverse shot which should have been at eye level because we filmed it too high giving the wrong effect we were trying to achive.

To edit the clip we used final cut pro which was good practice for our thriller opening espcially when doing match cuts. We also got to practice putting the camera on the tripod and taking off.

Skills Audit: filming

We started filming on the 9th of March. Me, Tania and Sarah travelled to Rosa's house which was the location for our thriller opening. The first shot we took was a establishing shot of Sarah. We choose to use a pan for this to ensure we used intresting shots from the start of our opening to keep the audience engaged. We then went on to film a collection of different shots, ranging from close ups, to over the shoulder shots and extreme closeups, of Sarah getting ready to leave the house.

The first shot of the house is a pan from the sky to the house. This establishes the suburben setting for the audience as Sarah arrives at Davids house. I was then directed to open the door whilst Tania took a close up of me approaching the door from the other side. The glass on the door had a bumpy surface which showed my shadowy figure but not clear features. This makes the audience stereotype me as mysterious from the start.

Following this we shot my character showing Sarah into the living room and me going to fetch the drink as Sarah waits. We did this using a variety of shots to keep the audience interested and to build suspense.

The next scene was of my character giving Sarah the drink. We shot a birds eye view of me and Sarah drinking which allows the audience to look down on the situation. The next shot is of the bottom of Sarah's drinking glass as she drinks. This shot makes Sarah look venerable and creates tension as we know her destiny. The next shot was a close up of me taking Sarah's hand which showed an intimate moment between us.

The final shots of us going up stairs were various close ups and a birds eye shot. The final shot was a close up on the door handle as it flew towards the camera. This gave an ending to the opening leaving the audience searching for answers, encouraging them to watch the rest of the movie.

Intro to cameras & health and safety Tutorial

In class we were shown how to use the cameras for safety reasons. We were tought the basic skills of how to work and take care of the cameras.

The basic skills we were shown are of the following:

1. how to put the tripod up and how to collapse it.
2. how to view footage we have shot on the camera
3. how to open and close the camera shutter
4. how to fix the camera onto the tripod
5. how to put the memory card and battery in the camerahow to put the tripod up and how to collapse it.
6. how to view footage we have shot on the camera
7. how to open and close the camera shutter
8. how to fix the camera onto the tripod
9. how to put the memory card and battery in the camera

We were also shown how to focus and given varies advice such as:

dialogue is also not recommended because the equipment isn't good enough quality for good quality sound.

filming in the dark is not recommended because the picture quality isn't good.

Events diary blog

In the news there are often stories that can be elaborated and changed to make into a thriller movie.

In the news at the moment I found stories which i could get ideas from to come up with an idea for my own thriller opening:

Alain Hegarty aged 62 from Burnham-on-sea, somerset, was convicted and jailed for sexually abusing a girl under the age of 13 in 2005. He was re called to jail after victim's family were concerned that Hegarty had contacted children using the social networking sight, 'Facebook'. Police now work with 'Facebook' to tackle pedophilia by known sex predators.

Another story is the appearance of remains found in a church in Potenza which are thought to be of Elisa Claps, aged 16, who has been missing since 1993. Police have been investigating a link between her and Heather Barnett who was found mutilated in her home in 2002. She has been accused of having the young girls belongings in her household. DNA tests are being carried out to determine whether they belong to the young girl.

Skills audit: filming and editing preliminary Match Cut exercise

Our Preliminary Match Cut exercise did not follow to plan as on the date only two members including myself were in. Therefore much of what was prepared in the storyboard did not follow accurately. Whilst i filmed Sarah acting her part, she then filmed my scene, the tripod was included when both of us were to be included in the shots. Whilst filming, we paid much attention to including many match cuts as well as not breaking the 180 degree rule, as required of the task. I took various shots of Sarah as she approach the door, her feet walking towards the camera, as well as a long shot from down the corridor. I also used the tripod dolly, to follow her from behind, as well as one that showed her walking past the camera from the inner classrooms areas of the corridor. A close up was integrated when Sarah pushed the door handle, and a match cut followed from inside of the room of her entering. It was here we both agreed to implement our 180 degree rule, where Sarah would be followed by the camera by panning, from one end of the room to the other, where i would be standing waiting to greet her. This shot was successful. Here we used out editing skills to cut the camera when it just pans to the area where i should be standing, by doing this Sarah can film me awaiting there, trimming and cutting in Final Cut Pro made this part seem simultaneous and accurate. For practice we placed the camera on the tripod, whilst we included some over the shoulder shots of myself and Sarah conversating. A shot reverse shot was used here through editing, whilst she filmed me making talk, and i then went on to video her speech. To achieve and eye level shot of us as we were sitting down, we place the camera on the table, and walked to the shot, clearly cutting this part out when it came to out final Match Cut edit.

Skills audit:filming and editing preliminary match cut excersise

Live type

For our thriller movie opening we will require titles. In class we were shown a demostration of how to make these titles using live type. During this demonstation we were instructed to type our name and then were shown how to change the colour, the size and the background design. Following this we where then shown how to add motion to the titles. It is important for us to have titles in our thriller opening to make it seem more realistic.

Sound

We were then shown how to use sound track. In this demonstration the teacher showed us how to select different beats and instruments, buy dragging them onto the timeline we made an extract of a intrumental. This is important to our thriller opening because due to copy right issues we can not use songs that are of ownership.

Planning preliminary match cut excercise including storyboard

In class we where given a synopsis to a short film:
"East London. 3pm. A man chain-smokes as he sits at his home PC. He copies confidential computer files and plans to a CD. He packages them and is seen posting them."

With this synopsis we had to predict the twenty shots that were shot to make the film. To do this we were given a sheet consisting of twenty collums, which we used to predict our shots. After we where then shown the film and asked to compare the shots with our own predictions. A few of my prediction were right such as an extreme close-up of the man tolking on the cigerette, also another shot of a match cut dabbing his cigerrete out on the ashtray.

Next we were told to create a story board for a short scene witht he synopsis:

"a character opens a door, walks into a room, sits opposite another character and they share a few lines of dialogue". For our scene in our group we decided to use various shots such as, the subject's feet walking towards the camera at at a low angle, concealing their face to create suspension in the audience. The match cut would be of the door as it was opended by a hand on one side of the door and opended on the subjects face in the next shot.

Technical audit of bait tutorial

In class we were taught bait editing, to edit footage using 'final cut pro'. We were given differentiation of shots to edit.

These are some of the keys we used and what they did:

'I' - this was used to cut the shot down to where you want it to start

'0' - this is used to cut the shot down to where you want it to finish

'Alt' - when you click on a gap between two footage cuts and hold the alt button down it gets rid of the gap.

To cut down rushes you press 'o' and 'I'. You then drag the cuts down in what ever order u plea, onto the timeline. Doing this it simplyfies match cuts, therefore making it easy to create aswel as efficient. If the cuts changes you can drag the original cut to create a gap in the timeline where you insert the new cuts in the existing gaps. If you have two clips and you want to put a clip in between them you use the insert edit, yellow, button by lining the yellow line on the timeline up in the place you want to insert it and then clicking the button. The razor blade tool on the right side of the screen is used to cut footage cuts down. Music can also be dragged onto the shot from the computer, if mp3's are used for sound tracks they must be changed, meaning altering their format in advance for better quality. There are many different effects you can apply to the footages for example 'dissolve' which is done by pressing 'command' and 'T' when the line is at its prefered place on the clip. We were also advised to save our work to the group hard drive so we dont loose or over write our work.

Skills Audit: Livetype and Sound

LIVE TYPE

In the beginning of our thriller we have been instructed to include a title sequence. To make these titles we were shown how to use a programme called Livetype. The programme makes the task of making titles easy by giving a library of pre-animated effects and visuals that can be quickly and easily modified to suit easch individuals visual tastes. In the introduction of the programme we were shown how to choose a font type, font size, font colour and a background with its individual motions and colours. On these titles we can then apply various effects such as shadows and smoke to provoke different feelings within the audience. The titles can then be cut to the right length of time and placed on a timeline where we can ensure our titles appear where we want on our thriller openings.

SOUND

It is a requirement that we must use our own music that we have made to accompany our thrillers. This is due to copyright that some music may be protected by. Music is going to be key within our openings to create atomosphere and suspence; music to suit the genre. To help us with making our music we were given a introduction to Soundtrack Pro. We were shown how to open different folders to open different instruments and sounds, how to drag them individually to the timeline building up each beat and intrument to make a song and how we could also choose the length of time each beat/ instrument played depending on what sound we wanted. Once we had created a song we could increase and decrease the volume using the volume tab this could be used to build suspense by gradually increasing sound.

Match cut prelim rosa & david

Planning Preliminary Match Cut Exercise Including Storyboarding

For this exercise we were given a synopsis of the opening to a film and then had to predict the shots that would be used.

The synopsis was:

"East London. 3pm. A man chain-smokes as he sits at his home PC. He copies confidential computer files and plans to a CD. He packages them and is seen posting them."

We were then given a sheet which had a grid with 20 rows. The instruction we were given was to fill the grid with our predictions of what shot types were used, where they were used and what happened in each shot. Following this we watched the clip and compared our predictions to what actually happened. About half of my predictions were right such as; a close up on the subjects mouth when he was inhaling the cigarette. These shots made us start to give some thought of the kind of shots we could use in our openings, what looks effective and keeps the audience interested.

We were next asked to create a storyboard to show what we had learnt in class. In this scene we were told to include to show how well we had understood the 180 degree rule, a match cut and a shot reverse shot.

The synopsis we were given for this scene was:

"a character opens a door, walks into a room, sits opposite another character and they share a few lines of dialogue"

For our scene we decided to shoot the subject's feet walking towards the camera, concealing their face to create suspension in the audience. The match cut would be of the door as it was opended by a hand on wone sidd of the door and opended on the subjects face in the next shot and our shot reverse show would be the two subjects conversation.

Intro to cameras & health and safety Tutorial

In this session we were shown the basic skills on how to use the cameras most effectively and safely. The basic skills we were shown were things such as:

• how to put the tripod up and how to collapse it.
• how to view footage we have shot on the camera
• how to open and close the camera shutter
• how to fix the camera onto the tripod
• how to put the memory card and battery in the camera

We also did a small exercise which taught us how to focus and listened to a short speech on the do's and dont's when filming such as

• filming in the dark is not recommended because the picture quality isn't good
• dialogue is also not recommended because the equipment isn't good enough quality for good quality sound

photo 'word's' activitiy

This photo is meant to evoke the feeling happiness. The colours of the bushes and grass are bright giving the photo a fresh feeling to it. The light is bright and warming. The subjects face is full of emotion and it almost highlighted by the natural light that falls on her face. The angle the photo is taken at suggests it has been taken in the moment giving it a snap shot feel.

The feeling this photo is meant to evoke is depressed. The subject is dressed in black which has connotations of depression, sadness and mourning. He doesn't show his face suggests that he does not want to show his true expressions to the camera. The way he holds himself makes him look downhearted and his clasped hands suggest he wants to block people from getting to him. The photo is shot at a slightly high angle looking down on the subject making him look small and insecure. His surroundings look desolate and empty making him look alone.

This photo represents the word's 'city'. The tall buildings, iconic red buses, road works, congestion and advertising billboards create a metropolitan scene. All these things create a busy, restless envioroment which reflects the feeling of the area we took the shot in. The low angel shot we used to take the shot enabled alot to be in the photo making it more realsitic.

List of thriller sub genres

Here are just some of the thriller sub genres that I looked at:

• Action Thriller
• Conspiracy Thriller
• Crime Thriller
• Disaster Thriller
• Erotic Thriller
• Legal Thrillers
• Medical Thriller
• Psychological Thrillers- Psycological thrillers are the sub genres that inspire me most right now. I feel this is the most I know about and could work with in my own thriller opening. I recently watched a good thriller called 'A perfect getaway' in which two pairs of lovers on a Hawaiian vacation discover that psychopaths are stalking and murdering tourists on the islands.
• Political Thriller
• Religious Thriller- The Da Vinci Code is another film which i have watched. In the movie a murder inside the Louvre and clues in Da Vinci paintings lead to the discovery of a religious mystery protected by a secret society for two thousand years -- which could shake the foundations of Christianity.
• Spy Thriller
• Supernatural Thrillers