21/01/2016 - Re filming and final changes

Re filming and final changes

After the original and second version of the establishing shot of the house were both unusable and our deadline tomorrow we had to film for a final time today. We went to re-film at lunch time so that we could use our two hour lesson to make final changes and upload our thriller opening sequence.

As today was the last day that we could film we had to make sure that we had lots of shots so that at least one would be of good quality and look professional. We filmed a range of shots including several normal tilts (from the floor to eye level), a tilt downwards from the sky and panning shots from both the left and the right. We also recorded a short clip of the house without any movement from the camera incase any of these shots didn't work and we had to use a still shot as our opening picture. Thankfully the weather today was quite glum which fits with the mood of our film and also meant that we didn't face the problem of the light reflecting off the window and being over exposed. 

Once we returned back to college we downloaded the footage on to the computer and chose a tilt shot which was of good quality and in focus. We removed the old clip and added this one in, cutting it down to fit into the space with the razor tool. We then added the black and white effect so it was the same colour as the rest of the film. 

Next, we added the audio of Evan singing the song 'Daisy, daisy' (which we recorded yesterday) into the video. We faded it in and out, got it to sync with the movement of his mouth and raised the volume of him singing to stand out. 

Once this was finished we watched the whole video through from start to finish just to make sure there was no clumsy editing that we had missed and once we saw there wasn't we uploaded it to my youtube account.

19/01/2016- Editing sound

Editing sound
The editing focus of the rest of the lesson was to sort out the sound when Oliver is walking down the corridor toward the stairs. What we were trying to achieve by inserting this sound would be to give the audience some more clues as to what is happening and we did this by using key words like 'rapist' and  'missing'. It was meant to sound like lots of different radio reports of missing people which were his victims and this could either be interpreted as him imagining them or as completely non-diagetic and used for the sole purpose of informing the audience. I feel we've managed to achieve this effect as we have cut down the clips and overlapped them, added the 'special distorted' effect in Adobe soundbooth and overlap them in audio 3, over the top of the copy right free sound effect of an out of tune radio in audio 4.

19/01/2016- Editing

Editing the re filmed footage
In today's two hour media lesson there only seemed to be a few little bits we needed to improve before being completely done and ready to upload the final version of our thriller opening sequence. As there were only a few bits to do we split up the jobs between the tree of us in order to make sure we gave an equal contribution. Emma decided to sort out the audio of Evan (Oliver) singing daisy, daisy as she is good at editing the sound and so tried to fade it in and out whilst also positioning it so that is synced up with the video of him singing it on screen. Unfortunately they didn't match up and it was quite clear that it was out of sync and this couldn't be sorted through editing so we asked Evan if he would be willing to come in and re-record the audio on a different day, thankfully he agreed. Me and Tammy then began to edit the establishing shot of the house into the video. We cropped it down so that it fit the gap where the previous footage had been but it didn't look right. Once it was inserted we found that it appeared surrounded by a black boarder, we thought the best way to fix this issue was to zoom in on the clip so the frame fitted the whole screen. However, this made the footage look blurry and lag so we asked our teacher for assistance. She pointed out that something had been changed on the camera settings when we'd filmed and this had changed the format of our clip. Another problem with this footage was that when we filmed on Thursday, it was unseasonably sunny and therefore the light reflects off the windows of the house, making the clip look over exposed and takes effectiveness away from the low, dingy mood of the film.
We are left with two options:
1) To film the establishing shot for a third time.
2) To cut out the tilt and keep the opening shot as a still of the house paired with the sound effect of the shower.

15/01/2016- Editing in free periods

Editing new footage

After re-filming some footage yesterday we decided that it would be a good idea to use our two free periods this morning to edit in the clips we took yesterday. We uploaded the clips from the camera, on to the computer, and then into Adobe premiere pro (the editing software we are using to edit our opening sequence). First of all we edited the sound of Evan saying 'Daisy' to be inserted into the end of the video when he opens the door. This was tricky to do as we had to match up the audio so it was in sync with the actors mouth and looked realistic rather than sound which had obviously been added in at a later date. We managed to do this and the sound is now of a good quality and is effective in building tension as it is clear and harsh sounding. We next inserted the new footage into our video and this included the establishing shot of the house and the doorbell being pressed. We removed the old clips and re-inserted the new ones, cutting them down with the razor tool in the editing software to fit into the original clips place.
After doing this I went back into the studio and recorded some more of our friends for our distorted news reports on my iphone. The reason we used my iphone and not a proper microphone was because it was a lot quicker to transfer them from my phone onto the computer and the quality of the clips were meant to sound distorted anyway and so slight background noise may add to the verisimilitude of the audio. Once we uploaded these to the computer we were faced with the problem of adding the distorted affect on them as Adobe soundbooth said it couldn't locate the files. To overcome this we simply had to move the clips into a new folder and make sure they were saved to the computer rather than the memory stick.

12/01/2016 - Editing

Editing 
Today our main focus was sorting out the titles as these are essential for a good grade. We started from the beginning and working our way through in chronological order so that it would flow well. On reviewing our company brand we thought it was appropriate to change our company name from 'TIE productions' to 'Vision productions' as it fit in with the clip of the eye opening. We also didn't like the name and picture of 'Woodfire images' as it didn't fit with the rest of our footage and seemed slightly random. As we still liked the name TIE, incorporating all of our names we changed the second company to 'TIE images'.

Next we moved on to the actual titles which included the actors featured in the film and the crew eg. the director, editor and others. We went for an originally simple white font but then used the distorted function to make it seem stranger and fit more with the thriller genre.  

Once we had done our titles we shifted our focus onto creating  the distorted news reports. We did this by editing the audio clips in adobe sound booth clicking and made them sound like they were coming through an old radio. We also found a copy right free sound of a radio being tuned and added it to play underneath the reports. We faded the sound of the tuning in and out to make the whole thing flow.  

Ending of opening sequence

Ending of opening sequence 
An important thing we need to consider for our thriller opening sequence is the way in which it ends as this is the last impression the audience will have of the video and what will stay in their minds and make them think about.
In terms of appearance and sound our thriller sequence is going to build up tension throughout the whole video, making the audience ask lots of questions, the only audio clue they will get is the antagonist singing the old children nursery rhyme 'Daisy, Daisy'. By building this tension its natural progression suggests that it is leading to something at the end. We have him walking to the door saying the word 'Daisy' then once his hand pushes down on the door handle the screen goes black, a boom sounds and the name of the film appears. This creates tension as we as the audience realise that the girl from the picture, the girl he was singing about is at the door and coming inside the house. This boom sound also helps the audience to feel emotion inside as the vibration of the sound can be known to make your tummy drop due to adrenaline and this is a sign of a good cliffhanger.

When approaching the actual title of the film we took inspiration from a previous students work titled 'TORN'. Their titles are black and white and very simple but look classy and professional which is what we wanted to achieve. Therefore we used this idea although  used a slightly different font.

08/01/2016- Free period work

Editing and Titles 
After making good progress with our thriller opening sequence yesterday we were keen to continue this in this mornings work. Sound was our main priority today and within an hour or so we managed to sort out, fading in and out, the added sound effects and sound of our character singing in the mirror. We are now pleased with how our sound has turned out and it all flows nicely so you wouldn't be able to tell certain sounds like the shower and doorbell have been added in after filming. The next thing we need to do in terms of sound is ask Evan, our main actor to come in some time next week and record into a microphone him singing the song 'daisy daisy' and the final word 'Daisy' at the end of the opening sequence. We will then add this into our video and it will sound more clear and of a better quality adding to the professional look.

We also managed to get around to re filming Chloe opening her eye. This was done using a camera, tripod and studio lights this time and we got a much better quality video as a result of not taking short cuts and filming properly.We uploaded this clip to the computer and with the O in productions  made it into a graphic match with the pupil of the eye. However, we decided that this didn't look as good as we'd hoped and so instead placed the company name 'TIE productions' level with the pupil of the eye but in the space next to it rather that on top of this and this looked less amateur and more formal and professional.

Once we'd looked at the titles from start to the actual opening sequence starting we decide that the image of the trees which was placed underneath the production name 'Woodfire productions' didn't really fit with how we wanted it to look and so removed it and changed the font and colour to all white, fitting in with our overall black and white, mysterious but professional theme.

07/01/2016- Lesson two- Titles

Titles
In the second half of our lesson my group and I focused on titles. So far we haven't really invested much time in to creating titles of a high standard because the main opening sequence footage had been listed as our priority and we want our footage to be complete before we start adding titles over the top. This is also because our titles will appear in certain places and so if we put our titles into place then move and change our footage it will make life a lot more difficult to rearrange and sort it.

We decided to brainstorm company names so that we could start to create the titles which come before the footage, rather than the titles in terms of who is featured in the video such as the director, actors ect. We had already decided that TIE productions was our main company name as T I E was the first letters of each of our group members names (Tammy, Izzy, Emma) and sounded professional. For the second production company we came up with 'Woodfire productions'. Again remembering that we could only use copy right free images we used a picture that Emma had taken on a walk a few weeks previously and it fitted in well as it is mysterious and dark.

For T I E productions, in a previous week we decided on an eye as our company logo  and our friend chloe kindly voulenteered to let us use her eye as it is very blue and so stands out. Whilst Emma stayed on the computer editing, Me and Tammy went into the studio with chloe and filmed her opening her eye on my iphone. On reviewing the clip we realised that without a proper camera and tripod this clip wouldn't be usable as it was too shakey but we will sort this next lesson as we ran out of time to film again properly. The one thing we did take from this is that when she kept her eye closed for a long time and then opened it again it dilated which added a cool effect we now want to incorporate into our titles.

07/01/2016 - Lesson one- Editing

Editing
After being on holiday for two weeks without being able to continue with editing we planned that in order to stay on top of things and meet the final deadline at the end of january, we needed to be efficient with our time and create aims of what we wish to achieve from each lesson. This lesson our main aims were to continue cutting down the footage as our opening sequence was still too long and needed to be ideally around two and a half minutes rather than over three. We also needed to sort out the sound in our video as added effects such as the sound of the shower needed to be faded in and out to add to the verisimilitude rather than sounding like an added in effect. Finally we needed to start thinking more about the titles but would only focus on this after we'd finished doing the other things to the footage.

To cut down our footage we looked at which parts were crucial to keep in and added to the suspense and which bits could be removed as they didn't add anything to the plot or tension. A part we managed to cut out was Oliver (the male character) walking towards the wall of pictures and articles. This meant it jumped straight into him stroking Daisy's (the female victim) face and kept it concise to the plot. It also draws the focus of the section to the girls he is victimising.

Next we considered cutting down the time it takes Oliver to stroke the other girls faces and in particular, Daisies. However before we made this change, as it was a big one, we asked our friends/class mates what they thought of this particular section and whether they thought it was needed. The feedback we got back was that it was an important clip to keep in as it added to the representation of Oliver and to the mysteriousness of the overall plot so we kept this part in.

Another part we felt could be cut as it didn't add much to the plot was the sequence of our character walking down the stairs. However we again decided not to cut this out as this particular action contains a range of diverse shots such as a close up, low angle and high angle shots and these will help contribute to us getting a good final grade.


Although we took into consideration different sections of our opening sequence to cut we decided that everything contained in our video was important and relative to the narrative so no full action could be cut out. Instead, we snipped parts off from various places throughout the sequence and managed to get our footage down to 2 minutes 42 seconds which was a big goal of ours. We will still however aim to remove a further 10 seconds in another lesson. We didn't managed to sort out the sound today but me and Emma, another member of our group agreed that we will come in tomorrow, during our 3 free periods and sort out the sound.

17/12/2015

Editing and creating titles
Today we continued to edit our opening sequence and to make the most of our time we decided to split into two groups. I continued to edit, managing to cut out two minutes from our video. These parts included the dialogue at the end of the sequences we believe having minimal dialogue would add tension and give little about the character away. I also edited the flashbacks to a better standard and made them flash into colour rather than black and white, adding the 'dip to white' effect on to create the stereotypical image of a flashback.
 Whilst i was doing this Tammy and Emma started to look for copy right music and sound effects. This included a backing music sound, a door bell, a shower sound and a low toned boom sound at the end. They magaed to find suitable sounds for all of these and we were particularlly pleased with the none diegetic music which we would play over the top of the footage as it adds a lot of tension and is appropriate to the thriller genre which our opening sequence fits into. Once we had all of these sounds we put them onto a memory stick, transferred them over to our main computer and I started to add the sound into the right places.

Next we started to look at our titles and decide how we could make them look effective and fit into how we wanted the representation of the company who made the fim to look. We did this by going into 'Adobe After Effects' as this was reccomended to us to create proffessional looking titles. When brainstorming we decided that the image or gif of an eye blinking would look good with the pupil of the eye moving into a graphic match with the 'O' in TIE productions. However we soon learned that by using a gif or picture off the internet we would be marked down as it wouldn't be original and created by us. We therefore decided to take and use a picture of our friend chloes eye and confirmed that we would continue with the titles next lesson.

15/12/15

Editing
Today my group and I continued with editing our project. The first thing we did was unlinked all of the sound from the video clips  and deleted it where the sound wasn't relevant, for example where there is dialogue. This eliminated the sound of background noise such as people laughing and ambient sound which sounded fuzzy.
We also started to cut down our footage as its twice as long as it should be so only the clips that are relevant and add to the story line will stay in our final opening sequence.

Another thing we did was start to move the clips where oliver draws over the girls faces on top of the normal footage. We cropped these clips and spaced them out so they will appear on screen as distorted and weird. This will make the audience question  whats going on and add tension. By keeping the small clips relatively close together you can still tell what is happening in this sequence of events as well as the main story footage.

Construction- Editing

Construction- Editing 
Yesterday me and my group began to edit our first version of our Thriller opening sequence. Our main aim was to upload all the clips and make them fit together so we had the main structure of the opening secquence to work with later on. We managed to do this succesfully and include two titles which included the production name and title of the feature. We were pleased with how the overall look of the video turned out, however we need to focus a lot of time to sorting out the sound as only half contains adequate backing music and the rest hasn't yet been unlinked and deleted. This means that in the second half of the video you can hear people talking in the background and although we used a seperate microphone, the quality of sound of the characters talking isn't to a high standard.
We also need to cut down the clips by almost half as the video is nearly double the length it needs to be. To make it shorter we will cut the length of the clips where he is walking around, speed up the clips where he crosses over the girls faces, delete and cut some of the dialogue at the end, and remove clips which don't help add tension or to the plot.

Construction- First edit

Construction- First edit

Here is the first version of our Thriller opening  sequence. It is no where near finished but is a basic edit to start with and gives an indicator of what the finished project will look like.