Editing

Today i have been editing the short film. where i was able to cut shoots together to maintain the continuity. Overall i think it is beginning to take shape well and hopefully will be finished as soon as possible.

evaluation on 2nd shoot

On Sunday we shot our whole footage again. It was cold but not raining this time which made filming a lot easier. We had enough batteries and our tape worked. We experimented a bit more filming from different angles and using different camera movements. We tried to have a variety of shots such as POV, panning, tracking etc. Sometimes it was difficult to follow the 180° rule when we were experimenting with shots that are not on our storyboard. So I had to move the camera to a different position. Doing the camera work this time went smoother because I did almost the same shots last weekend, so I think they look a bit more controlled.
Also we had some one who helped us carrying our equipment and backpack which saved us interruptions and thereby made the workflow smoother.
The only problem we had this time was that we were pressed for time because one of our actors had to leave early. But we managed to shoot everything in time and before it started to get dark.

Opening Sequence Animatic

Opening Sequence

Seeing as we had lost our footage, I decided to use the pictures from our storyboard to create the story with my title I previously created. This has helped to see how long our opening will go on for, and gives us a rough idea to the order the sequence goes in.

Evaluation of first shooting... and a fairly bad experience

Yesterday, we had an extremely annoying experience. We couldn't see our footage properly, sometimes there were black lines on the screen or it was completely black. So there were only very little parts of quite bad qualitiy left. We will have to shoot everything again next weekend which costs us a whole week of our time. We have to use our time left effectively to achieve a good opening sequence.
At least it wasn't our fault and we learned some things that we can improve. Our fake blood looked very real and our location is a good one for this genre, because wehn you are there you really feel something like our story could happen at this place. Next time we can concentrate more on the technical aspects because we know our location better and the workflow will also be more effective. Since the weather was bad and the ground was moody we will be prepared for another day with bad weather conditions. We solved this holding an umbrella over the camera but since we couldn't see our footage we don't know if the raindrops falling on the umbrella will disturb the sound or if it doesn't matter.

Shoot

Today we shot the footage for the opening. However, the conditions of weather were poor and it only seemed to rain when we filmed. Atleast we have some footage to edit with. The more time I have to edit, the more i can play around with it to get it to what we wanted.

Shooting #2

I booked the equipment over the weekend so that we can get our footage. We will go on Sunday and hope that the conditions won't be too bad. Since we had enough time the last two lessons Tom spent this time on creating a special title.

Opening Title

Today's lesson involved me creating the opening titles sequence. I have included the music and title in order so that all we need to do is add the filming we will do this weekend.

CF feedback background research

Well done Tom/Phil. This blog demonsrates how your research is clearly informing your creative process and that you are using ICT to collaborate as a group. I was particularly impressed by your pitch and treatment. I think the narrative concept has been well thought out. Your storyboarding shows that you are setting out to carefully plan your work in advance of shooting.

Your planning mark currently stands at a low level 4. There will be a slight variation in score due to differences in standard of film analysis – Tom, yours is still brief, however this is the only area. As a group, you are working extremely well.

To achieve this overall, ensure that your time management and shoots are well organized and that all deadlines are met.

I’m looking forward to seeing how you manage to establish and maintain tension in your sequence!

Mrs Fernandez

Presentation

Technical analysis

guys - you need to be sure that this is completed by Friday - Phil, you post is missing and Tom you need to extend yours.

Shooting

Tom and I agreed to shoot our footage this weekend to have enough time left for our post-production. Since if we can shoot or not depends on the weather this is another reason why we want to have it done early. We have to shoot all our footage at the same day to ensure continuity (especially light).

Audience Research

Following the reasearch for our target audience, we found out which were the most important ingredients they thought would be needed for a psychological horror film. The results showed that a murder was the most frequent to be most important with a mystery shortly after and blood and a male hero to be almost as important. After this we could then finally decide our film opening to include these ingredients, so the audience would want to see it.
most of the questions i used were open styled so i could get more detail to the answers other than closed questions. however i did use a closed question for the ingredients so i could collect the quantitative data and put it into a graph, which is on the slideshow. I also asked the types of films they had seen so I could see what type of horror they are into.

The last question i asked them was about our film title; Sinwood, and what they associated with this word. Most of the feedback was a woods with a murder or strange goings on. This was exactly what we were going for and so stuck with the title.

Reactions to our pitch

On Friday before the holidays we had to pitch our idea to the class. This included our title and one liner, treatment, audience research, product research and opening idea.
The comments were mainly positive, "Sinwood" is a good title for our piece because it goes well with the horror genre and our story.
However, to convey the story in the right way our actors would have to play their parts good, especially because we have dialogue, said our teacher. Also we should take some pictures of the location on the blog which Tom has done by now.

Treatment

A treatment is a short article about the story of the project that should hook the reader so that he/she wants to see the film/read the book/play the game etc. Here's my treatment on Sinwood.



Sinwood

It’s a day like any other when Ben and Max, two teenage friends, walk home from school together. They are joking talking about school and their last party which was awesome! Suddenly Max panics for no visible reason, runs off desperately screaming for his friend to come with him. Ben considers it another joke and shrugs it off with a smile. A mistake with consequences.
Max keeps on running. He hyperventilates, all his senses blinded by an overwhelming fear. He doesn’t dare to stop and yet he must because he’s completely exhausted.

The sound of a branch cracking in the silence. He spins around… hears fast-paced footsteps through the fallen leaves on the ground. His eyes widen in panic when he spots the source of the sound. Then darkness.

Later Ben finds his best friend lying dead on the forest floor. He’s got strange marks on his body.
What did his friend run away from? What did he know that he wouldn’t share even with his best friend? What matters is that some one’s taken an important part of Ben’s life away and he wants revenge!
But the more he finds out about the circumstances of Max’s mysterious death the nearer he draws to a dark secret he had better not disturbed. Because knowledge is dangerous, especially when it concerns an enemy you can’t assess.
You might think you are in control of the situation soon. But that’s just what your enemy has waited for.

Location

Our filming location is a woods in Sevenoaks. These are some reccie pictures of our location:

Our FIlm

'SiNWoOD' will be the title for our film.

The one liner for our film is 'It's awake............let the hunt begin'

Fake Blood

Phil and I have decided we need to make some fake blood for our film opening, and so I found a recipe for some on the Internet. The recipe is:

Realistic Recipe

2/3 c. Golden Syrup
1/3 c. Warm Water
5 Tbsp Corn Flour
4 Tsp red food coloring
1 Tbsp Powdered Cocoa
2 drops of green or yellow food coloring

Mix the corn starch with the water in a large mixing bowl. Stir in the golden syrup. Add the food coloring slowly, checking for color.

Evaluation on technical analysis

Through my technical analysis I've learned that cutting from still images to still images creates a certain mood and helps to show the nature of something calm for instance of a countryside. However, to create this effect you need time and zou may use some long takes. But we only have two minutes so this is nothing for our opening sequence.
Also, I learned that a mix of different shot sizes, angles and movements such as LSs and CUs is important for the audience to see the action from different points. Having a variety decreases the risk that the film gets boring. The rate of cuts should also be considered as this gives the film its speed and mood, too. For a chasing sequence the shots must look quite messy just like the nature of the action so there handicam would be best along with fast-paced cuts.
Something else I've noticed is that there's not only for example a typical CU/tracking in/ eye-level shot in films but sometimes the camera moves from one position to a different one so that shot size, angle and focus change without using a cut. I like contrasts in films, be it in cutting rate(fast/slow)or music(harsh/calm), if one of this follows the other because it creates a fairly good mystery. It awards it an unreal look. So we will definitely use that.
Again, as in my first product analysis, I realizied that we don't need sound all the time to create our preferred mood, so we will have a mix of pure, natural sound with other parts where we will use something of the music we selected and Tom has posted.

Technical Shot Analysis of "Disturbia"

1. Black screen FADES TO
2. CU of Water.PEDS UP
3. LS of two males.CUTS TO
4. CU of Fish.CUTS TO
5. Switch Back to shot 2.CUTS TO
6. And back to shot 3.CUTS TO
7. LS of two males from different angle. CUTS TO
8. Shot half in water/half out. CU of fish jumping out.CUTS TO
9. Splash Sound.MCU of males. Steadicam.CUTS TO
10. MS of water and fish. Follows.CUTS TO
11. Back to shot 8.CUTS TO
12. MLS of males.CUTS TO
13. CU of older male from behind younger.
14. Motivated cut, to younger male from behind older male.

From this analysis I have found out they use the same shot more than once but at different times. There is also proof that each shot is quite long, as there are only 14 different types in the first two minutes of the film. This is for establishing shots, to introduce the audience to the film. There is many different changes of distance in the shots, this creates different views for the audience to see the scenes and focus in on the most important things going on. The different shots are effective as cutting in towards the characters from a ELS will focus the adience into what the characters are doing instead of the surroundings.