Editing Practise Pt.2 - Card Game

13/01/09

Following last lessons filming, we uploaded our shots onto final cut pro and logged and captured suitable shots for making our short piece. Within our group there was difficulty in deciding how the scene should be set, the opening shots and how it will smoothly progress and climax into a tense atmosphere.

We decided to set the scene by using the shuffling cards clip so the audience are well aware from the beginning that the sequence is based around a gruelling card game. We then did a split scene of a male walking down a corridor confidently, pausing, adjusting his gun and then waking into the room. This was edited in a deliberate way to that the narrative was easy to interpret.

To highlight the wariness that each character shared for each other we included a lot of close-ups and built the tension by referring back to the shot of the cards being dealt.

The sequence then ends with one of the characters showing his gun in a subtle but yet threatening way under the table and the other characters facial expression is highlighted with an extreme close-up of his face.

I felt editing this task to be difficult and planning would have definitely helped during the first stages of this task. I also felt that I need to find some creativity from within so that I will be able to contribute and quickly think of good ideas when our group confer in the future about our final thriller ideas.

Editing Practise Pt.1 - Card Game

09/01/09

To get some first handed experience with filming our own shots we were asked to create a ‘thrilling’ card game using the techniques that we have learnt when working with the camera. Once we had been introduced to the ins and outs of the camera and tripod facilities we then began to plan our storyboard needing a minimum of twelve shots.

After 30 minutes most of the other groups had begun filming and we had only drawn and described about four shots we collaboratively decided that to get the work done we would improvise. We tried to focus mainly on Mid-Shots or Mid-Pans and also Close-ups of the characters face so that expressions and possible thoughts were clearly visible.

We also paid conscious detail so small actions that would be over looked in ‘everyday’ life to heighten tension and create an anxious atmosphere. Some of these small details/action include; opening a door – specific detail on the walk towards it and pausing before the character walks in, looking at cards in hand – sly movement represent the competition between characters.

I found this task beneficial but also hard as you begin to appreciate the hard work, timing and meticulousness that goes into filming and film preparation.

Introduction to Sound Software

06/01/09

In today’s lesson we were given a tutorial on sound using software from the James Bond movie Casino Royale. Using different backdrops and sequences from the film we were able to experiment with layering sound effects and levels of volume. For example, in one tutorial of layering sound, the backdrop was of the casino, some of the sound options were; the ambience of a bar (e.g. distant chatter, glasses clinking), the sound of poker chips being counted and tense music. With all of these effects I was able to try and re-construct the sound from the actual sequence. I found this difficult because the volume levels of sound were hard to get to a precise level so that it would sound realistic.
The next task was to place the different layers of sound to one minute sequence from the film. This was an action sequence so it had to include racing music, vocal effects and micro-effects such as running, footsteps, engine sounds etc. With this I was introduced to audio editing and the layout of the software is similar to Sound Pro which is the software that our class is to use when editing our thriller films.
Overall I found this task quite fun but also quite frustrating as it can take quite a long time to get all the effects and volumes of the sound perfect. This practise lesson on the software was very helpful as I have learnt a lot about how important sound is and that every minute sound is just as important as an instrumental over the sequence.

Lesson 5/12 - The Shining

05/12/08

The Shining

As an introductory lesson into the elements of thriller films we were shown the film adaptation of the Stanley Kubrick novel The Shining. There was a variety of elements that created suspense and tension throughout the film. Many scenes in the film felt like your mind was tricking you and making you feel confused when in fact it was the skilled techniques in which the creators had portrayed these scenes. For example there is a scene where Jack has gone into ‘Room 237’ he finds a young beautiful slender woman bathing nakedly, she then gets out and walks towards Jack. Jack then begins to kiss her passionately but is suddenly sickened is she starts to deteriorate into and old woman, he hair and skin start to fall off and is both scary for the audience and the character of Jack in the film. This is a prime example of the skilled techniques used to illustrate Jack’s insanity but is very much thrilling and scary for the audience to watch.

Thriller Evaluation

Thriller Evaluation

After some advice from our media teachers, we decided we wanted to be creative with our thriller opening, as they weren’t really looking for your ‘bog standard ’ thriller or cliché. We were told that normally students would do openings about stalkers in hoodies, kidnapping or serial killers. So we crossed all ideas regarding those types of stories off our list. After an hour of brainstorming a couple of ideas, we pitched three main ones of three different sub genres (you can find our initial ideas in an earlier blog) and later came to a final decision of which to film.


Our final idea, ‘DeathWalk’ isn’t a typical crime thriller or action. When choosing our thriller we tried to relate more to horror therefore chose the sub genre; Super Natural, this allowed us to be more creative. We were inspired many clips from thrillers. We used these clips ideas and later developed them to give them our own twist e.g./




This clip from arlington road inspired us for our final shots, with the use of quick cuts and bright lights.




This clip from 28 days later gave us he idea of isolation hence all of our shots showed someone walking through the forest alone.


Our main protagonist had her hair over her face to add tho the thrill, we were inspired to do this from the horror film the ring.




This clip from arlington road gave us the inspiration to put our title over clips instead of at the end on their own blank screen.

We stuck to the conventions in terms of the narrative; supernatural which is menacing our protagonist. Protagonist we have a main character however some could argue that we went against the norms by having a female protagonist. Films with female protagonists include :

In our opening of a thriller, the normal representation of females in thrillers is they are vulnerable and tend to be victims of the supernatural force; this was achieved by making the protagonist a female. Also, it isn’t very clear but the female is a teenager and we used this to represent the fact that statistics show suicide numbers among teenagers have risen.

The audience for my media product would mainly be teenagers who, although our opening is a thriller, are horror fans as our thriller deals with the supernatural. A typical person who fits our target audience is a 16 year old teenage female called Karen, who spends Friday nights at home with friends watching horror movies, she also loves going to the cinema with friends and boyfriend.

Marketing and promotion of films can be very expensive so i have chosen a couple cost effective ways to advertise:

• Television and radio Trailers
• Advance trailers, longer previews, or behind-the-scenes footage on rental videos and DVDs
• Product placement: paid active or passive insertion of film brand in drama or sitcom shows, or as passing mentions in dialogue
• Viral marketing: free distribution of trailers on movie-oriented websites and video user-generated-content websites, and rapid dissemination of links to this content by email and blogs.
• In the movie theater
• Trailers and behind-the-scenes shorts, shown prior to the main attraction

Our videos have already take one major step to promotion and this was via internet. Our opening thriller is available on , and even this already gives us a wide audience as the intenet is available to everyone and is relatively cheap so access to it is at a high level. The fact we are targetting teenagers allows facebook and youtube to be very useful as these are sites that are frequently visited by our target audience.

I learnt how to use new technology such as camera, internet fro blogging, soundtrack pro and Film Cut pro. with the camera, i learnt the use of different angles to help cause a thrilling effect eg. Low angle, Pan, Tilt. the main angles we used were a pan as she was walking and the effect of this was to establish she was alone in a deserted place. Also we used many low angle as she got close to hanging herself, the effect of this was the lower the angle the shorter her life was becoming, this shows her life coming to an end. We made sure we had all our shots well planned at the start with the use of a well made story board.

I learnt ahow to use final cut pro mainly about logging and capturing, sequencing and addin certain effects in relevant places. When editting i needed to make sure my cuts were perfect in order for my sequence to flow perfectly.

Below you see our sequence, its not clear but thats a low angle shot, with the use of a blurr and dark mast effect.

I also used soundtrack pro which happened to be very effective in our media thriller, we experimented with a range of sounds, including different genres and instruments. In most thriller films we noticed the use of high pitched and string instruments therefore we stuck to the convention.


From my prelim, I have learnt organisation and structure is key to success, making sure you plan before u start is vital otherwise you are clueless as to what type of shots to do. Also editing, getting the types of cuts are perfect as one mistake eg. The cuts too fast or cut don’t match could mess up the whole thing. However although we planned we didn’t plan thoroughly, could’ve ended with the girl waking up but we missed out that shot, also a shot of the girls’ feet while she was hanging. However, our final thriller was a big improvement from the prelim as when doing the prelim we didn't have as much experience in using the softwares and we were still in the training mode. In comparisson to the prelim we had better camera angles in the final. Also we mastered the sound in our thriller opening and the effect were used creatively given a eerie feeling to the thriller.

After all thrillers were complete, we went to the vue cinema to watch them. This was good in a way that we could see other peoples, they were all of a high standard but it was an effective way of judging and comparing other people work. Many people used similar storyt lines. Our Thriller was only repeated by 1 other groups which made it slightly unique. We got a very good response from our peers and they enjoyed it. Teachers said that we were very professional in how we conducted ourselves and the thriller.

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Thriller Evaluation

When our group were still coming up with initial ideas, we watched a few thriller films so that we could familiarise ourselves with the conventions of thriller movie openings. Two films that stood out most to us were “28 Days Later” and “Arlington Road” and elements from both films inspired us with our final idea for our thriller.
In “28 Days Later” the character is isolated in a hospital and is trying to work out where everyone has gone and why is he the only one left.

- Shot showing desolation from “28 days Later”

This element is similar to our thriller, as the character is in an isolated forest and the audience are unaware of why and how she ended up there.

In “Arlington Road”, the character is walking down an empty street, and effects are used to make the screen hazy to represent that the character feels like passing out and we, the audience, can clearly see this. The film also had a lot of great medium and extreme close up shots of the character. We used these in the bedroom scene when the character was tossing and turning and we think that the close ups of the character’s face looking distressed and confused are effective.


- Shots from that inspired us from “Arlington Road”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03668oTEoIQ

Here are a few intresting shots from the film that stood out; you'll notice the long hair in front of the woman's face is identical to the character in our film. This worked well to represent her deathly demeanour.

Because of this factor, our film was not a conventional thriller but more so a supernatural thriller as it is more horror than thriller. We wanted to break from clichés that we had assumed other groups would do, for example a boy in a hoodie following a girl down the road and ending it with him finally catching up with her. We tried to do something somewhat more abstract to make the audience wonder why she was dreaming of her own death, what did this mean, did it already happen because she didn’t wake up at the end etc.
The fact that there was only one character adds to the ambiguity of the history of the character and the reasons behind the dream which is a great factor as it allows the audience to creatively conjure their own reasons as to why she is dreaming her own death.

We then had to create a storyboard of how we wanted each shot to look like so that when it came to filming we didn't waste any time trying to figure what to film and what shots to use. We were supposed to create quick sketches of each shot but as nobody wanted to draw them, we decided that taking digital pictures of each shot would be beneficial for everyone and also clearer and precise to understand at a later date.

We then had to find a location that wasn't too far a distance but was still suitable for our product and decided that we needed to find a large park surrounded in trees low enough to tie the rope around. We ended up choosing Finsbury Park as our location and decided to film there on the 13th Feb and one of the group members went there to first of all find a suitable tree so that we didn't spend hours looking for one.

Here are some of the pictures:

Despite this tree being isolate from the other trees it doesn't have any other useful factor. It doesn't look menacing it needs to have more branches and be thicker.

This tree looked really good, however it was too close to a path and if people were walking by, they could interruot filming as well.

The branches on this tree are really good but as you can clearly see, a river is in the shot. However we could have shot it with the river in the scene but this may have moved focus if say for example a duck or boat went by

This tree was ideal as because it had thick branches, when you stood underneath it, it seemed very dark and gloomy was a great factor. It also wasn't near a path or any other distractions and the branch was strong enough for the character to hang herself from which was also useful. So below is the actual tree that we used.

Below is a close up of where the character is going to hang herself from

The filming process was quite difficult at times due to members of the group being ill and the unexpected weather that we experienced during the week commencing the 3/02/09 we were a week behind filming. However, we all decided to get together and film on a day that we didn't have college so that we would still be on task and avoid handing in our film late; also because we hadn't used Soundtrack Pro, we wanted to leave as much time as possible.

Here are a few shots of us during the actual filming process that we had taken

The character in the film is a clearly a teenage girl who, for some reason unknown, is disturbingly dreaming of her own death which anyone of any age, class or gender can watch, and even though they wouldn’t fully understand why it is happening, they can easily follow the story. The fact that she is a teenage girl, of an ethnic minority, this further breaks from the clichés of having a lead white male/female starring and her age creates sympathy because she must be from a disturbed childhood, youth or family background to graphically dream of killing herself.


Our thriller would be a small independent UK release as it isn’t a glossy, clichéd Hollywood blockbuster; it’s more of a gritty, dark film. Because the idea of dreaming of your own death is quite sinister could be critically acclaimed by critics as it’s unusual for the lead character not to live a “happy ever after” as it is favoured in Hollywood movies. Being an independent UK film, gives more power and freedom to the director, editor, screenplay writers and actors to create a film exactly how they pictured it without fear or conforming to conventional Hollywood endings. The motive of the film is not to solely entertain, but to give the audience a rare insight into the dream of a stranger which couldn’t be possible in reality; this escape is significant to all audiences as this is the reason why people watch films, or read books because at that moment they are in the world that somebody else has created for them.

A typical person to fit the target audience for the thriller is Lily who is 20 years old and is studying Contextual Studies at University and one of her favourite past times is watching independent art films with up not necessarily mainstream actors or directors but with an interesting and sometimes controversial plot. Couple of common independent films that may be intereseted in showing "Death Walk" would be The Rich Mix in Bethnal Green or The Curzon in Soho.

The marketing process of the film I think would be done best by TV adverts, Internet pop ups and advertisements in newspapers. Internet pop ups will be effective as they are a quick and easy way to drill the name and release date of the film into people’s heads and most people are now used to the Internet and use it frequently; a small clip could also be shown on the pop-up as a taster of the real thing.

The company best suited to distribute the film would be as they are well-known to release British films and could promote it on and as well. The best times to advertise it would be during one of their highest rated programs, for example, during to appeal to young people or during a documentary to appeal to an older audience.

A familiar British actress should play the lead role, for example Larissa Wilson (who played Jal Fazer in Skins series 1-2), would be ideal as she is familiar in the public eye and most people are wondering what happened to the original cast members from the first and second series.

We are familiar to the success of Dev Patel (who played Anwar Kharral in Skins series 1-2) in Slumdog Millionaire and fans of Skins are waiting to see where the rest are as well.

Also, because Skins was shown on and , advertising “Death Walk” with Larissa Wilson on the same channels would instantly capture a loyal audience.

During this process of constructing this product I recorded our lessons in an online weekly blog and included what worked and what didn't and what I had learnt and the goal for the next lesson. I had to learn how to use Soundtrack Pro and Film Cut Pro which I had previously used. The first time that I had to use Film Cut Pro was when we had to make our preliminary task and it took a while to familiarise ourselves with the new program and like I stated in my blog (Lesson 21/01/09) because we spent so much time trying to perfect our preliminary task, we didn't have enough time to use Soundtrack Pro. Because of this, when it came to doing the real Thriller project, I wasn't confident in using Soundtrack Pro; this meant that I had to spend a bit of my spare time getting to grips with how the program worked.

Obviously, as our product is a thriller, we wanted to create eerie, suspenseful soundtrack which would cause tension. I initially used a soft piano combined with two different types of violins to create a high pitched sound and then added a synthesizer and a drone.

Looking back at my preliminary task, I feel that I have learnt several useful skills which I believe that I effectively applied to my full final product. Firstly, the key factor in making the full product work was planning, if we didn't make our storyboard and choose our location beforehand then after the unexpected weather and illness of group members, the task would have been more stressful than it needed to be.

Also, because we had planned what we had planned what we were doing, we didn't waste time improvising with shots and angles and the filming process didn't take long at all. I've also learnt that if you want to make things look continous by drawing the audience's attention to something you need to film shots at different angles to do this successfully. I learnt a lot when it came to making the soundtrack, as I mentioned before I wasn't familiar with using Soundtrack Pro so I needed to experiment with the different sounds that the program had to offer and have learnt that different film genres require different genres of music to successfuly create their desired effect.

For example an action film may have sirens, and fast-paced upbeat percussions and electric guitairs whereas a romantic drama may have slow, acoustic piano playing of somesort.

Overall I believe that the dynamic of the group, the planning, commitment and skills that we had learnt combined together made the product as succesful as it was. Watching all the thrillers of the other groups at the Vue Cinema in Angel was also a great experience as I believe that we all learnt new ideas from watching everyones and if we had the opportunity to do the task again, I'd be excited to try out new ideas that inspired me from groups.

Preliminary- Match Cut and 180 Degree Rule

When doing our preliminary, we were asked to focus on match cuts and not breaking the 180-degree rule. Our task was to create a short clip of a character opening a door, walking into a room and sitting opposite another character with some dialogue shared between them.
A match cut is the technical term for cutting from one shot to a completely different shot, which has the same objects that occupy the same place in the screen, hence the fact they match. The 180 degree rule just means the position u begin shooting, you need to stay within 180 degree of that axis other wise if you pass that, the camera mans right would be the audiences left and this would just confuse everything.
Firstly we made a list of shots we needed to do, our main match cut was character one walking through a door and the second shot of him coming out the other side. Our Preliminary was edited very well with just one or two mistakes but there is always space for improvement, however it was a great improvement from out 1st practise film the card game.