Final Sequence

Carmen & Ella's Evaluation

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Evaluation

This is mine and Harrys Evaluation.

Heartbeat

Harry created the heartbeat sound effect after he finished creating the music track. We wanted to add extra effect the the scene where the girl is being followed down the alley, and so we had the idea of the sound of a heartbeat slowly speeding up as she walked through the alley. In order to do this he downloaded a simple sound effect from youtube of a heart beating that gradually speeds up, Harry converted it to an mp3 file using a basic online converter. He then used garageband to edit the sound effect, cutting it up and cutting it down so that it fitted in with the scene we wanted to run it over. When it was done he used a memory stick to put it onto the group S editing computer, and we edited it into the film, i think that it sounds very affective and fitting to the genre of the film, being horror/thriller.

Song

Harry used GarageBand to create the song for our film opening. He wanted to create a creepy track to play as the opening credits role in, and so he used GarageBand in order to do so, firstly by choosing a dark, intense, orchestral sound to carry on throughout the track. He then cut it down, re-arranged it and tampered with it until he thought it sounded right. He then added a vinyl crackle sound at the beginning and at the end of the track, to give it a rustic, scary feel to it that sounded realistic as a track. He then added in a simple hip-hop beat which he did not add intending to involve any sort of hip-hop style to the soundtrack but instead just to add a bit of texture to the song. From that specific beat he only wanted the sound of the snare and aspects from the beat so he cut it down very small, cutting bits out of it and added sections of the beat together in order to remove the hip-hop beat from its original state, creating a new sound that is fitting with the eerie, terrifying theme of the film, fastening the pace of the track, making it more entertaining and creating an aspect of intensity. Overall his intentions were to create a track that was simple yet affective. He wanted to create a song that was not over the top or too over-stimulating as it was created to be a soundtrack for the opening credits of our film, and i think he has achieved this.

Editing

Our overall editing sessions are going very well.
Myself (Carmen) and Ella have been working hard in lessons with editing the opening sequence while Harry and Alex have been doing other additions such as the production logo, the music and credits. We have all taken it in turns with editing though so now we all know how to use Final Cut.
What we have done so far is put all the shots together including the alleyway scenes and house scenes, to which all we need to do now is add in more of the music and sound, and adjust a few shots, and also put the credits in. This will be done by the deadline to which we are 99% sure it will be done!

Class Critic

Today we had a class critic to which we had the class watch our film, and we watched our class mates films. After seeing a few opening sequences and knowing ours wasn't finished, we all started to become very nervous.
After the class watched our film, we got given some feedback back to which some were good points but others were things that we could improve and add in which we feel really helped.

Good Points

• Fridge shot with the camera inside the fridge
• Footsteps shot
• Pan shot with Liza walking and camera pans to stalker
• Overall camera work

Improve / Add In

• Liza walking downstairs --> speed up
• Titles / credits added in --> in between point of view shots and to be shown before the house
• Add in music / sound --> daunting sound / music
• Cut up house scenes

Introduction Of Group S 12

We are group S. We have worked together as a group to try to create the opening of a horror film that lasts for roughly 3 minuets. We view ourselves as hardworking and passionate students who have put all their efforts into this project to try to create a fantastic opening sequence. We all have different qualities which help to bring the group together. Carmen is very good at filming as well as planning story boars. She is a very organized person who acts as a natural leader when organizing the group. Ella is also good at filming, she too is a hardworking and organized student who will try her very best to get the group working well. Alex is very good at editing, although he has never been taught how to edit, he has played around with final cut to teach himself how to edit, he is a fast worker and is very particular about the editing as he is so fussy, but it pays off as the editing always looks very effective. And lastly Harry is very good at garageband and drawing up and planning story boards. Harry used garageband to create a song which will play as our credits are rolling. He was also the one who drew up the storyboards which looked very effective.
(Left to right; Harry O'Donnell, Ella Tibbott, Carmen Konstantino, Alex Sadler)

Group discussions

From the very start we knew that we wanted to base our opening sequence on a horror movie opening. From there we moved onto the storyboards, we have a lot of ideas to start with be then we changed and made it so that we focused clearly on the whole horror/suspense type of filming.

We came to the final decision of the horror by sitting down for around 45 minutes and discussing our total options and decided it would be best if we continued with the horror theme.

The reason we stayed on the horror Path was because it seemed like the best idea and as we had all done media before we knew what was coming and how it would pan out.

filming alleyway

On Monday 1st March me (Ella) and Carmen filmed the Alley way scene and the station scenes. We asked two of our friends Liza and Jack to act for us. We had to plan exactly when to shoot the shots as we needed  the lighting dark but light enough to see whats happening in the shot. We met at 7:30 at Loughton station as this time was perfect as it was just starting to get dark but was light enough to see.
Firstly we filmed Liza walking out of the station, we stood a distance away and rested the camera on a shop window ledge, whilst Liza walked at a normal pace across to the alley way. We had trouble at first as the station was busy at times from when people were coming home from work, so we planned when to shoot it carefully. We were just about to start filming when a man stood completely in the way, but I think he soon realised and moved, after this we filmed and it was fine. Next we stood halfway down the alley way to film Liza walking found the corner and past the camera face on. As she reached the camera we panned round to see the back of her, we then panned back to show Jack as the stalker stood at the start of the alley way face down with a black hoody on. After this we filmed a point of view shot from Liza and then we did the same with jack, with Liza stood walking in front of him. We then filmed Liza walking whilst Jack tapped her on the shoulder, Liza turns around and nobody is there. We decided to film lots of different shots with different scenarios just to be on the safe side. After shooting some of these different shots, we decided to do a low angle shot of Liza walking past and then close behind her Jack was walking. We also filmed Liza walking down the steps of the alley way, I think this shot looked very effective as there was a bright light shining above the alleyway which lit up the stairs. We then walked to the other end of the alley way in which we filmed Liza walking up the stairs , we tried this from a mid angle and then a high angle. We had to then walk to Carmens house to film Liza getting her key out of her bag to open the front door. We had a bit of a problem here as Carmen does not have an outside light and we found it was way too dark to see what was happening so we switched Carmen's mums car headlights on to shine by her front door so there was a good level of light.

costumes

Our actress, Liza will wear a purple skirt, with black tights, as well as a black vest top and a grey cardigan. In the scene where liza walks in through the door she will be wearing a leather jacket and will be carrying a black over the shoulder bag.

Change of story

When we went to film, we soon found out that certain aspects of our story board did not work out. So we re planned our story, which means we will have to re do our story board. We all decided this as a group as it was the easiest way of doing things.

First Day Editing

Our first day editing went ok, comparing that we only had 2 hours to get the footage on the computer and start editing. We first of all started off putting the footage onto the Mac, but some of the footage didn't go onto the Mac and we figured out that the tape we used was getting old. We thought we may had to re-film some shots, but we finally got it onto the Mac. We then had to start editing it by using Final Cut Express, but we had trouble with this because none of us had ever used the programme before. By time we learned the basic's, we ran out of time to edit, so we decided to finish it off in next lesson.

Second Day Filming

Second day filming, we decided to change a few of the shots, and also decided on a different ending. We did this because we felt like we was running out of time to do the original idea, and we also thought the new idea was better.
Ella and myself (Carmen) worked behind the camera. While Ella was filming, I was directing, and while I was filming, Ella was directing. We filmed in my house again to which we decided on more shorts such as putting the camera in the fridge (Alex's idea), to which Liza was a fantastic actor again.
We had a bit of trouble getting a few of the shots as we had to hand-hold the camera for the over the shoulder shot, but we got a decent shot in the end! We also had a bit of trouble shooting when Liza walked into the front room and turned off the TV because we had some house-props in the way, but we got a good shot in the end by moving the remotes from the puffey to the cabnet below the TV.
Overall, we didn't get much done but it took us a good few hours to get juts a few shots and come up with alternatives for shots / scenes that didn't work. Myself and Ella worked very well together including Liza and Alex and Harry's input :)

Story Board For Horror Film Opening

Story ss smaller

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These are our story boards from when I (Carmen) came up with the idea of the story. We then worked together as a group and decided to change the drawings and make them look a bit more proffesional and easier to understand. Harry drew the new version of the storyboards, and myself, Ella and Alex wrote about the camera shots and information that was needed.

First Day Filming

Our first day filming was very productive. We travelled to one of the group members house (Carmen). During this time we filmed most of the house scene which consisted of our actress walking through the front door, then into the living room in which she put her jacket and bag down. She then walked into the kitchen, where she placed her keys on the work surface and opened the fridge. Whilst looking for a drink in the fridge, she then hears the TV come on to which she heard white noise. She then walked out of the kitchen, into the living room and turned the TV off.
We filmed using a wide variety of camera shots which included a panning shot, wide shot and long shot. This took over 2 hours to which we managed to get quite a lot done.