Rough Cut

Louisa told us there are some elements of our rough copy that need to be tweaked, however she was overall pleased with everything we had done. 

We still need to finish editing, and then add other things, such as the title sequence and music. 

First day of editing

At the moment we're editing our thriller opening. Today we're reviewing the basic clips and putting them in order firs,t to make sure that everything is cut and slotted in the right place. On our second day of editing we will begin to add effects and music to our opening.

One thing we think we did great whilst filming was that we shot scenes from different angles and places. Things we think we could of improved was continuity and holding the camera steady.

On set

These are a few small pictures of us on set, and also some of the props we have used in order to make the thriller opening. 

On shoot

Today was our third and FINAL day of filming. It went really well, we got there set up the equipment safely and briefly went through our storyboard to see at what point we would be filming from. After we knew what we would be shooting we went through it with our actors and actress, done their make-up and health & safety checks and we were ready to go!

Mobility was a problem when capturing most shots so at times we didn't use the tripod.

Here's a slide of some of the pictures on set!

Shoot 2

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Quick update and examples of sound/music

At the moment, we're in the process of filming our thriller. After filming our thriller we will then enter post-production which is editing our film and adding sound and effects. I have looked at some sound clips on YouTube and here are a few samples of music that is similar to what we may use in our thriller opening.

One Great Picture

As a group we believe this one picture shows our togetherness as a group. It shows, me (Mark) and Abigail acting, whilst Tanvir is filming, and Mohammed is taking the photo. This exact scene went into our prelim, so you have to give credit for the picture. 


Also, the picture is special because you can see the orange in mid fall, while the bag is still shaking. 


Concentration can also be seen on everyone's faces. 

Small Ghost Parody

This is a small clip of me (Mark) and Mohammed in a small ghost clip. We did this, because we had time to spare, and it helped us practise our editing skills. We did it all (filming and editing) in the space of 45 minutes, so the actual film isn't too good, but it also helped us with the angle practise that we needed to work on. 


Here it is: 

Angle Practice 3

High angle shot, small clip: 

Angle Practice 2

This is our footage of a worms eye view of feet walking across a room. It isn't edited up to a great standard, as the main focus of our plan was to practice filming the camera angles. 

Angle Practice

This is our introduction about our camera angles practice:

My Sound Ideas

Sound

As our thriller opening is a gruesome scene after a party night. We are planning to have some heavy music playing in the background. As a team we are going to decide if we should have a rap song or a dub-step tune. The music is going to be non-diegetic. It is going to be playing from our characters bedroom really loud which will be heard throughout the thriller opening. I am going to be showing you some examples of music we may choose to put in. However, we might alos make out own tune in studio to make it more unique and our own.

Below are some of the ideas of rap songs we may put into our thriller opening:

 - Rick Ross , French Montana , Drake - Stay Schemin'

- Jay-Z , Kanye West - OTIS

Below are some of the Dub-Step tunes we may put in:

- Dub-Step Choice 1

- Dub-Step Choice 2 - (Devious - Rasclat)

My Music Ideas

Our thriller opening requires a soundtrack to go along with it. We have to make sure it goes smoothly with the footage, and to do this it requires planning. 


An idea my group has come up with is to have two completely different soundtracks to represent the change in mood. 


At the start, we will have a dub-step soundtrack playing to represent the party scenes from the night before, then, when people understand what has happened, the soundtrack will change to incorporate the change in mood. 


I've been on youtube to look for examples of this type of music, and found two perfect examples: 


Dub-step:

Scary: 

These are two good examples of something that we could use, however we will be creating our own music for the thriller, hopefully to the same level as the two above. 

CD Case Idea

As a group, we needed to think of a way to have a scene with 'broken glass'. What we decided to do, is get some CD cases that we don't need, put them all in a bag and break them all, so that the shards look like broken glass. It means that the scene will be safer then it would be if we were to use real glass and smash it up. 

We only need it for a couple of scenes, and once we're finished, we can clear it all up before doing our next scenes. 

This is an example of a blank CD case that we would be smashing. We only need around three of them, and it will enable our scene to look much more realistic. 

Fake Blood

This is the link we ordered our fake blood from: 


http://www.bodyjewelleryshop.com/online_store/fake-blood-gel-bottle-with-brush.cfm


We ordered three pots of it, just incase we ran out of blood from the first pots. It will help our scene look better prepared, and ensure that the scene looks more realistic. 




This what they look like: 

My Half Term Thoughts

During the half term, I've had time to think and reflect on our media project so far. As a group, we started off very well, with our two mini films getting praise from classmates and teachers alike. However, at the moment, we are at a stage where we can't film, and are on the waiting list for the camera's. This isn't all necessarily bad, as it gives us time to regather our thoughts, and come together as a group to process more ideas, although we have definitely decided on our final idea. All in all, it allows us to be productive whilst waiting for a camera. 


Waiting for a camera hasn't turned out as bad as we first thought, as it gave us time to practice our editing skills, which have really come on leaps and bounds in the past few months. When we have finished filming, I know for a fact that we will be ready to edit in a sufficient way, and make the thriller opening as good as possible. 

Above, is a picture of what we use to edit our videos. It has become much more simple now with experience, and I look forward to editing with my group when we have finished filming. 

Feedback On Our ''Collateral'' Remake

This screen shot shows that a comment has been left on our remake of ''Collateral'' saying: ''Thats WAVEEEYYY'' - meaning that our remake was good. 

Positive feedback is good for our group, as it helps us realise if we are doing good work or not, and in this case, the comment shows we are doing good work. 

Blog Group Views

This is the amount of blog views that our group has. 

The date of this blog views is: 8/2/12

Conclusion To Lighting Exercise

General talk on how the lighting exercise we have done has helped us develop our skills further.

As you can see, we used the lighting to focus solely on our upper bodies, as that is what we want the viewer to focus on while we are talking. 

Our Lighting Mini Clip

This is the small clip Mark and Mohammed made, to show how important lighting is in a scene, and to also learn from past mistakes.

We will now use what we have learned when we make our thriller opening better.

Introduction Lighting Practice

This is Mark and Mohammed talking about the lighting practice that we have done in our spare time. It has enabled us to understand how important lighting is during filming. 

Mistake While Filming

When filming, we didn't realise that the house we were using was too dark. It seemed lit up, and easily visible when we were filming.


However, this was not the case when we started to look back on the clips on final cut pro. Here is an example of what one of our scenes look like, and how dark it is. 

You can see that the scene is too dark, and it is hard to see what is going on. It has taught our group a valuable lesson, and we now realise that we need to use lighting equipment, or make sure the house is much more lit up then before.

Group 19 Thriller Talk

This is Group 19, and the actor for our thriller opening, talking about our filming, and a general video of us together whilst we were filming. We added in one slow motion effect in this, because it helped us practice our skills while we had this video up on final cut pro. 

Storyboard

Storyboard

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First Day Of Filming

Our first day of filming was a very productive one. 


We filmed the start of our opening from many different angles, in order to have the perfect picture for the final outcome. For example, when our main character walks into the bathroom to brush his teeth, we got numerous shots of him doing so. For example, an establishing shot of his whole body, and a worms eye view of his feet walking in. 


It has set us up for our other days of filming, as we understand how many different shots we need for each scene. We realise how important the use of camera is, as well as good use of acting skills. 


Another very important thing we have learned on our first day of filming is the use of lighting. Lighting is very important to how the scene will look whilst we are editing it. If it is too dark, then it may be impossible to see what's going on on the screen. 


The setting for our opening scene is in a flat, two minutes walk from Elephant and Castle tube station, which will allow us easy access to film the next bit to our thriller opening. 

180 Degree Rule

In filmmaking, the 180 degree rule is a basic guideline that states that two characters (or other elements) in the same scene should always have the same left/right relationship to each other, if the camera passes over the imaginary axis connecting the two subjects, it is called crossing the line. The new shot, from the  opposite side, is known as a reverse angle.



Above is a basic picture that helps me to understand the rule.

Props/Risks

Props - The Cigarette

Another main prop we used in our thriller open was a cigarette. Even though there is a small risk when using it and the cigarette itself is small, we decided it would be a main focus point whilst filming. We decided this as the cigarette could represent life itself and as its burning could reflect on the death of the victims. We would be focusing on the cigarette and keep reflecting back to it as its slowly burning out.

The risk when suing the cigarette is whilst its burning it would be letting of fumes which is rather unhealthy. If there is a child in the room they may start to cough etc. Also it could burn you if the cigarette is handled in a bad manner. The fumes that it lets of could affect your lungs which is not good. 

First Day Of Filming

Our main actor preparing for his first scene!

Setting up the equipment

Checking back over the first few scenes

Filming in process 

Checking over film

Filming in process

Shot of cigarettes burning out that we're going to be using in our actual thriller opening

Props/Risks

Props - The Knife

A knife is one of the props we had to use to complete our thriller film 'Demented'. We had to do a risk assessment on the knife as it is a risk. We always decided to use the knife as it is intertextuality from many other thriller films. A lot of times a knife is the main focus point of how the killer in a film conducts his murders. 

In our thriller film the knife is the main focus point as this is the weapon our character uses to kill his victims. 

Whilst using knifes we realised there are a lot of risks involved in it. The handling is one of the risks as if it is dropped it can easily cut anyone or anything. We would need to keep any one young away from the knife as we do not want any injuries to occur whilst filming. 

Target Age Group

The film opening we are creating borders along the line of horror, but I would call it more of a thriller. 

Because of this, I would say that we are targeting the teenager group, and ages above. The specific age certificate would most probably be a 15, because the use of certain props such as, knives and cigarettes may be too illiterate for younger people. 

Furthermore, the use of dead bodies, and a slightly psycho man may also border on too much for a younger audience. 

A few examples of rated 15 movies are: 'Slumdog Millionaire' and 'Knocked Up'.

Props - Cigarette

Above, is a picture of a cigarette, which my group will be using in order to represent death, in a sub-plot to our original idea. What we will be doing is switching to a scene of the cigarette burning out every so often, in order to indicate that death is approaching. 

There are obvious risk assessments towards this, which involve the smoke that comes out of the cigarette. It can affect the lungs in a serious way, so we will ensure that when filming the cigarette burning out, everyone can be away from it, and the camera will be secure on the tripod while filming. 

Note: I took this picture myself.

Props - Knife

This is the knife that we are using in our final clip for our film opening. It opens up various risks, which we covered in our risk assessment that was presented to our teacher. 

We will make sure that the knife is only within arms reach when we use it for filming. When we aren't filming with the knife, we will make sure it is put away safely. 

Also, we will only use a knife which is in the house we are filming at, because bringing a knife to someones house is not only a risk to us, but the general public. It also means breaking the law, as bringing a knife out can mean a prison sentence. 

All in all, we know the risks towards a knife, and we will use it as sparingly as possible, in order to keep everyone who is involved safe. 

Note: I took this picture myself.

First Day Of Filming

Filming

Yesterday we as a group had met up to try and film the first part of our thriller opening. We needed to work as a group and make sure everyone was concentrating. Once we started filming according to our storyboard. We had acctually thought of many new ideas we could add onto our movie. However we decided to keep it how it was in our storyboard as we did not want to make any major changes. 

As out thirller is about a young youth who's totally insame we needed to make our main character look the part. We made him dress up in casual clothing which was listed in the props that we had pitched. As we had to do the filming rather quickly as our character had to leave. We did not have enough time to purchase certain things for example the fake blood. So instead we had to use chilli powder which the character had come up with. 

We had all taken turns to do different shots of the scene from lots of different angles. This is because we did not want anyone to be left out or missing out.