Lighting Alteration

Here is our original first draft of our Supernatural Horror Film Opening:

After receiving feedback from peers and teachers, we noticed that most of the feedback suggested the same thing. The lighting was too bright. As we couldn't refilm out footage, we decided to play around with the clips on Final Cut Pro in order to darken them up a little to fit the genre better.

We took our already edited footage and selected an individual clip. The first thing we did was desaturate the clips. This made the footage less colourful and more dull. From our research we noticed that most horror films are not brightly coloured and exciting. I then did this for all of the clips within our opening.

Following this, I felt the need to darken the clip itself as opposed with playing around with the colour intensity. This meant that I was able to change the contrast of the shadows, mid-tones and highlights to fit the contrast that I want to achieve. The main area I had to darken was the highlights due to the fact that our clips had many very bright points within the sequence. 

 

Here is the final edit with all of the lighting changes:

Ending Titles

When I tried to make the ending titles, I used the typography that is at the top of the blog. This however, was a bad idea as the image was very small and rectangular:

Previously, I put this typography at the end of the film opening, it didn't look particularly good due to the sizing of the image itself: 

Therefore, I decided to increase the sizing of the image on photoshop, so the first thing I did was create a new document on photoshop: 

Then I changed the colour or the background to black and uploaded the image on top of the new background:

When I transformed the image, in order to blow up the image, it became very pixilated and distorted: 

As this was not up to the standard I wanted, I felt the need to re-do it. I did this in exactly the same way as I did before: http://cragmedia.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/photoshop-named-typography.html 

Here is the finished product: 

I then decided to put this as the ending of our film opening as our final title sequence: 

End Titles Practical

I had the task of editing together the ending title sequence for our film opening. Firstly, I took the ending sequence that Chloe had previously edited and uploaded it onto Final Cut Pro.

Following this, I overlaid the text that I had previously designed for the ending of our title sequence and placed it at the end of the clip where there was some extra non-diegetic sound. 

I then added two different transitions to the beginning of the titles. I added Zoom and Fade to Colour. This will allow the titles to appear gradually rather than just popping up suddenly. Appeared gradually adds a sense of eeriness about it. 

I needed to add a transition to the end of the titles as I didn't want them to just disappear suddenly. Therefore I added a Fade to Colour transition in order to make the image disappear gradually. 

The final bit of editing I did, was add Bad TV effect to the titles themselves. This was to make them appear a bit more interested as opposed to just white writing on a plain black background. 

I played about with the amount of Bad TV effect I wanted in order to reduce it so that the writing was visible. 

Here is the final edit:

Typography

I tried a different style of typography that we could use in order to achieve the scary effect we are aiming for.
I opened a new document on photoshop and made the background black. I then inserted the letter 'P' changing the font to Blackman Old Style as I wanted an old fashioned looking font.

Once the letter was inserted, I adjusted the opacity levels to make it appear very translucent and ghost like. 

Following this, I went to Filter > Blur > Radial Blur. This allowed the letters to take on a spinning and blurred effect which adds to the scary effect we are aiming for. 

I then duplicated the layer that I have just created in order to give it more depth then I increased the opacity on the top layer and slightly shifted it to the right of the other two layers. 

Here is my final image:

Evaluation: Day 4 Filming

Thankfully this was our final day filming. We managed to finish filming the last few scenes needed in order to bring all of our footage together for our film opening.

However, we did encounter one or two problems as expected. For example, when filming quite a few members of the public would interrupt out filming mid-scene. Therefore we would have to stop filming and then re-start from the beginning of the scene. Although this was quite annoying, it did become a necessity.

In addition to this, the weather was also a problem. For example, we had one scene let to film in the car park, however because it was windy and raining, it became very hard to do this scene, as the models hair was blowing about. This meant the scene had to be re-filmed several times in order to get it right.

The final problem we had was getting everyone to co-operate. This means that at certain times there were one or two people who didn't have the energy to continue filming. We managed to overcome this problem by giving encouragement from other members of the group. This meant that we managed to get everything filmed in this final week.

On the other hand, we did have a few good points on this day of filming. For example, when filming the glasses scene, we managed to get it filmed in one take. This made us happy and gave us motivation to continue filming and drove us to get everything done this week.

The last good aspect that we found helpful was the lighting. We managed to re-film certain parts that had previously gone wrong. For example, the last scene that is featured within the car park as opposed to the stairwell was filmed with better lighting, therefore brightening the shot to the standard of the other shots we had.

Typography Reconsideration

After looking at out Typography for our film opening, we decided to reconsider the design, due to the fact the font itself appear too masculine and strong for a young female antagonist. Therefore, I have tried another way in order to recreate the typography to fit out opening better.

Firstly, I typed the title of our film out in white on a black background:

I then changed the font to one that is more feminine and fragile: 

On top of this, I laid a cracked ground image over the text, being careful not to stretch the image, ruing the overall effect:

Then I changed the opacity of this overlaid image, making it possible for me to see the text underneath 

I was then able to use the eraser tool to rub out any of the cracked image that was not laid over the text, therefore shaping the image around the text itself: 

 I did this to the entire word and then added a stylized effect to it, causing the font to appear more static and supernatural in comparison to the original font.

I did this effect in all four directions. Here is the final product:

This image however, appears as though it is sparkling and does not fit the genre of our film opening. 

Evaluation: Day 3 Filming

EVALUATION

Filming on Sunday the 19th January 2014, wasn't our best day in all honesty. We were all tired and becoming slightly annoyed with having to come out every Sunday to film. Therefore we all became a big agitated. However, we did manage to get a fair bit done. We re-filmed a scene due to the fact the lighting was very poor on the original, making our models appear silhouetted.  When we re-did this, we noticed that the effect was similar again therefore we have decided to lighten the shot on Final Cut Pro by adding effects over the top of the image.

Another problem we ran into was people and cars again. There seemed to be quite a few people and cars driving through out set this week. This meant that we  had to stop half way through a shot and restart it from the beginning. This was saved eventually as we only had a few car park scenes to do where as the rest of our scenes were either in the lift or in the stairwell. This minimised the amount of people walking into our shots.

Finally, the main problem we had was being able to get things filmed in the time period we had. Most of the scenes that needed to be filmed were involving Tia however, she needed to leave earlier this week due to extra ciricular activities. Therefore, we knew we were not going to get everything filmed this week so we took our time making sure everything was perfect when we were filming. Next week we should have more time and resources in order to complete our filming for the final time. 

Evaluation: Day 2 Filming

EVALUATION

Day 2 of filming was by far the most successful that we have had. We managed to get most of our opening filmed with a few minor problems. For example, we got half way through our day's worth of filming and then we realised that Georgia was not wearing her glasses in the first few scenes. This meant that we had to go back and re-film the first few scenes of out opening.

Following on from this minor disaster, we also encountered a lot more people than usual. On Sunday, there appeared to be a lot more people out and about in the car park. Some were skating whereas others we driving around, presumably parking their car. This meant that we either had to wait for them to leave, or as politely for them to move. 

Our final problem was the main one that we encountered at the end of our filming session. Chloe's DSLR camera ran out of charge. Although this may seem an unfortunate event, we were quite pleased with the amount of filming that we managed to get done. Therefore, the camera dying, was a signal for us all to go home.

Another good thing that came out of choosing this Sunday to film, was the weather. When we tried filming before, the weather was terrible. It was raining and very windy. This Sunday however, the weather was dry and bright sunshine. 

In conclusion we had a very successful day filming however we didn't manage to finish every scene like we had hoped to, but after reviewing the scenes we did film, we can note down the problems and fix them on our next day of filming. 

Credits and Footage

Before, I designed the credits however they appeared on screen really fast, unlike credits in a Hollywood Movie. Therefore we decided as a group to test different ways of having the credits appearing on screen. Eventually we decided to have each credit appear after a section of footage. I took the footage that we shot on Sunday 12th January 2014. I edited the footage into my previously made credits and here is the final product (however we do need to add non-diegetic sound, that will be made during post production).

The finished lair

This is the finished lair. We used lots of sheets of paper to cover the walls in drawings, each member of the group creating over 20 each. This worked really well because it looked cluttered and also brings in the Possesed element really well

The dolls and teddies look effect to show that the area belongs to a little girl straight away and the burnt, cut effect shows how something sweet and innocent is taken and destroyed. 

Run through of events

Joe & Georgia walk towards car. - tracking shot

- Open boot - close up, with Tia far away at end of the car park- focuses on her 

- Then, they walk towards her- long shot 

Mid shot of Tia walking into staircase door 

- Then close up of her walking into door 

- Match on action of joe & Georgia going into staircase 

- Two shot of them looking at each other 

- Then, Chloe sitting at the bottom of the staircase filming joe & Georgia's feet descending the stairs 

- Close up on faces as they walk down the stairs 

- Mid shot of them descending stairs 

- Then, they walk through the door & see the lair. Close up on their faces as they see the lair 

- Mid shot of Tia with jack in the box 

Close ups of photos, beds, teddies 

- joe & Georgia running up stairs

- Point of view shot from Georgia running behind joe

- Georgia falls & glasses drop 

- high angle shot of Georgia getting up

- low angle shot of feet running passed glasses & road feet walking behind 

- running towards lift, over the shoulder from Georgia revealing joe is in the lift 

- match on action of Georgia going into lift & falling into joe 

- then CCTV shot of them in the lift 

- close up of hands pressing buttons 

- then, over the shoulder shot of joe & Georgia looking at the lift doors where Tia is standing with her back to them 

- she turns slowly, then the shot changes to an over the shoulder shot from Tia facing joe & Georgia. Georgia screams 

- close up of tias face 

End titles 

END 

We were getting a little confused about which shots were needed ad how many shots we would need for each scene, although the storyboard was helpful as a group we found it beneficial to sit down and actually say all of the scenes out loud and write them down for future reference.

Practical: Credits

We needed to design our credits for our film opening. We decided to take influence from Mama's opening credits by using  the idea of children's drawings as a basis. 

I created this in Final Cut Pro by:

Uploading all the media into Final Cut Pro. I then dragged a specific image into the timeline. I hit "CROP" at the bottom of the view screen and then "KEN BURNS". This meant I was able to change the zooming point of the image.

This then brought up two boxes, "START" and "STOP". This shows us where on the image the film will begin and where it will end.

I then selected the blade tool and cut the clip to the length that I thought was suitable, allowing me to be given enough time to show the credits. 

I then needed to add text. So I hit the text button and then chose the specific style of text that I wanted to use. 

Then I edited the text itself, meaning I could make the credits say whatever I wanted them too.

This allowed me to add transitions between the images and credits that appeared on screen. I added the "FADE TO COLOUR" effect in order to add an eerie effect. 

I repeated this for as many credits that I needed to show. Here is the finished product: 

Evaluation: Day 1 Filming

EVALUATION 

The first problem we encountered was that one of our main actors was unable to make the filming session on two days. Therefore we decided to adjust our storyline and just include one victim. This was because the actress playing our victim is part of our group so she is reliable and we can count on her to turn up on our filming days.

We then realised that due to the weather, it would be really difficult to film the scene within the open car park as it was really windy and the rain was coming down at an angle causing it to be blown into our filming area. In order to rescue this day of filming we decided to film the stair case scene and the lift scene from many different camera angles.

On the other hand, the day was really successful day of filming as we managed to film a lot of our opening. We filmed the same scene over and over in order to capture it from many different angles and with many different camera movements.

We recorded room tone in every location in order to create the best ambiance within the location. This meant that we were able to capture sounds and noises that were not picked up by the DSLR when filming. In addition to this, adding the room tone over the top of our footage means that what the audience will see on the screen will become more real and life like.