Editing our Thriller

When our group began to edit all the footage from our thriller, we realised that when editing this we would have to be a lot more precise and edit a lot more carefully than we had when we edited our prelim task at the begging of the year, because the entire project was much bigger and it was part of our exam, we also were creating the whole thriller from the camera angles to the dialogue to the sound and we had to make sure we knew what we were doing at all times, not like in our preliminary task where we were given a script and had a lot of help from the teachers. We also needed to find our own pace throughout our sequence that kept our audience intrigued.

As our thriller involves one person playing two completely different personalities we had create a big difference when filming each of the characters. So we had to log all our shots into a ‘good Dan’ a ‘bad Dan’ and a P.O.V bin, this took us some time but once it was all organised it made the next step of our editing much easier. As we now had all the footage of the other character in a separate log bin we then began to put our footage together.
When will were using a shot of ‘good Dan’ we reflected his state of mind in our camera work, all of the shots of him were rushed and panicked much like he was, the camera was never still and all of the filming was moving and confused, which was then a huge contrast to when we used shots of ‘bad Dan’ as all of the footage of bad Dan we filmed at a very slow, steady speed and this built up a lot of tension and helps the audience to differentiate between the two characters. We also sped up using final cut pro, many of the P.O.V shots as this also helped to create a feel of panic and rushing through, ‘good Dan s’ eyes. Then we slowed down even more some of the ‘bad Dan’ shots. We also cut down all of the shots of ‘good Dan’ running and the P.O.V s so that they were short and fast which contributed to the film and helped build up suspense. And that although the footage was sharp and quick it made sense and was able to link up with the rest of the thriller.

When editing this footage it showed me how much we have all learnt from the first time we went up to the edit suite to learn how to edit. We were all filming and editing footage which a lot was more complicated than out preliminary task and even though it took us all a while to get back into editing we soon understood and continued. This time we all really concentrated and paid a lot more attention to the camera angles and what they all mean. For example toward the end of our thriller we do some high angled shots of good Dan as he is about to die, and this makes him look inferior and helpless. Throughout the thriller we also always seen good Dan bleeding and we see his face in pain, yet we only see bad Dan’s at the end, not only because this is the twist in the story but because it creates a sense of mystery and terror about him and the low angle shots of him make him look superior and in control.

This time we all really concentrated and paid a lot more attention to the camera angles and what they all mean. For example toward the end of our thriller we do some high angled shots of good Dan as he is about to die, and this makes him look inferior and helpless. Throughout the thriller we also always seen good Dan bleeding and we see his face in pain, yet we only see bad Dan’s at the end, not only because this is the twist in the story but because it creates a sense of mystery and terror about him and the low angle shots of him make him look superior and in control.

For our Thriller we didn’t have any dialogue and this made our editing process a lot easier although we needed to use some of the sound effects from running through the forest, so we will have to do some Foley work because the sound that we recorded on the day is not necessarily the right type as the twigs and rustling through the forest are not what we wanted there is also a lot of on set sound, so recording separate sound will help to make our thriller perfect. We will also use some non-digetic sound, which is sound that the audience can here but not the actors. The music will help to create atmosphere and a mood for our thriller as the sound is almost just as important as the picture. We are getting the best bits of sound and using them throughout the sequence to help create tension and pace. We are also creating our own music using the Soundtrack Pro program to create the music for our thriller, are music will be made up of many string instruments as they can be used to create many different moods and tension. You can create a sad atmosphere, an atmosphere of panic, terror or even happiness using most of the string instruments. We will also be using some piano as it is another instrument that can create many moods.

Our opening titles are on a black screen before the film starts, then it goes straight into Dan running in the forest then at the end of the sequence it black out and we have the title of our movie. We have decided to do our titles like this so as they don’t detract from the sequence and the titles are just as clear as the film.


Making this thriller has been an amazing experience. Although there have been some times when things were not working and our group was struggling to work together and be organised we did it in the end and our thriller did not suffer as we have created a thriller that we all enjoy and our proud of. It has quite a wide target audience which is good too. It has been amazing to learn how to use all the editing technology and to create a sequence from just an idea in your head. I now have a much bigger appreciation for people who make films, from the producers to the directors to the cinematographers as I now know how much work goes into make a film. I now also notice so much more when watching a movie, things that would have gone unnoticed before I now appreciate and pay attention too, film making is a form of art and it takes a lot of talent, creativity and patients.

DAY OF SHOOTING

On Thursday 28th January it was our groups shoot day. We all arrived at the edit suite at 9:00 am and quickly realised that we were ill prepared as we did not have an actor for our thriller. We tried to organise an actor but he was unable to come until later, so we wanted to use the time to make sure that we would be completely organised for when we eventually left. Although we began our day late, we all walked up to our location determined. The location was some woods just near the school near the Hurtwood look out point. Once we arrived there we immediately began filming and Dan Ash from A2 became our actor and he was amazing! It was very difficult as he was playing two different people but as the same person. So we had to make sure that our continuity was perfect. We would film the “bad Dan” walking and then the “good Dan” but we had to make sure that it looked like they were walking the same path as one was following the other.

We filmed a lot that morning in spite of our late start, we then went back up to the location after lunch but we left the woods and went to view point. Up there the view was so beautiful and as it had just rained the sky was dramatic and amazing for our ending sequence, although it was beautiful it was changing fast so we had to make sure we filmed quickly so as to get good continuity, and these sort of things show me how much really goes into making a film, and how much you need to pay attention to the small things. We filmed for most of the day and probably will end up with a 3 minuet film after editing and when you think of some 2 hour films that are made the effort and time that goes into a film like that is huge! It really helped me grasp an understanding of film making.

When we were almost done with our filming we all got a chance just to run around the woods with the camera getting footage for trees and the forest ground to be used as a P.OV of our main character during the final edited version. We are going to do some Foley work and also edit in some dramatic music later on and this all will help add to our sequence and will create an atmosphere and an effect.
The ending of our sequence began to change as we went along and our final version will end up a bit different to our original storyboards, but I think that this is for the best as the ending that we filmed yesterday was a lot more effective, dramatic and intriguing for the audience.

We all decided to keep our props and costumes very simple as Dan would have to change a lot to become the other character. When he was “bad Dan” he wore black jeans and white shoes and a hoodie which created a mystery about his character as it was difficult to distinguish who it was, and had his hunting knife that he eventually uses to kill his other character. Then when he was “good Dan” he just wore a black T-shirt so that he would be well seen within the woods and the same trousers and shoes. When he was “good Dan” he was covered in blood and this was easy to see on the clothing that we had chosen.

STORYBOARDING

When making our storyboard it helped me realise how much effort really goes into making a film we had to work out every single angle of the camera, how many shots and you also have to think about why you would put it there, what it means, making a character look stronger or weaker can all be manipulated by camera angles. We had to break down each bit of our short sequence into a camera movement. It also helped me think about are entire sequence and it helped me to understand it more and see it from all angles and to decide which angle and shot would be better. The storyboard really did help us on our shoot day, although we did not stick completely to our original shots on the storyboards it did help us immensely as it organized our shots and helped us choose which shots to film when and where it also helped us organize the filming in each location.
Above is a drawn sotryboard .

Introduction to still and video cameras.

Our class went up to the edit suite to have our first lesson on how to use a camera. Most of us had never seen or held a proper filming camera so it was all a huge experience. Matt taught us all about using contrast, lighting and DB’s. All of this is very important as if you get it wrong and there is too much light coming into your camera whilst filming the film will be very difficult to see anything and it will seem as though the light of a nuclear bomb has gone off. We then learnt how to put the camera on a tri pod and how to put the battery in and set the whole thing up and put it together. We were told to go off and film a 5 minuet sequence in our groups from different angles. But we learnt how to let the actors move within the frame and not to pan or tilt the camera. It was very interesting to see all our first films.

TRILLER IDEAS AND CHOSEN IDEA

In my group for my horror film I am with Adam, Victor and Charlotte. Each person contibutes well to our group and we all have our jobs to do, Adam is the sound enginere, charlotte is the producer, i am the cinematographer and Victor is the Director. We have chosen to use Victor’s idea as it was very easy yet effective and can be scary as it leaves the ending up to the audience’s imagination.


My horror is a film called Delusion, about a young girl who gets put in a mental home after seeing a dead body in the lake near her house. While she is in the metal home she befriends a girl much like her, her new friend begins to manipulate her and make her do things she does not want to do. Later she convinces her to escape from the mental home and she goes back home and strangles her father because he put her in the mental home and he would not belive her about the dead body near the house. But then she is found dead in the lake the next day, but I leave it up to the audience to decide what happened to her, if she became schizophrenic and was “murdered” by her other half or if she was drowned by the girl she befriended. To fund my film i would use Artisan Entertainment as i have seen many small budget films that have acheved great success through this company, they have produced fims such as Dirty Dancing which acheved huge success in the late 80S and Napoleon Dynamite which cost less than $400,000 to make but its gross revenue was almost $50 million. Napoleon Dynamite also has the same target audience as me as my film would appeal to an audience of about 15 to 25 years old because they are both young and entertaining as the target audience may be able to relate some of the things that happen in the film. Artisan Entertainment was a private independent American movie studio until it was brought by a Canadian studio, Lionsgate, in 2003. We decided not to use my idea as it would be more expensive and complicated to film and difficult to create an opening sequence that would make sense without telling the whole story.


But for Victors idea, his opening sequence was to start with a big establishing shot of a forest and then the camera would drop down into the woods and we would be able to see the names of the cast, producer and director carved into the trees and then it would begin with the camera man running with the camera filming a boy about the age of 18, this would give the impression that he is being chased, he then begins to slow down and is bleeding from his stomach, he eventually falls to his knees and then on his back, he is filmed from a high angle as this will make him appear inferior he looks up and sees a shadow standing over him holding a knife, the audience is unable to see who it is, then we see a P.OV from the young boy and we see that the figure is infact himeself. this can leave it up to the audiences imagination, if it was the young boys imagination and he had created a person in his mind.He then dies and the film cuts. Then there will be a slash through the black and we will see the title of the film through it and it will be back lit through smoke. We are going to film it in a forest near the school, which is very easy and inexpensive. The forest will also create a spooky and mysterious atmosphere if we film and light it in the right way. All the angles that we will be filming from will manipulate the picture and will always make the boy look inferior and helpless. It will also create an atmosphere of panic and chaos which will hopefully make the audience feel panic and unease and hopefully our thriller will have a good effect on it's audiences. I would also use Artisan Emtertainment as in 1999's they made The Blair Witch Project. It had a budget of $22,000 but grossed over $248 million worldwide. It had the highest ratio of box office sales to production cost in American film making history. It is also in a way very similar to victors idea so i think that they would promote it in the right away as they did lots of advertising on the internet and the internet is most used by this films target audiencs, 15 to 25,and it would become successfull with a big profit to be made out of a small budget!
Another film company I would use would be Fox searchlight, they are a company that originated from Fox but they take on the more riskier films that do not necessarily have such a big chance of success. Some of the films that they have made that have achieved huge success are Slumdog Millionaire, with a budget of $10 million and grossing over $360 million worldwide. Juno had a budget of $6.5 million and it gained $230 million worldwide it also won an Oscar for best origional screenplay. Garden State had a budget of $2,500,00 and it got a gross revenue of $35,825,316 it also earned a Grammy for its outstanding soundtrack. Thirteen which became a very popular film’s budget was $2 million and it got a gross revenue of $10.1 million. This shows us that Fox Searchlight would be perfect to use as our film that is for a niche audience.Audiences would be able to relate to the film much like they have to the others. We also belive that as Fox Searchlight it a well respected company due to these other films, it would gain the right publicity and as it has Fox as a backing it may be able to invest more into the film if nessicary.

What is a Horror?

A horror film serves many purposes-

1] PERSONNAL - the audiences own identification with the fears or threats of the narrative- tapping into primal fears of, .the creative/other in darkness. Body being ripped/mutilated. Emergence of terror but from a safe (vicarious) distance.

2] IDEOLOGY - the implicit (hidden) or explicit (obvious) messages embedded in the narrative. Themes of punishment / redemption and/or revulsion at any subject which deviates from ‘correct’ thinking. Beginning with ‘basic’ textual messages. (the virgin good girl surviving at the expense of the ‘slutty’ rebellious friend) and developing into more nuanced subtle ‘fears’ of strangers/hitchhikers/different religious beliefs/power of science to conquer the darkness- new faith in the expense of ‘old’ religion.

3] FINANCIAL/INDUSTRIAL – without a doubt one of the most lucrative genres to continually re-invent and exploit. Horror franchises regularly stretch beyond other genres in terms of sequels, spin offs and remakes because of the profit.

Prelim Post Production and Final Cut

EDITING

On Friday our class went up to the editing suite to edit our short film that we had filmed the week before. Mat showed us how to see our footage from the Final Cut Server, we logged on and found our footage on an edit proxy, and the edit proxy is a way for us to edit our footage with out editing the final cut.


LOGGING OUR SHOTS

We all had a lot of input in this part, we had to create a log bin which is where we put the best shots from our footage that we will use in the final footage. We went through the wide shots, the close ups, the over the shoulders and all the other shots and we chose the best shots of each of them and put them into the log bin for later. We chose the best ones which had the best continuity and the best camera angle with the best sound and the best frame.



ORGANISING AND ORDER OF OUR SHOTS

Once we had chosen the shots that were the best and that we needed for the sequence we then had to put them in the right order and to trim them down and make them perfect. The shot order and the specific one that we had chosen all helps to create a great end result, the shot order and angle can help the audience determine what side they are on and what they think of the characters and the film. If you start off the film with a bad portrayal of a character this will be the audiences first impression of them and it might not change throughout the film, you also need to have high point and low point in the film as it cannot be one constant mood as this will bore the audience, and so we needed to make sure our shots were in the right order. The audience will also need to understand the film and if the scenes are in the wrong order the film will not make sense, so you can see how important this part of editing is.


EDITING IN FINAL CUT

We had to trim down our clips so that we did not have the directors noises such as CUT and ACTION to ruin our film, but we had to make sure that we got this perfect so that we could have correct match on action and to make sure that the sequence was not robotic and distorted and that it flowed in a constant movement and made sure that everyone understood what was happening the film. We all had a go and trimming down each shot and getting them in the right order, this was very important as in a way it is what creates the film, after the actors have done their part it is up to the editors to create the rest of the film, the editors also have power over everyone as they can chose how to portrayal a character and the film through their editing.