Soundtrack

We composed the music for our film on the program soundtrack.
we decided early on that the music should play a key part in creating suspense.
using 'soundtrack' we found some really good ambient sounds that would be effective in our film. In the end we decided to keep the music minimalistic; only using it at key points in the story to build tension.
Alot of the final film has multiple layers of sound from clips being pushed together. We are most proud of these shoots and think they are very well edited.

Filming

We filmed the majority of our film on one day, as we planned to do the night time shots separately. However because of the difficulty of filming at night, we ended up coming back another day when it was light and finished the filming. This ensured all our shots looked like they were filmed at the same time, which therefore helped achieve continuity editing. During the filming our script changed due to better ideas or because our original ideas only worked on paper and were not practical to film.

We originally planned to have a shot of a newspaper article that explained o the audience there was a killer at large, as well as help to increase tension. Yet, creating a good looking and believable article was harder than we thought. We did, however, come up with an idea we thought was better, which involved showing a news report on television about the killer. We achieved this by filming a news report on a separate camera and then playing the clip through the TV. We then played the clip when filming with the college camera, so it looked like a real news show on the TV. We were very happy with the outcome.

Originally we had also planned to have a final shot where you see the victim of the killer, who has been mutilated and bloody. We planned to do this by using dried PVA glue on flesh to look like dried and peeled skin. But after an attempt, we decided it did not look as effective as we imagined. So to solve this we decided not to show a great deal of the victim, and leave more to the viewers imagination.

Hue/Saturation Editing

The main problem we had when creating our film was filming in the day time, when it wasn't dark like a typical horror film. This did not comply with conventions as usually horror films are shot at night time. We had originally planned to make it look like it was dusk, and gradually getting darker. However with light clearly shining through the windows, it made it impossible to pursue this idea. We experimented in Final Cut using the 'Hue and Saturation' tool, attemtpting to create the feel of night time. We accentuated the blue tones in the footage to give the impression of dusk. Yet, after a lot of trial and error, we decided the film ended up looking cheap and 'wet'.
Because of this we decided to change our script ever so slightly, drawing inspiration from the films 'Scream.' 'Scream' is an iconic horror/slasher film which has a large proportion of it filmed in the day time. So we decided rather than using an over-effected, poor looking film, we decided to keep our film during the day time.

There was one clip where we had to adjust the hue/saturation levels and accentuate the blues. In the previous clip the girls face had a blue tint to it, because of the TV next to her. So by creating a blue tint on the next clip, we could successfully achieve continuity editing.

Reasons for placing titles where they are

In our film opening we decided to place our titles at various places within the opening sequence, with our final title (the film name) at the end. Our reason for doing this was that during our research we saw a few film openings like this, and thought it to be veery effective. It allows a pre-film sequence to be shown to set the outline of the plot/story, before entering the bulk of the film.

Below are a few examples of films that use the same effect with placing titles amongst there opening sequence.

Production Meeting 4

Plan

• Girl returns home to find note from parents, explaining how they will not be home until later (note on fridge). Note also explains how girl is not allowed to have boys round.

On the way into the house, she pulls out a free newspaper wedged into the letterbox and takes it inside.

• Girl starts to prepare dinner, cutting knife is suggestive!

Newspaper is place next to cutting board.

• Phone rings but it cuts off and nobody replies. Almost as soon as she puts the phone down, the doorbell rings.
• Point of view shot of door opening very slowly, but nobody is there! (false scare)
• Turns around and jumps when her boyfriend is there. He laughs and explains he got in through her bedroom window which is always open.
• Girl is annoyed because he scared her and he shouldn't really be around. So tells him to go close upstairs window. 
• Girl goes back into kitchen, cutlery is moved! (but not missing.)

Knife is now on top off newspaper. she thinks nothing of it and picks up knife, which was covering headline. headline reads. 'Teenage girl skinned.' 

• Boy does not come down so she investigates.  She opens cupboard in bedroom and boy appears dead inside.   

To add a phycological twist in the film and give a sense of unease, the girl will have the point of view shots (the shot typical of the killer or villain). We thought the plot of the film could turn out that the girl have schitzophreniea and a event in her life causes her to take a dislike to men and murder her boyfriends. The audience to not know in the opening sequence, that the girl is the killer, but we are attempting to give them a hint by the choice of shots we are using.   

Today we have done a quick storyboard outlining the main shots of the opening sequence.

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21/1/2009

Production Meeting 3

Today we worked on our production companies logo, in the program 'Live Type'. We didn't want our logo to look cheap or unprofessional, so we kept it simple and are very happy with the outcome. 

We chose the production company name 'Aversion' because it links in with our genre. The word 'Aversion' ties in with the idea of dislike and horror. 

Production Meeting 2

Today we outlined possible ideas for our script. We have decided to produce a rough copy, to get an idea of what are final piece will look like. We have finalized the decision to create a 'slasher horror' film opening.

Below is a brief outline of what we will include in the film opening:

Setting - Filmed in the evening/night to create spooky atmosphere. Shots will mainly be filmed inside, however there will be some shots filmed outside.

Location - Suburban house, possibly with use of a nearby graveyard and park.

Characters -

a female victim, who is suggestively killed/taken.

  

villain, unknown identity and has a murder weapon 

  

false-scare man.

  

Hero, or at least a suggested hero who appears at the very end.

Brief Story Outline -

girl is on her own in a house

 

See a point of view from the suggested villain

 

Tension builds - missing cutlery etc

 

False-scare, which relieves the audience

 

false scare man has to leave, girl on her own- vulnerable.

 

Tension builds once more, leads to eventual suggested murder

 

sharp match-on-action shot cuts to hero.

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14/1/09