Extra Editing session 2

This editing session took place after school, with only Sam Warren and I present, as James Scott had a driving lesson and James Lawley a revision lesson.

After going down the long list of similar variations of the same font, we had almost given up, until on scrolling to the very bottom of the list, the last option was finally a suitable font that fit with the conventions of horror film opening title sequences and ethos of our film. All that we needed to do to improve the opening titles was increase the size of the font and change the colour. Sam Warren and I, made an executive decision, deciding that our titles should be two tone in colour, specifically white and red sticking to the conventions of horror film fonts. White representing hope and divinity, red representing blood and death. We also decided that because the titles were two tone the fonts should also be in two different sizes. The heading being provided would be a 55 size font and the response to the heading would be a 77 size font. The heading being in red and the response being in white, although it does vary throughout , to outline that ordinary people were behind the making of this sick twisted film, requiring them to be in the minds of sick twisted people to get ideas of horrific shots and scenes.

On finishing the selection of the fonts type, colour and style, Sam Warren and I discovered a solution to the problems we have had with continuity in regards to sound. We learned that you could dissect and divide the audio from a shot, allowing you to edit it individually from the shot itself. This meant that we could do this to the scene of dialogue between are two actors Zak and George or their characters Max and James, and then copy and paste the sound file of traffic and a metro going past, throughout the rest of the shot reverse shots of the dialogue, to maintain continuity and lower the ambient sound minutely so that the audience can still hear the dialogue.

To exacerbate the meeting of the victim and the antagonist, I thought it would be a good idea to insert a low pitched, slow, momentary drumming sound splitting up the two different non-diegetic music pieces, making the change of pace in the title sequence clear and startling to the audience. Unfortunately, after searching the internet for a around 20 minutes or so, we could not find any royalty free drumming sound clips, the met the requirements I set in my head and did not accurately fit the shot, and adding any of them would have been detrimental to the success of the title sequence.

We have almost finished our title sequence now, but there is still one aspect James Lawley has created that we are going to add the the end of the title sequence.

Extra Editing session 1

This editing session took place at lunch, with all members of the group present, and was a continuation of sound editing. James Lawley had downloaded some royalty free, non-diegetic ambient traffic noise to be played during the dialogue section between the two characters, James and Max, due to continuity errors we encountered when recording the audio during a shot reverse shot scene. After editing its volume and pitch, messing around with it for a while, we came to the unfortunate conclusion that it was not of a good enough quality and did not accurately match the mise-en-scene of the footage.

At the time being unsuccessful at trying to find accurate ambient sound for the shot reverse shot scene, we decided that we would come back to it later. Instead we began looking at different fonts to use for the titles, of which we were also unsuccessful. Fortunately the end of our lunch break came with this giving us some time to think of a solution to these two apparent problems.

Day 5 of editing (post feedback)

We are nearing the end of the editing process for out title sequence now, but just have a few more finishing touches to add. Firstly, James Lawley began by importing a royalty free "viewer discretion is advised" sound file and image of text to accompany this on the recommendation of myself to warn the audience of the inappropriate content that horror films contain. After it was finished importing, we added it on to the very beginning of our title sequence before anything occurs, along with the soundtrack of the man saying 'Viewer discretion is advised'  what  appears, of which we had to match the audio so that it played exactly halfway through the shots play time.

Once we had finished with that we noticed that some of the sound files were overlapping, which could cause some confusion the audience members watching and so we went through the entire title sequence trimming the sound files down, editing them individually so that when they stopped it was gradual and not instantaneous, as well as making sure that the ticking changed at the most opportune moments to increase the effectiveness. For the rest of this session it was mostly just sound editing, how loud certain sounds were in comparison to other. For example, to begin with the ticking sound should be somewhat inaudible, whereas the non-diegetic music should take priority, later balancing themselves out. The speed of the ticking was also important to show the gradual escalation of the cloaked figures actions.

Day 4 of Editing part 2 (post feedback)

As we could not get all of the editing done in lesson 1, we continued to edit our title sequence in lesson 2, improving the sequence as much as possible as we are working towards a deadline. James Lawley and James Scott took the lead with editing for part 2, and started off by adding a fade transition to the final shot of the title sequence as the antagonist slips out of frame, the screen fades to black, with the ticking of the clock changing to dramatically slow after the death of the victim, and carrying on for an extra second after the shot has slipped into darkness, which was an accident but I suggested we keep making it more eerie, and pushing the idea that the clock has some purpose/significance. A fade transition was also added to the beginning of the title sequence, so that it didn't just abruptly start.

After this we began placing the titles on a few of the opening shots, trying to decide the production company, director, producer and screen play writer, as well as where and when these would be positioned in the shot without obstructing the view of the audience or being too distracting. To save time we kept the font of text default, as we wanted to get all of the previously talked about issues settled first. From our experience of watching lots of horror films and their opening title sequences, we used the standard structure and order of titles. For example, the names of big production companies appear first e.g. Working Title, then a second party producer such as Universal Studios would appear.

We tried to come up with creative ways for the transitions to appear in conjuncture with actions taking place in the shot or movement. An example of this is when the actors Zak and George walk away from each other after talking, the title appears in the spotlight. Another example is when Zak walks past a wall on a bridge and then a title appear on the wall he has just passed. To end this editing session James Lawley came up with the idea of adding in a generic movie styled black boarder around the edge of every shot in the title sequence, to make it look more professional.

Day 4 of Editing part 1 (post feedback)

After reading through the feedback sheet we received, as a group, we noticed that we were aware of the majority of features that still needed some fine tuning, and editing, which was reassuring as it meant that we were on track to completing our opening title sequence.

For the rest of the editing sessions in lesson we decided that we would edit as a group, whilst switching chairs half way through the lesson to ensure that each of us got an even amount of time to edit. This was beneficial as it meant that while two people were concentrating on editing specific shots and clips, the other two people could look out for any inconsistencies or mistakes made, that went unnoticed by the two active editors. This will hopefully result in a more refined, higher quality final product.

To begin with, Sam Warren and I edited for the first half hour and James Lawley and James Scott edited for the last. Initially, before doing anything we watched our rough edit title sequence all the way through, to see if we could spot any blatant mistakes or problems. After doing so we noticed that in a few important shots and camera movements the lighting was poor, making it nearly impossible to see what was happening on screen, so to fix this we needed to manipulate the colour ratio in the specified shots, or add a bright filter. We chose to do the former of the two options, after comparing both edits, deciding it looked a lot better and less artificial, making the actions of characters clearly visible on screen.

To accompany our title sequence we added royalty free, non-diegetic music, to build suspense as the victim, is being unknowingly followed, which then changes, after his realization of the danger he is in, to a more fast paced, higher pitched, melodic beat. This was roughly placed along with the ticking clock sound effect. To give the feeling of events gradually escalating, we came up with the idea of the ticking speeding up at key moments, which we accomplished by copy and pasting the same ticking sound file, and editing the speed of it, then placing them at the shots we thought best suited the sound change.

Since there are multiple sound effects throughout the title sequence we still needed to edit the volume of the sounds accordingly to compliment each other. On top of this we also needed to add transitions, the title frames, the viewer discretion sound file along with image, and decide on a suitable font.     

Feedback sheet from 3 full sessions of editing

The third and final day of filming 5/2/15

The aim of this filming session was to finish filming the rest of scene 3, 4 and 5 of our title sequence, and suffice to say we managed this, by adding an hour or so onto our original filming time, since we are working on a time limit and must allow sufficient time for us to edit the shots together, as well as adding transitions and sound.

To begin the night, all the members of my group and the actors met up at our original meeting location, the leisure centre, at 6:30pm. The reason we started at 6:30pm and not 6:00pm exactly, was that James Lawley was in charge of the camera and props and he had a driving lesson which he could not re-schedule. However, one of our actors, Adam Ledger, and I were late to the filming. This was because Adam was finishing off some college work and apparently I forgot how to tell the time. Adam arrived at 7:00pm and then I arrived shortly after at 7:10pm. Not needing either of us for the first two shots, James Scott,  Sam Warren, James Lawley and Zak Almond Riley began filming after 15 - 20 minutes of waiting for us to arrive.

When I turned up I was briefed on what they had filmed so far, which turned out not to be very much and I began the night of filming with a close up of Zak, Max's face as he was transfixed on the antagonist, instructing him on the facial expression he should make in order to relay how much terror and fear the character is feeling in the shot. Before this James Lawley started off by filming a wide shot of Zak walking unsteadily and at a exceedingly unsteady pace. This was followed by Sam Warren filming a hand held, tracking shot, making it seem like the antagonist is gaining on him gradually, getting closer increasing Max's vulnerability. After helping Adam into his costume when he arrived, Sam continued filming with a stationary wide shot of Zak running away in to separate locations, which will show our understanding of different editing techniques, such as cross cutting in this situation. In the same scene James Scott contributed by filming a match on action shot of Max running away from the antagonist. Also, James Lawley came up with an improvised high angle shot of Adam whilst slowly circling him, by extending the tripod to its full height and the holding it over his head, and considering it was more of a trial and error shot, he managed to get it right the second time. 

When arriving at the victims house, I filmed a wide shot of Max running off of the pavement, down the drive and into the house, frantically scuffling the door handle to open it quicker, revealing his lack of grace under pressure. Once he had entered the house, James Scott filmed a mid shot of the cloaked figure standing in a doorway directly opposite the front door, holding the miniature grandfather clock, rapidly ticking in its hands. James Lawley helped with the lighting of this shot by using his phone light, positioned on an angle facing up from the legs of the tripod, as it was extremely dark on the camera when we pressed record, however the lighting was a lot more fitting and professional in person, this was unavoidable and it is still possible to see the clock, as well as the outline of the cloaked villain. To end the title sequence, San Warren held the tripod of the camera on his knee while sitting on the stairs, whilst I press the record button to get a two shot of the antagonist impaling Max with a machete.

We finished the last night of filming at about 8:50pm, and despite some of the troubles with cars and trains, which we did not expect to face, I think it went quite well and I am pleased with the progress we have made, meaning that now we can focus more on editing the shots together.         

Itinerary for filming 5/2/15

Yesterday we planned to film the entirety of scene 3 and 4 as well as, hopefully, finishing the filming process of our title sequence. We believe this is possible if we extend the amount of time we are filming for by at least one hour and start filming the moment we get there, even if another member of the group has not yet arrived. These scene will most likely be easier to film as there is less room for error because there is no dialogue in any of the shots and the shots themselves are shorter in time.

The third scene will begin with Max's journey down a long, lonesome road, which will need to successfully build up suspense for when he meets his assailant for the fist time, face to face. This was done by the camera shots and movements we decided to use on the night most preferably any wide, long or dolly shots that show the antagonist following the unknowing victim to his fate. I thought this would help create a tense situation as the closer the villain gets, the more the audience wants the victim to turn around or run, and the longer he doesn't do this, the more stressful it gets to watch. We will also do this through editing the shots, adding non diegetic ticking of the significant. miniature grandfather clock slowly increasing the volume and tempo creating a sense of urgency, like he's racing against the clock.

The increase in tempo and volume of the ticking from scene three will continue into scene four, drastically changing as this is primarily a chase scene. Due to this the majority of shots will be tracking, hand held and dolly. These shots and movements help make the audience feel like they are looking through the eyes of the antagonist, slowly catching up or slowing away from the victim. We would like to implement a point of view shot here, of the antagonists vision, showing the cloaked figure slowly catching up to Max.

Finally, scene five will be the conclusion to our title sequence and heavily involves the use of props, specifically a machete and a miniature grandfather clock, of which the audience here throughout the title sequence and will end with the death of Max, our main character. We have planned to use a low angle shot of the cloaked figure approaching the victim, making him seem more intimidating and superior by deceiving the audiences view, followed by a high angle shot on Max, making him look smaller, weaker, and unable to defend himself.

The decided time to meet up, like many other sessions, was 6:30 at the leisure centre with the actors and then walk to the setting of the beginning of scene 3.             

Actor/Talent Release forms

Day 3 of Editing

Today, 3/2/15, as a group we quickly briefed each other on what we had accomplished so far in regards to each of our paired editing groups. Like our last editing sessions Sam Warren and I stayed as a pair and James Scott and James Lawley stayed editing together in order to make it easier, as we have not been able to film since the last filming day, on the 26th of January, and know specifically what areas we needed to edit if the other pair had missed it or purposely left it out due to the lack of knowledge of how to edit the particular part.

The reason we have not been able to film since last is because of the inadequate weather we have had and the unavailability of actors for the specific filming day we set, which was the 28th of January. The unexpected, heavy snow fall we have had in Manchester made it impossible to film on the 28th and at least two days after this due to the still existent ice and snow on the ground, which would mess with continuity, and make it dangerous for us and our actors to film a chase scene because of how slippy the ground was. Taking safety precautions, we have decided to film the rest of our opening title sequence on the Thursday, the 5th of February, and if we need to film anymore extra we will use the Friday.

As we have not been able to add and edit any new scenes, we decided to make sure all of the shots so far were cut down and to a good standard. The two James' managed to add most of the audio dialogue in our last editing session, however there was still one bit of audio left of which me and Sam added to the shot, making sure it match the subjects lip movement properly, which was made a little bit harder by us not clapping on the track to help us sync with where the dialogue began. We did this by zooming in on the audio and matching it as well as we could with the audio on the initial footage. After watching our unfinished title sequence the whole way through we noticed how the continuity is slightly broken when our two characters start speaking to one another, the ambient, background noise changes drastically when one moment the sound of cars going past is present and the next it is completely quiet. Next time we will try to fix this problem by adding in a sound track of cars going passed constantly during the scene of dialogue, by recording a flurry of cars going past the next time we film, and then repeat this sound throughout the different shots when needed.

To shorten our scene down a bit, Sam put forward the idea of cutting the current camera shots and movements which introduce the film and adding a simple slate with some sort of text on it, an as a group we have decided to do this.

In the next editing session we aim to fix the issue we have had with the inconsistency of the diegetic sound, add a few transitions between shots to make it smoother and more seamless, and begin cutting shots and movements we do not need.  

Types of Cameras that could be used

Compact System Cameras (CSC)

A compact system camera is a small pocket sized camera combined with DSLR-like controls, interchangeable lenses and produces a high quality picture. Although it may have many similarities to their, high end, professional relatives, the compact system camera lacks a mirror box making it smaller and more easily portable by allowing it to fit into most peoples clothing pockets, however this means that it is also without a traditional viewfinder and replaced with an Electronic Viewfinder (EVF), which can cause a downgrade in the quality the user can view when capturing video or an image. This is one of the many reasons as to why we are not going to be using this camera throughout the filming process. For us to use this type of camera it would need to be a lot more cheaper and therefore smaller which would cause us to have to use touch screen controls to activate specialist settings and could waste a lot of our time if we press the wrong application. These types of cameras also struggle auto focusing in high contrast and low light situations, which is not acceptable for us considering we are filming a title sequence for a horror film and most of the shots are going to be in low  key lighting situations.

Bridge Cameras

Bridge cameras are between compact digital cameras and DSLR cameras. Although not as small and pocket sized, they can still fit in a bag easily and the main difference is how lightweight they are in comparison to any DSLR available. The majority of bridge camera shoot raw with excellent sharpness, with the added availability to choose between an electronic viewfinder and a mirrored viewfinder above the LCD screen, meaning that quality to the user is not sacrificed when filming, and if you have to be stood far away from the camera when filming you are still able to see what is being filmed. They have a huge focal range, with some providing up to a 60x optical zoom lens which means when zooming the quality isn't lost like it would be using a digital zoom. There is also the option of adding lens modifiers to the front of the macro or even wide angle, to receive the required effect you want for the scene. Another benefit of using a bridge camera is the IS or Image stabilisation feature the accompanies most models, which automatically takes out the visible screen shaking when recording hand held footage; this would be extremely useful for the chase scene in our title sequence making it look more professional. Finally this camera provides a wide range of versatility, due to how simplified the controls are allowing people with very little experience using camera to use it. The only downfall is the price of the camera and since we are on a low budget cannot afford the £200 plus it costs to purchase one. If we did have the budget, a bridge camera would be could to use when producing our film is the Canon PowerShot SX60 HS.

Another added advantage to using this camera would be the microphone port and groove to attach a shotgun microphone along the top.

Compact Digital Camera (SAMSUNG Galaxy 2 Superzoom Compact Digital Camera - White)

This is the camera we will be using. To begin with it has a 16.3 megapixel camera for capturing images and video, with the added use of a 21x zoom which we can use for certain moments in our title sequence, when we need to show the expressions on the subjects face or extreme close up of significant objects. The quality of the video we can take isn't the highest, 4k, but it is 1080p which is the resolution of most televisions this day and age, so available for almost  everyone to view. The camera has a 4.8 inch, HD, LCD screen on the back, with touch screen capabilities, which can sometimes cause trouble when trying to press the record button and it doesn't respond the first time you touch it, however the interface provides clear and simple icons so even the most inexperienced users can navigate the system and use it. The applications on the camera also let us access social media as well as edit our videos directly from the camera. Finally the camera is lightweight and ergonomically shaped allowing us to fit it in our pockets, which is useful when we have to carry around a bag full of props and costumes. Due to there being no mirrored viewfinder we will have to just hope and guess as to whether or not the shot we are taking is good, which could waste time, however the drop in quality is not that significant for the specific task we have undertaken and the electronic viewfinder will suffice for now.