Filming and Editing experience

Filming:

Filming took a lot longer than we originally planned as when we were filming we thought that it all looked very good. However, when we returned to school and started to edit the clips together we realised that many of the shots didn't flow very well and the lighting on several occasions wasn't as continuous as we wanted. This resulted in us having to film more times than expected to make sure that small parts were improved from the last filming instead of filming new footage each time. This made filming difficult for us as we had figure out extra time after school that we could all attend.

When we were filming we took a fair amount of time filming each day to make sure that we all had an equal amount to say that we filmed. Alicia, filmed mostly the first day, filming shots outside of the mum walking into the house and kitchen parts. I filmed mostly the second day filming when the mum is in the kitchen and her walking into the kitchen with input from Demi on a few shots in the living room that I found difficult to hold in one position for a long time. The third day was filmed again by me with Demi filming the mum and dad in the living room talking. The fourth day was filmed by Amy in the scene where the children were taken into a run down barn which is our most suspenseful scene in the opening meaning we had to make sure that the shots and angles were jus right. I feel that while we were each filming we had different ideas at the time of the different angles that would look better than planned. This made our filming more successful as we were continuously improving it each time that we shot something. For example, we decided to change the field scene as we thought that a run down barn would look a lot more effective and would enable us to use the shots that we wanted to use to make it look more suspenseful. The only part about filming that wasn't very good for us as a group was that we had to re film several times which made the filming process even longer than we had originally planned. However, we did make sure that we were editing as we went along so we weren't too far behind. Overall, filming went well and the shots that we did get I feel worked and looked very effective in the end.

Editing:

We each took our turns editing different parts of the opening, Demi was the main editor and I helped make improvements to what he had done and what could make it better and did so. Nobody, except Alicia had used the editing software meaning that it took us each quite a while to get used to where everything was and how to use it. When we did grasp how to use the editing software it was a lot easier for us to know what we want and then immediately after do what we thought would improve it. For example, a transition between the shots in the children running to show the increase in suspense. I was in charge of the music and I needed to look for a piece that wasn't too climatic and calm as our opening is very normal and at the start nothing much happens. One part of the editing that at the end was hard for us as a group was that we had used many transitions and sound effects meaning the time of our thriller was over 2 minutes so by the end we had to be very brutal about parts that we cut out and kept which some of us where indecisive about. This I because some of the scenes that we took out people in the group had taken a long time editing but we had to make sure that it was shortened but still flowed well. Overall, I'm very happy with the sound that I have found and how it flows with the dialogue and shots. We all edited the scenes together constantly giving suggestions that could improve it but we each had to pick out three scenes that we needed to analyse. Here are the three examples of some of the scenes that I edited.

1. I edited the shot where the mum walks into the kitchen which is a behind the shoulder shot to the high angle shot from the top of the stairs when she shouts for the children. I decided to make the behind the shoulder shot continual from her walking to her looking up the stairs by using a quick shot change of her looking up the stairs. I needed to add a sound effect of her heels which I found on iMovie as in the previous scene you could hear her heels and I wanted to make sure that it is continual. I inserted it and made the sound effect in slow motion to make sure it was in sink of when she walked. I am happy with the way this turned out as it sounds like it did before and it isn't an obvious sound effect. I had a problem when editing the stairs change of her walking to the low angle of her looking up the stairs as I wanted to make the shot last as long as I could of her looking up the stairs to make sure the audience could see that she didn't get an answer. The low angle shot that we filmed wasn't held for as long as we wanted so I decided to split the clip of when she was looking up the stairs and used a slow motion effect to make her move slower into the next shot of her walking to the fridge. I feel that this made the connection between the audience and what was happening better as they could clearly see that something wasn't right. When she walks into the house you can hear her footsteps very clearly but when she walks into the kitchen the footsteps can't be heard as well so I decided to look for sound effect of high heels to make the sound continual from shot to shot. I had to make sure that the sound of the heels were in sink with her moving so I decided to cut the clip down to make sure that the footsteps were more spread out and fit with her movement. I then added the background music that we had chosen previously and saw how it fit. I was overall happy with the way that the background sound fitted but the sound of the heels was very loud so I decided to decrease the volume of the heels so that the music could be heard and the heel sound was more subtle. I then added the name of the next actor that we were using "Idris Elba" in the bottom right hand side making sure that it was the same size and font as the ones I had previously made. Overall, I am very happy with the way these shots continued together and the sound that I edited with it.

2. The second shot that I edited was the establishing shot of the mum walking into the living room and sitting down on the sofa. When I first looked at the shot I realised that the shot lasted a very long time (30 seconds) so I decided that it would be best if we decided to split the clip to add a shot in between it to break it up. I decided that we could add a shot of her looking at the TV from a point of view shot to make the shot not as long. I feel that this was a very good idea as it made the audience know exactly what she was doing and what she was looking at that time. I decided to make the diegetic sound of the TV quite loud to make it look normal and what she would normally do. I feel that this made the scene look very natural. I then looked at the background music and decided that this would be a good place to change the music as when the dad walks in it starts to grow in suspense as they start to make the audience realise that the kids are gone. I cut the music and inserted the new music but I saw that the music stopped very abruptly which didn't sound very good so I decided to fade the music out and fade the music in when the dad walks in to make the audience see that this was a suspenseful moment. Overall, I was in charge of most of the music throughout and this was a key moment as the music was needing to be changed to something a bit more upbeat and suspenseful which is why I decided to edit this scene mainly. I am very happy with the change in music even though it look a long time to make the fades happen at the right time but I am happy with the way it sounds and the shot changes that I have made.

3. The third part of the thriller opening that I edited was the production names at the bottom of the screen throughout the opening, I imported all of the footage from the camera onto the computer and then edited all of the soundtrack throughout. When we were thinking of the names of the people who were going to star in our opening it wasn't too difficult as we had already researched different actors and actresses that we were going to put into it. However, the tough part for me was making sure that the size and font was right and I did this by looking at previous thriller openings and looking at the positioning that they had the names in. I soon realised that they were all placed at the bottom of the screen and were shown for no more than 4 to 5 seconds at a time. I choose a font that I liked from the iMovie titles then inserted it into the clips making sure they were all on for the same amount of time and the same distance apart. This took a long time to do but when it was eventually done I showed the rest of the group and they were happy with how it turned out. I made sure to add the actors and actresses names at the beginning and the producers at the end as this is what I saw most openings do in ones that I had previously researched. When I saw the titles all together I decided to show our teacher to see what she thought as I wanted to get some feedback on how I could improve it. Our teacher said that she liked it but I should look into making the titles smaller in size as they were filling the whole of the bottom screen and they stood out too much against the things that were happening that we wanted the audience to see. So we decided to make the titles smaller in size, so I made the fonts all smaller from 120 to 74 on all of them which looked overall a lot better and made them not stand out as much which is what we wanted.

The next part of the opening that I was in charge of was getting the sd card from the camera and importing all of the footage that we had filmed onto iMovie where I then put all of the clips in rough order of where they go so we could then all edit all of the footage to make the clips shorter and so on to fit. I feel that this was a very important part of the editing process as I needed to make sure that all the footage was in order so we could then go into editing the shots further.

The last part of the opening that I was in charge of was editing the soundtrack throughout the opening. (I have previously discussed in an earlier blog the different choices that we like and which ones we decided to use in the end). I found editing the soundtrack very difficult as when researching I realised that the non diegetic sound in thriller openings is very important in ensuring you create a suspenseful atmosphere for the audience. We decided to use the mafia theme song at the beginning of the opening as it didn't sound very jumpy and is what we wanted to get across to the audience as there wasn't anything happening at the beginning. I added the mafia theme song to the clips after the part where the mum walks into the house as I liked the diegetic background sound of the birds and the cars going past to set the scene. I felt that the soundtrack sounded very good however, it was very loud and didn't sound very effective with the scene as nothing was really happening. I decided that I needed to lower the volume of the soundtrack to make it so the audience don't concentrate on the music but do on what is actually happening. I did this with help from Demi as he knew how to lower the volume as he had been able to do this from the part where he added sound effects of rain in a later scene. The volume was then well done and looked effective but I know had to find a place in the opening where things started to get a bit more suspenseful where I could add the other soundtrack. I decided the part where the dad walks in to the living room is when it starts to get suspenseful so this would be a good place to cut the music and insert the other music.

I inserted the next piece of music that we had chosen " Suspenseful cinematic background music" and added this just before the dad walks in. I looked back at where the music changed over to see how it fitted and realised that the music stopped very suddenly so I decided that I need to fade the previous piece of music out to make the transition more continuous. As I previously said I have never used iMovie before so Demi again helped me to be able to do the fade and once he showed me how to I took over and found a place that the fade would look good from. I was overall very happy with the way that the fade sounded.  I then realised that the sound of the next piece of music was very high in volume so I decided to lower the volume again. However, I decided to have the volume slightly higher than the previous piece of music as I wanted to make sure that this piece of music emphasised the suspense that was starting to arise. The soundtrack sounded good but I realised that the you couldn't hear the mum and dad speaking very well so I decided to increase the volume of them speaking which sounded a lot better and made sure you heard them better. I had the soundtrack playing through out the whole of the rest of the opening but once Demi and Amy had edited the sound effects of a heart beat into the barn scene I decided to cut the music at the beginning of the scene where you see the children running. I feel that this looked very effective as the audience would be fully concentrating on what has happened to the children and start looking for clues as to who the person is that has taken them. I decided to again fade the music out to make sure that the ending wasn't to abrupt. Overall, I am very happy with the way the sound ended up and I'm happy with the volumes and the change in music that I had edited.

Overall, I am very happy with the things that I contributed to most when editing and I believe that the choices that I made, make it look more effective and add to the suspense that we wanted to create. I also helped the others  by pointing out things that they could do to certain shots and transitions to make it look more effective and continual.