Final Cut Morana opening

Our final cut of the film Morana.
The video has been succesful and the end we feel is especially effective as the growling comes in just as the main character finishes speaking, revealing her name without actually saying it.

screen shots

These are some screen shots we have taken during our last two lessons of editing.

This screen grab shows the shot of blood dripping, we haven't altered this alot but we did alter the brightness and contrast slightly to make it seem more like duck and to make the blood effect look more realistic.


This shot is from just after she has killed the attacker and the camera pans up slowly, as you can see in comparison to our roughcut the shot is alot darker. We altered the brightness and contrast and desaturated it to make it darker, the colours more simple and dark and also its given a shadow to her face that fits well with the supernatural genre and the mystery of our character.

This screen grab shows the attackers landing, we used the same editing techniques as the above, and also cut this with another shot of him rising from his landing. The timings to make it smoother was something that took alot of time as we wanted it to look like one smooth movement- this fits with our image of the supernatural characters as having fluid and graceful movements.


This shows the swing shot and also the effects we applied to it, we used mostly the same effects on all the shots (brightness and contrast and desaturation) but we had to do each individually due to each having different levels of light, and different colours.


This shows the majority of our timeline, we've kept the diagetic sound as it gives added effect and gives emphasis when the music does come in despite our soundtracks simplistic nature.



These two shots are an example of all the editing aspects as one, they show what we altered on the specific clips, what elements made up our final piece and also our timeline.

Effects on Test Footage

I have tested different effects on our test footage to see which looks best. I have used such things as red filters and blurring black and white. I think that when the best effects are added in the right place it usually makes it better as it adds atmosphere and suspense which is good as that is what we are trying to achieve in our super natural thriller.

PRODUCTION: ..............

CALL SHEET - 12/02/09

Director: Vonnie Pigott Producer: Cat Hughes
CALL TIMES:

Unit Base:
Long road sixth form college, CB2 8PX

Locations:
1) Alexander gardens, Carlyle road, Cambridge, East Anglia

Location Contacts:
1) Vonnie Pigott - 00000 000 000

PRODUCTION CONTACTS
Director: Vonnie pigott - 00000 000 000
Producer: Cat Hughes - 00000 000 001
Camera: Cat Hughes - 00000 000 001
Associate producer: Andy Jones - 00000 000 002 & Robbie French - 00000 000 004

SHOOTING SCHEDULE
TIME.......... LOCATION.......... SCENE.......................... EXT/INT........ CAST
1700........... Loc 1................... Opening fight scene....... EXT.............. Sheridan rankin

NAME.................... AGENT.......... CHARATER/ROLE........... CALL TIME
Sheridan rankin..... N/A................ Main Female lead............. 1700
.............................. N/A................ Attacker............................. 1700

Positives and Areas for improvement on our blog

Positives:

• Good planning, clear ideas and i know what their piece will look like
• Very descriptive and informative. Best blog in the class
• Detailed shot list
• Lots of detailed film notes
• Amazing animatic
• Good location research
• Good film analysis

Areas for improvement:

• Pictures of costumes and visual ideas
• No call sheet
• Needs more pictures
• Seen as it is a genre very specific more imagery would help eg. costumes
• Maybe some images in the costume blog
• Maybe more images on the costume post

We will respond to this feedback by trying to add images to the blogs that require it- particularly costumes as this was mentioned several times.We will also add a call sheet and a risk assessment to our blog, as not only was this listed as an area for improvement it also reflects professional practice.
However in comparison to our thriller blogs we can see a vast improvement through the positive comments.Overall this blog has left us more prepared for filming then we were last time, this will hopefully aid us in regaining the time lost due to weather conditions.

Location info.

The examples below of the of the 3 locations show the sort of thing that we are looking at in terms of lighting and surroundings. Although we are setting our film opening in a children's play ground to be different and and more scary we have still been able to take inspiration from these photos. These locations shown in the photos could all make great locations for a supernatural thriller. I personally think that the second photo with the deep red lighting in the background of the trees is very affective as red is a great colour to have in a film such as the one we are making because red is the colour of blood, murder and death. We picked these images as there is great examples of the sort of lighting that could be used. There is great contrast in all of these photos. There is also a black and white image with is an option that could be used. However we are going to use colour.

location

For our project we are looking at locations such as:

What lies beneath opening sequence

'What lies beneath' is again a very typical supernatural thriller as it goes along with all the usual techniques used when making supernatural thriller films. Again we find that the light is very dark and that the music used is very tense and is put there to raise the suspense. Also we find out a bit about the film by the way that the titles have been done because we find out that there is a water theme and it goes on to confirm this in the first shot is of the main female character is in the bath and then going on to dry the condensation on the window. Also when the title of the film appears (What lies beneath) this again done in the style of water. The main colours in the title are black or a very dark blue. Not only keeping to the supernatural thriller rules but also adding to the water theme. The music is very typical with the use of slow piano with high pitch noises to add tension and put the viewer on the edge of there seats. We start to hear voice and begin to work out that we are going thought a very dark and creepy lake the music get faster and the shot camera starts to go quicker. We then see a face in the lake and this moulds in to the face of a women laying in the bath. This straight away reveals the main character. The way they have done this is very jumpy which is a technique used all the time in supernatural thrillers. From a close up of her face it then goes to a long shot of the floor with a very slow zoom this is a great shot to show the surroundings and it looks very misty and gray adding to the darkness and therefore making it that bit more tension and suspense.
ANALYSED 2 MINUTES

Analysis of signs opening scene

It starts of in a very typical super natural thriller way. For example it has very tense music to start off and build up the suspense and tension. It also is very dark not only when the titles are coming up but also the first few shots. This also starts of with a film companies logo which is what we have started our film opening with. In a few of the very opening shots there is silence which has been put there to add even more suspence and with the darkness and shots of nothing it makes the audience be on the edge of there seats which is one of the main purposes of a super natual thriller.

5 genres

1. A supernatural thriller with a strong female lead:

• Has the tension of a regular thriller with basic horror elements such as; Ghosts, occult, phsycic, phenomenon etc..
• Is often less graphic than the horror genre
• The protaganists are often battling against a malevolent paranormal force. The protaganists themselves are often normal people.
• Always lots of suspense and quite surreal.
  

Conventions: Dark lighting, Transitions from fast to slow shots, High pitched music, Very slow music that speeds up as the scene reaches a climax.

2. Social realism drama

• Based around real life and all it's difficulty, most often the working class types.
• very natural lighting
• Handheld camera is common, gives a documentary feel to it to add to the idea of 'realism'
• Conflict is another common element, the drama is created through this conflict
• Is sometimes centered around a more domestic environment.

Examples: This is england

3. Adventure (young audience)

• Comedy based, Fantasy based
  
• Adventure films are usually aimed at a family rather than just the young audience as children would go with parents to a cinema.
• The characters are usually looking for something or looking to restore something as part of the basic plot.
• Usually involves alot of special effects and CGI if it isn't animated.
• Unrecognisable locations, fantasy or wonderland type places

Examples: Narnia, 5 children and it, harry potter, Zathura, nimhs island

4. Teenage romantic comedy

• A humourus movie about a love story that always end happily
• Teenage characters are divided into groups or cliques
• The audience is meant to identify with the unpopular characters, one of whom is usually the main character, and is often meant to dislike the popular girls who are percieved to be mean or arrogant.
• The popular male character is quite often the love interest, a jock/prom king he is attractive etc...
• The narrative will often involve a party where conflict will be a focus (a fight at the party)
• The story will be about the coming together of two characters whom need to overcome some sort of social boundary.
• The resolution will come about through the uniting of the main characters, either romantically or through a friendship.

Examples: 16 candles, She's all that, Mean girls

5. Crime caper

• Usually, if not always, male characters in the group
• The main characters are organising a crime, often large scale theft.
• Light hearted and slightly comical.
• The idea of crime is glamourised as they use conventially attractive characters, they're also smartly dressed and sophisticated.
• Usually has a well known cast, the most famous star is often the leader, the one who gets the most screen time.
• Finally, they almost always get away with the crime.

Examples: Oceans 11, The itallian job, a fish called wonda

Ident

We had to create an ident for our group's film company to go at the begining of our sequence and then animate it on final cut.
Our film company was called Poizen apple. We took an image of an apple, soe skulls and a table and incorporated them together on photoshop (shown below) decided on a font and then drew in some blood underneath the apple.












By creating a small dot of red on a separate layer we transformed it so it looked like the blood was dripping down the side of the table. We also took a sound of dripping water from the internet and slowed it down to give the effective dripping noise.



The final ident:

Introduction

In our group we have: Cat, Vonnie, Robbie, Andy

The project is to create a film opening in one of five different genres. The choices are:
1-A supernatural thriller with a strong female lead.
2. A British social realist drama.
3. An adventure story for younger audiences.
4. A teenage romantic comedy.
5. A crime caper with an ensemble cast.