Film Name

Thinking of a film name was very difficult. We had some ideas but none that really worked well. We forgot about it and then realised that we desperately need to come up with a name for our film.

This is where the problem started! As we were in a rush to think of a name we used 'The Haunting'. You may recognise this because it is a film that already exists! We thought about changing it to something else completely different or something similar i.e. The Haunted, but we had already uploaded the video to YouTube and that in it's self took a very long time so we thought instead of taking up a lot more time going onto final cut and changing it then uploading it again we thought we would just keep it as it was and just inform everyone on our blogs about the little mistake that we made.

Editing

To start with we had to insert the images form the cameras to the Macs, this was done by plugging the camera into the Mac and then copying and saving them into a file. We then opened Final Cut and inserted the video clips we wanted/needed.

Editing was arguably the most important part to the whole process of making the film. We were lucky enough at school to be able to use an editing software called Final Cut. To start with it was quite a complicated software to get your head around, but as the time went on it was a lot simpler to use due mainly to the fact that you just had to get used to it. It was also made easier because we were given a guide to Final Cut booklet made by someone from our school (which is in my book and is looked at in more detail).

When editing there were many things we had to do to make the final piece that we have today. Things we had to change varied dramatically from the length of the shots to the colour of the shots to the timing of the music but the list goes on and on so I am going to talk about three or four of the key pieces in my opinion that I thought contributed to the most to making our opening what it is.

Firstly I feel that the ability to choose different transactions to change from shot to shot helped brilliantly. For example during the parts when Harri is walking, being able to put in dissolves and fades really helped create quite a calm atmosphere but then when we wanted the audience to feel like she was in danger we could alter the transactions from a dissolve to say for example a slide effect or even nothing at all to create sharper cuts between shots making a much more tense and anxious atmosphere. We used dissolves throughout the film, like I mentioned earlier, in the calmer parts but also to create tension as well. For example when Harri is walking it goes straight from a black screen through a quick cross dissolve to a close up shot of her upper body walking. Along with the music it creates a very eerie atmosphere.

Next was inserting text into the opening. This was used to make it look professional and a lot more like a film. We included the producer, music by etc and put each of our names by either of them. Although we all did a bit of everything we just put one person's name by each thing. Inserting text was reasonably easy but the harder bit as moving the text so it wasn't just located in the middle of the page. Once we found out how to do this (simply by just double clicking on the text and dragging it to the place you wanted it) we could do it a lot quicker. We also used the dissolve here to dissolve the text in and out.

Another big part of the editing was the colour. We didn't actually change any clips to a different colour but we did have to brighten/darken certain clips. This was because it was quite dark in some areas and if we didn't brighten them up then you would have hardly of been able to see anything. This was especially important towards the end in the murder scene and where Harri is in bed because they had to be filmed in reasonably dark lighting otherwise they would not have the same effect if they were in the light. 

Right at the end of our opening we sped up the filming to create a panicky atmosphere. This is where Harri goes back to sleep but the camera pans up and reveals the murderer at the end of the hall. If we just left it and played it in normal time the clip went of for ages and this would be boring for the viewer. We changed the speed of this by simply right clicking on the clip then selecting change speed. 

Sound

For the start of our opening we wanted to create a party type atmosphere so this meant that we wanted to pick quite a heavy and upbeat tune. We decided to choose, 'Who Gon Stop Me - Jay-Z ft. Kanye West'. This tune suited the ambience of the setting and worked well with the video transitions. We edited the audio so that when you could see the party on screen the music was much louder and clearer whereas when the video was out of the party, for example in the hall way, we changed the sound so it was quieter and more muffled.

The music we used for the walking scenes and the murder scene was our own music created by our friend Chris Martin. He is extremely good at music technology and we thought we could use him and exploit his talent by asking him to come up with a piece of horror music that we could use which included some sort of climax and which also created a lot of tension in the audience. This was better than trying to find a piece of music from the internet because for one, it saved time looking and browsing the internet and also it was good because it has meant we have used our sources well instead of doing what most people have done.

Character Profile

Name: Tom Simmons

Age: 19

Gender: Male

Tom is currently a University student studying International Business at Leeds. He is very outgoing, sociable and is a perfect representation of the type of person I am looking to aim my film at.
He goes out often with friends and this is shown clearly in the picture as it is from one of his nights out. It also shows that him and others are very social and gregarious which is what I want from our target audience because it will mean that they will be willing to go out to the cinema with friends etc to watch films. The age range would be 18-26 and predominantly male because I feel that we will get the most interest and curiosity from them.
The way he is dressed tells us that he is very comfortable in what he looks like and having scruffy hair it could represent that he isn't bothered about he appearance he just wants to have a good time.Not only does his clothes tell us about him but so do his surroundings, like I mentioned earlier the fact that people are around him show that he is very interactive with people and would be willing to go out and spend time with his friends.
As he is a Uni student it would suggest that him and his friends will be quite tight with money and wouldn't be able to go out to the cinema etc every single week, but it will also mean they will be willing to treat themselves every now and then which if we were to release the movie and promote it enough to make it seem like the next big film to watch then they will most probably be willing to go and see it. Although money may be a factor he does have a part time job and so do most of his mates and if he isn't spending it on drinks he will most probably spend it on luxuries.
He is a keen watcher of horror movies and this is obviously who we want to target as our main audience because there is no point targeting people who don't like the horror genre. He prefers gory and psychological horrors as opposed to the supernatural and mythical horrors because he finds them a lot more interesting and he likes the adrenaline feeling you get when your not sure what is going to happen. We want to create this is our film so he would be our ideal viewer.

Filming

Filming Session 1:
We first started our filming on the 5th of December. We were at Harri Nicholl's house and film the first scene (1-9) and the last scenes (41-46). This filming session was very successful and went really well although we did have some minor difficulties whilst filming. To start with we wanted the start of our film to feel like it was at a party but because there were only about 4 of us there (including the cameraman) which meant that it wouldn’t of been a very lively party if we would have tried to film one between us, but we came up with a solution. We decided to wait until 31^st January (New Years Eve) because we were all invited to a friend’s house party, this gave us a great opportunity to film a real party. We must have recorded about 30 minutes worth of footage which we could then edit down to the best bits and the clips we thought would work the best in our film. The Last scenes were quite difficult to film because the room we were located in was quite small. We got around this problem by having one person filming at a time. The main actor (Harri) was in the bed whilst one of us three were filming, and the other two were out of the room, this was good because it meant we could all film loads of shots individually and choose the best ones for our film.

Filming Session 2:

On Thursday 8th December we started our second filming session. In this part of the filming we wanted to aim on the part of our opening when the main character was walking home from the party. Once she walks out the door there would be a jump shot to the first of the walking shots. In these shots we wanted to create the sense that someone was watching her as she was walking and also create some good shots for mise en scene. We took shots from behind bars and gates so it had the impression that someone was watching her and also to create the feeling of her being trapped. We also included red lights in the background of quite a few shots to make the audience feel like there is danger on the horizon. Not only this but in one of the shots we specifically made her walk past a 'DANGER' sign which if noticed by the viewers, it will again make them feel like danger is coming. We took lots of shots with lots of different angles on the camera. We took high, low and canted shots. By taking lots of different types of shots it allowed us to have a wide range to choose from when it came to editing. This helped us to create a much better overall effect because as we wanted to build tension the quick transitions of shots played a big part of this.

Filming Session 3:

As this was the 'killing scene' it was definitely the hardest part of the filming so far. We wanted to try and build as much tension as possible as well as making sure the cutting of the throat look as realistic as possible. Also because this scene was the main highlight/climax of the opening we wanted to make it as good as possible, we did this by capturing a number of shots (like when we were filming the walking part) which in turn helped when editing because it allowed us to choose from a range of shots. We tried to make the transactions between shots very quick and snappy. When it actually came the cutting the throat we wanted to be quite clever and show as little of the actual cutting as we could. Also although it links to editing we made the shot when the cut occurs slightly blurry which also creates quite a nervy feeling in the audience.


Voice Overs:
Originally for the part of our opening we had a blank screen just after one of the party shots and it was a voice over of a couple (one of them being the main character) arguing. We put this is because we felt without it that people would be quite confused to why Harri would be leaving the party.
After watching our finished piece a number of times we felt that the blank screen with the voice over wasn't very effective because it lasted for quite a few seconds and it was quite confusing as to whats going on.
This then turned into Filming Session 4 and because we didn't have any free time after school when we could all meet we decided that we would have to film it during school time. After organizing a time and getting the actors to bring in the same clothing as they were wearing in the shots when they came down the stairs we began to film. We found a quite are that looked quite 'home like' so it wasn't obvious that we were filming in school. After filming the shots needed we edited them into out film piece. All in all it work really well and meant that people could understand and follow the story a lot easier.

Filming

 Below is a schedule of the dates we plan to film and other information like what props we need:

Props

Whilst filming our opening we used a number of props to help us really create a realistic and overall make the opening as good as possible. Below are the main props that we used in our opening:

 This is the coat that we used for the murderer. We wanted to use a dark coat which was quite big and heavy so that puts across the sense of danger in the audience when watching. It also doesn't reveal anything on the murderers body which again makes people feel unnerved about the murderer.

 We used the fake blood in the final scene of our opening. We used it on the knife (seen below) to obvious create the look of someone being cut. It is very realistic and all in all makes the scene a lot better and adds to the horror of it.

This is the knife we used for the murderer to kill with. As it was a real knife we needed to handle with care but when we used it to slit the throat, we used the blunt side of the knife so that it looked like it it was cutting the skin but obviously it was in fact just the blunt side.

This is the mask that the murderer wears in our film. We looked around and we thought that this mask was good because when someone is wearing it, it does looks very scary and puts you in some discomfort. It also conceals the identity of the murderer which also puts the audience very much so on edge.

Out of the props we used we had to purchase the blood and the mask. We asked around but no-one had any fake blood they could lend us and no-one had a mask that we thought was really suitable for our film. Although in the end it didn't cost us that much as we split the costs between the three of us.

CHANGE OF GROUPS! and first ideas for main task

Unfortunately after Toby and I made our  preliminary task with Harri, Harri and Becky, we were informed that we were unable to be in a group of 5. This obviously meant that we had to split our group and we decided that Toby and I would leave the girls, the main reason being that I was more likely to see Toby outside of school which meant it would be easier to arrange things and meet up etc.

After the split we gained an extra member to our group. Connor Thompson joined us from the other class. This helped us massively as it allowed us to split the filming/editing/directing into three instead of two which would have been much harder.

We began work on our main task and we came up with a story board of our idea:

The main basic idea we had was we would start our film off at a house party where the main character will have an argument with her boyfriend and will leave. This is when on the way home she will hear something and go to investigate. She will then encounter a fright from a dead body and then the murderer will appear from behind her and slit her throat. She will then wake up from a dream but unlike any other normal horror where it just ends there, the camera will pan up and the murderer will be seen at the end of the hall way.