Animatic

Keeps on deleting the video and text any time I edit it.

Director's Commentary

 Amy and Ciara explain what techniques we used and a ideas/ choices we used and how this attracts our target audience, for example why we wanted a male to be the vulnerable one as it is a counter stereotype which might be more effective with a younger more 'open' audience.

Audience Feedback

In this video they talk about our audience feedback (which can be seen below) and our response. We explain why our scene might seem like more of a thriller rather than a horror, and how we could have changed our sequence for the better.

Construction - Feedback

The Final Sequence

Construction - Setting

On March the 1st we went out to film major parts of our opening, we filmed chronologically and so we needed to film the middle section and the end of our opening. In addition to a few shots that needed to be re-done to a higher quality of filming or framing etc. We soon approached a problem being that through out our filming the weather started to turn and before we knew it, it was raining and therefore our story line would not flow as our first filming shots were in a fairly light mid day, additionally it meant we had to be quick with using the equipment and our sound quality wouldn't have been up to scratch... if we hadn't had used a sound recorder for better quality.

We chose to film our sequence in a graveyard to foreshadow up and coming events but also to give a creepy atmosphere however, during our time slots for filming the graveyard still saw many visitors and so we didn't want to disturb them as it is quite a sad location and so this mad it fairly difficult as we were constantly moving and being respectful, additionally with cars moving we had to move our tripod multiple times to give way which mad it harder to link shots together as we often had in the moment spurs of ideas.

Evaluation 7 - Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Since first filming our Preliminary task to having finished our full opening I have learnt a lot when it comes to media and production. The comparison between the prelim which had little to no meaning and little thought process going into it apart from including a few shots with poorly recorded sound, to our final  sequence which has backing music to add to the tension related to our horror genre along with the mise-en-scene and the wide array of camera angles used, well they don't even come close when it comes to quality.

The sketchy use of Premiere Pro on the prelim shows elongated, jumpy and slow pace editing which doesn't flow to film or recognisable standard, however, our final opening is cut fine to the beats of our music and flows chronologically and follow-able where there is a gritty feel to it done purposely to get across meaning. Having said this, we were given a much shorter time frame to complete the preliminary task but still successfully included what was needed (continuity editing, 180 degree rule, action match, shot reverse shot and include dialogue with someone walking through a door. One thing that we adapted a lot from was the continuity editing meaning that audiences could easily follow along with the story line. Additionally, I feel like I am now more capable of making unique and interesting decisions to keep the audience intrigued and use a range of techniques and skills appropriately.

A further look on editing and you can see that in our prelim there is a fade in from black and an appearing title which was simply done by simple transitions and add ins, where as in the end using a combination of both premiere and after effects helped make our piece look aesthetically pleasing. Our final piece saw to the colour correction wheel function in premier to give our piece a subtle but effective chill. Further more, our titles were detailed in the fact that they were specifically place throughout and the font wasn't the first blood one we saw but one that we had discussed. 

At the start of our preliminary, we attempted a zoom out with a change of focus which was not steady and very rough which lowered the quality straight off the bat, however, in our final sequence one of my focus pulls was done to a high standard from the back of a headstone, to focus on one of our main protagonists.

We used a wide range of different camera angles in our final sequence to make our opening interesting where as our prelim was very basic and this when you look back would have also affected our target audience as if you look at inception and memento, they use camera angles and editing to almost distract the audience however they are not aimed at children as it would be too confusing and so if our editing and camera angles were very basic it could have came across quite childish.

The mise-en-scene has also drastically changed, one obvious change is our costume which we thought about so that it implemented an image or replicate a stereotype into the audiences mind, we used one of our protagonists (Aaron) to wear brighter colours so that it showed he was slightly separate from the group, this back up with him walking behind and being last to enter frames helped paint a picture of his weaker character. Additionally, we didn't just decided to film wherever, we decided our location and planned out what shots and what we would film and when before hand so it was a lot more organised. Furthermore, we changed the colour of the overall wash to be cooler to portray a eerie atmosphere. In the prelim we didn't really think about our setting apart from moving some tables around however there was often mess in and around our shots making them very unprofessional in comparison to our final piece. For example in the image below there is nothing in the background that is out of place and would break continuity.

We tried to stick to the 180 degree rule and we kept it for the most part as our transitions were depicted through a whip pan and that allowed us to switch sides, however, our piece was meant to be the opening to a horror film and so a little bit of confusion such as when the story line changed or something specific happened it would keep the audience guessing and wondering, much like a physiological thriller/ horror such as the Blair Witch Project where you don't actually end up seeing anything, but throughout you are constantly looking in the background and seeing things but will never know what they actually were...

Evaluation 6 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Question 6 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

During the construction of our project, we came across various amounts of technology in order to to piece together our final sequence, examples of these are;

• DSLR Camera
• Apple MAC
• Fig-Rig
• Tripods
• Sound Recorder
• SD Cards
• Scanner
• Premiere Pro
• After Effects
• Blogger
• Emaze
• Prezzi
• YouTube 
• Various free music websites

Having done media previously and being interested in the line of entertainment I was familiar to a few of the tech however I was inexperienced with a few such as the Fig-Rig, Sound Recorder, Blogger and After Effects. 

Now however, I have developed my skills using all of the above technologies as a result of working and learning to get my opening sequence finished. One thing I feel like I have really progressed in is using After Effects to a confident ability in comparison to when I started as i didn't have a clue but one thing that is evident in our piece is our production company logo 'HOWL' in which we used After Effects to add in smoke particles with the swipe transition which made it look more of a professional piece. Additionally, I have become more fluent around filming using tripods and the Camera as I was practicing focus pulls and thinking of unique ways to practice advancing my skills.

Thanks to the access of After Effects, like I said earlier, it has allowed for a more refined and professional finish to our piece. It has allowed for us to create more than just a transition with music. Furthermore, it allowed for us to be original and create our own company through ideas that we had on paper. We wouldn't have been able to do the smoke/ mist effect with such fluency and relative ease without it as we needed to generate a random particle generator and then blur them heavily to give it a smoke effect and then inserting key frames so that the company name shows in synchronisation.

With thanks to Adobe Premiere Pro we could edit footage together along with music all in one place which meant that we could play around with how it looked, for example, the timing of our shots were key and so we used a lot of jump cuts to the beat of our music so that it was interesting and kept the audience at bay. Additionally, some of our credits we used a different back drop and it wasn't part of our actual footage but still we could use transitions and add it in to our sequence. Additionally, the software allowed for us to be able to color correct all of our shots to give a gloomy, eerie feel to our whole opening thus relating more towards our genre. Finally, it also meant that afterwards we could simply upload our exported video, of a high quality to YouTube so that it was accessible to all with ease.

Using the Sound Recorder allowed us to get a crisper sound quality even though we didn't use much, we didn't want our background noise to be annoying and distracting to the audience and using the sound recorder also allowed us to capture a very clean bottle breaking sound once again just upgrading our quality. The use of a high quality camera also meant that we were able to use techniques such as focus pulls and also make our film more interesting by the use of various angles from low, high to steady cam shots.

Whilst filming we had to always be cautious of the camera as it if fragile and a main essential for filming. We would be aware of all of our surroundings to prevent any damage and when it was raining we tried to ensure it was covered so that it didn't get any water damage.

There were times in which we had to re shoot shots due to them not being steady or the framing of the shot meant that there was something in the background or it didn't focus on the correct part in which we hoped, however we simply re shot those or left them our of our final piece.

Without the use of half of the new equipment we would have found it very difficult to put together a gradable opening sequence, the newer tech meant that we could try an be complex giving off better results (usually) however, it can be made simple such as just cutting up footage and piecing it together to give off a good opening so really useful. If we had to manually do it or not have resources such as YouTube to find tutorials it would have proven to be an even bigger task!