Starting Our Editing Process

Today is our first opportunity to start editing as a group as we have finally finished all of our filming and can finally get it all together. We have spent a lot of time watching the footage and deciding which take we should use and why that shot is better than another shot, to ensure that the continuity was perfect.

We then had to watch the beginning of our footage, and using our storyboard for reference to make sure everything was right. As we changed our idea we had to make another storyboard to show what changes we had made and how this was going to effect the filming.

We then started to cut pieces of the footage and place them down so they would be in our actual opening sequence; we laid down the first 30 seconds of footage for our Rough Cut, by then putting this on Youtube, this will then allow other people to comment on it and how to improve our Thriller. As we have now changed our Opening Sequence to allow extra scene in it our rough cut is a lot different to actual thriller Opening.

After editing this small amount of footage we have got taster of what it is like to edit an opening sequence. We are finding it very hard but enjoyable at the same time enjoyable and looking forward to seeing the final outcome.

Possible Titles for our Opening Sequence

 Below are a list of names that we think would fit our storyline:
- Flat G
- Playback
- Nightmare
- delusion
- reality


We found it hard to come up with the final name, as we faced a lot of difficultys and our plot chnaged half way through due to what we filmed and how we filmed it. We started of with the name Flat G due to the fact as the girls were living at university in a flat called G, but through out the editing it came clear to us this didnt make sense anymore with the plot but overall looking at the options we had before and at our piece of editing we came to the conclusion of having our film called 'PLAYBACK' because in our film you see the main character matt having many flashbacks and dreams of diferent murders that he has committed but he doesnt know he has actually comitted due to him having a split personality. So playback made sense because he was always playing back his memories and what he has done

Strengths and Weaknesses

Overall, As a group we feel that the filming for the opening sequence was the hardest part as we kept on having to go back and film something else as we needed an extra shot, or it didn’t look as good as we hoped. This was a major downfall as we then had to keep on going back on the editing and as it coming to the end of the deadline we have to try and finish it a lot quicker which could then lead to our Opening Thriller looking rushed.

Another thing we had trouble with is when we first planned to film we had difficulty because the person that we original asked to be the main character couldn't do the times that we wanted to film, so we had to find someone else to be in the film. So because we were already behind schedule for filming, Lauren, a member of the group, had to go back up to Southampton to film more of our Opening Sequence

The strengths of our Opening Sequence is that we all have great ideas, so our opening sequence was full of different ideas that we could use, and we were open to listen to everything that everyone in the group had to say.

On the other hand we did have weaknesses which were when we went to film the shot unfortunately didn’t look right so we then had to go back to different places and film again.

Lauren had to go back to Southampton and Lauren and jess then went back to film another shot with Max who is one of the actors in our Opening sequence.

Although our weaknesses have affected us to a great deal, we have then been able to change everything for our Opening sequence then to look right and to then hopefully produce a great quality Opening Sequence.

Final Shooting Schedule

Due to changes and improvements we made we had to add shooting sessions to our filming Schedule 

Sunday 3rd March: First trip to Southampton- Filmed partying scene, stabbing and fighting scene and walking to the uni scene

Saturday 17th March: As we needed more shots we went back to southampton to film the stabbing scene.

Tuesday 20th March: Using Max's house in windsor, Filmed point of view shots walking to and from His house 

Sunday 26th March: Using Laurens House, to film walking to and from house (point of view shots) and waking up in bedroom scene. 

Photos from shooting take 2, Southampton Saturday 17th March 2012

Photo 1: This photo is the making of the blood, made from food colouring and golden syrup, we put this is in a plastic sandwich bag and placed it up Pips top so when we stabbed her it would leak out.

Photo 2: Getting ready to film 

Photo 3 & 4: Shooting with tripod

Photo 5: Hand held shot, filming close ups of Pip 

Photo 6: Close up photo of stabbed wound 

Photo 7: Whole picture of Stabbed Pip on Floor

Photo 8 & 9: Lauren Shooting close up of pips reaction from being stabbed.

Further Ideas to Editing and Changes

To start with we thought editing our film would be quite easy, but as we have gone through a lot of ours shots we have had to change many things and film extra scene (read further blogs) but we think we have come to a final idea for editing with the footage that we have got.
We have decided we will start the film of with our official production company logo, it will then proceed in with someone walking (this will be a point of view shot) it will then cut away to a group of friends having a party/getting ready for a party in a house. This goes well with our mystery Genre because it makes the audience ask different questions like:
Who is this person walking?
Are these flashbacks the shots we are seeing?
who are the girls?
It well then cut back and forth from the walking and the parting. Until this person wakes up from a sleep, you don't see who this person is waking up because it is still in point of view shots, this shot will then show the person looking around his room, and then looking down to find a knife wrapped round a shirt which is covered in blood, it then goes into flash backs to show where the knife had came from and what had happened. The flash back shows This person walking out of the house you see before in his dream and then cut aways to a girl being stabbed and falling against a fridge and then being left.
This all helps the genre of 'Mystery' because you do not find out who the Person you see the point of view is and you dont know who the girls are. It also makes the audience want to keep watching because they will want to know who they are and why the girl got stabbed.

We will add in effects such as, slow and fast motions in, we will distort clips to show they are memories so the audience dont get to confused and also maybe change the colours of some scenes to make them darker and lighter.

There is no speech in these scenes because we want to keep the urgency and tension with the music we have made on Garage Band. So the opening sequence will be made up off music and sounds. Some of the sounds used will be a long piece of music which flows well with the scenes and also some heavy breathing from the person behind the stabbing when he is recapping on what has happened.

In between some clips there will be the opening credits, the credits added are on blogs below.

Problems we came across when filming

Filming the stabbing scene was incredibly hard as we didnt want to use force to stabbing just incase if anything went wrong. So when we came to filming the stabbing scene we had to try and put our bodies infront of the camera so you couldnt actually see the knife going in, but when we came back to windsor and uploaded it onto the computer we noticed that you could see the knife going past Pips body. This led us to go back to southampton and reshot the stabbing scene, this time went better because we had it well planned and we made it so you didnt see the knife actually going into Pip but just showing it leaving her and her reaction.

Another problem we faced as a group was we didnt take in account shooting in southampton would take so long, we believed we could film it all in two days. But when we got back to school and looked through it we discovered again we didnt have enough shots for it to make sense and also we have a walking scene on the outside but in a few minutes the lighting had changed which made us realise it didnt look very good. We decided to go back to the university we filmed a new stabbing scene. We were going to film a new walking scene but due to the weather we couldn't because it would not stop raining. This led us to ask a friend Max who lives close by to use his house to be able to film walking to and from the house.

When filming the first time we had planned to film with 7 girls who were Lauren Sisters university Friends but as the day drew nearer a few of the girls had to pull out due to other important arrangements.

Reasons why we changed location

When looking back on what we had filmed from Southampton, we realised that we had a "walking to" shot and not a "walking away" shot. Our original idea was to have someone walking to the flat in which Kate was having her party, then we decided to change this idea to someone who was walking away from the place where they had stabbed Pip. The reason for changing this is because when it came to putting our sequence together, we realised that it didn't look correct.

You could see that someone was walking towards the building. It was also too far to travel back to Southamptom and film it correctly and looking at the amount of time we have left to finish our project, we would have run out of time to put everything together.

Due to this we have decided to use someone called Max as the person who stabbed Pip and have the camera angle from his point of view. Also to have the camera view coming out of his house to act as the walk away shot. Due to Max now being involved, we decided that if we did have anymore problems involved in the filming process, it would be easier as he lives a lot closer.

Idea of Opening Title Credits

In the opening scene we will have different credits put in to show the audience who is in the film, who produced and edited the film and who edited.

Here is what credits we will put in our opening:

Directors: Jevie Starling

Edited by: Stevie Jerokes

Producer: Jauren Tarvis
Executive  Producer: Lessi Starokes
Screenplay: Neruan Sekots
Casting Director: Essica Lingtar
Production Designer: Eive Sivrej  
Cast: Pip Watkins
Ellen Powell
Katie Stokes
Jessica Tarling
Lauren Stokes
Max Lovely

Droplets Productions Presents...
And then the name of the film.

What we have changed in our opening sequence.

In the course of looking over our sequence, we came to the conclusion that the shot that has the camera going up to the door didn't make a lot of sense when we put it together with the rest of the opening.
Originally we decided to have a missing girl and also a death. But as we came to editing and putting it all together it just looked to messy as there was so many different thing going on and it didn't look right. So we decided to change it to someone walking in to the house and killing someone then and then him waking and looking around in his bedroom to see a knife with blood on it. We still don’t see who the person is in till later on in the film so it goes with our theme a ‘mystery thriller’.
In the course of looking over our sequence, we came to the conclusion that the shot that has the camera going up to the door didn't make a lot of sense when we put it together with the rest of the opening. We have decided to re-film this part and have someone opening the door, and then continuing on with the party scene. After the fade in with someone looking back, we have a point of view shot of someone waking up and looking around the room to see a bloody knife .This is good as it stays as a mystery thriller which is our theme. When playing through the rest of the sequence, we thought we could use this as the time to put the flash backs in. We will have the flash backs playing with a different film colour over the top to make it look more like it is coming from his imagination.

We have cut out a lot of the walking shots and put in blackouts with heavy breathing of the character holding the camera. From this we then progress on to Pip being stabbed with a fade out at the end as she falls to the floor, leaving the opening on a cliff hanger of whether or not she has survived. Our next step is that we will add in our music pieces and our transitions from scene to scene.

We have also added and got rid of characters. We have added ‘Max’ he is the person who kills ‘Pip’ we used him as the original person who we where going to use was away and was unable to film with us on the days we wanted to film.

Rough Cut

This is our rough cut of our Mystery Thriller, We have taken out the sound to put in the soundtrack in the next step of our editing. We will also add in effects to make it darker,  make it more clear for the audience to see the person walking is actually having thoughts of what has just happened and also put in clear transitions.

What could have gone wrong when filming?

When we were filming for the first time in Southampton, we had to be aware of all the problems that we could have come across:

- For the scenes where we were filming outside, we thought of a back up plan incase it decided to rain. Of course, even though the rain could give a better effect, we didn't have a protective cover for the camera so it may have got water damaged.

- When filming inside, we realised that the door to actually get in to the building had a passcode to open it, so we had to think of a way of holding the door open but in a way so the camera couldn't it, otherwise we would have had to pause the filming instead of having one long scene.

- When moving from the main part of the building in to the flat, another door we came across was fairly heavy and could only be opened with a key, so we thought it would be a good idea to have someone sitting on the floor and open the door whilst the camera came through down the corridor, otherwise once again, we would have to stop filming

- When filming in the kitchen, we could see through the window and we began to think that we needed to hurry and get the specific parts filmed that faced that direction as it would start to get  darker outside. Through this we were able to notice that if we were filming the same scene over and over again, if at any point we had to jump back to that particular scene in the editing process, it wouldn't look natural as it would go from a scene as dusk to a scene in the day.

- When the filming process came to Pip being stabbed, with health and safety coming to mind, we were all paranoid that we would actually end up possibly hurting her. As the filming days progressed, the idea was raised about having golden syrup and red food colouring in a bag under Pips shirt to represent the blood when she was stabbed. This could also be used as a little bit of a protective barrier.

Reasons for choosing our location

When deciding the location of filming we originally thought of the Thames Valley Athletic Centre, but unfortunately we where only able to use it for two hours and we felt this was not long enough to film our two minute Opening Sequence. We then where thinking of someones house, but then we thought of a better place which was Southampton University, when we choose this location we had to consider, the size of the place, was it big enough to film? could a certain amount of people fit in, is the lighting going to be right for the certain scenes. We also had to think about will it be busy , as if it was busy we wouldn't be able to use certain shots as there would be different people in the same shot. This could then confuse the audience. We based our decision on these factors and as we could have use of a dorm we thought it was a fantastic idea.

We are also deciding to film just up the road in Windsor as we need to film someone walking away from the house and when we were in Southampton we filmed someone walking to the University and we now have changed this idea as we feel this will work out better.

The disadvantages of doing it in Southamton is that if we need to change anything we then have to go back all the way down there, this is a big disadvantage as its two hours away.

New Plot

In our opening sequence you see a man walking towards the house (Matt), who is having thoughts/memories of different girls having pre drinks for a night out. You then see him entering a house, and in to a kitchen were the girl turns round and sees him. This is when he wakes up from this dream. He starts looking round in panic with heavy breathing, to see a bloody knife on the floor, having no clue what has happeneded. He then starts to have flash backs of walking away from the house and stabbing an unknown girl. That is the end to our Opening sequence, to go on to the rest of the movie Matt finds himself repeating these situations of waking up and having little flashbacks of someone killing girls, not knwoing who these people are, or who is doing it? He starts to question whether these people are real or is it all a dream? But when he sees the posters for missing victims, he starts to realise there the people he sees in his dreams/flash backs. He starts to try and figure out who is doing this and thinking it was not him.
It ends with his realising he has a split personality because he realises this when he is about to kill another girl but he snaps out of his second personality and realises it was him all along.

Personal Editing Ideas

As we are going in to the editing process of making our Opening Sequence, we have come up with some ideas, here is a few personal ideas i have thought about:

• As we are starting with someone walking, the audience dont know who is actually walking straight away, so this builds up tension straight away. With this to build up more tension we are going to add short duration shots of 'Pip' dead, this will help us build up tension.
• With the text for titles and cast names, i feel we need to get the names to slowly fade on, as that goes with the plot of our film. You know a little about what is going on but you wont know truly what is going on till the last bit of the film.
• I also feel that we need to use more cut shots as this is getting the audience more on the edge of the seats, as they dont know  quite what will happen next.

These are just a few of my ideas, however as we are in a group we will discuss with each other in more detail, on how we feel about my ideas, and the ideas they have come up with as well, this could then lead a better success in our editing.

Opening Sequence Text Analysis (needs finishing)

Limitless

As we are soon going to be editing our final thriller piece, we will have to look at what titles we will be putting on our opening sequence. We have looked at different opening sequences in the past but I am now going to be analysing the opening sequence to the mystery thriller Limitless. Below are different print screens of the opening sequence, where I will analysis.

Limitless is one of many films which doesn’t show any of the main characters or in fact no characters in its opening sequence. The opening of this film consists of a camera zooming in though objects, such as taxis, buildings and streets of New York City.  It then zooms in to a sign which then turns into the human brain and comes back out to zooming into the top of a building which ends with a white out. 

This is the first of the titles you see, which rotates in across the screen. This is in the main title of the film cause it is telling us what the name is this stays in the middle of the screen. It then moves backwards so it looks like the camera is zooming in and this is when the titles change.

My Role improvments of filming on Day 1

Filming Day 1: Camera

During the course of Day 1 in filming, as Lauren and Jess where interested in being in the opening sequence, i didn't mind doing the filming side of it

Things that went well:
- I was able to have some form of control over the camera so that it didnt shake when being hand held
- I was able to follow instructions and follow the story board as to where i had to be, stand and when to start and sstop filming
- I was able to understand the 180' rule when it came to filming conversations
- I was able to start and stop in the same place that i had filmed the previous scene, so that it didn't look too jumpy

Things that need to be improved:
- When it came to filming the walking sceen down the corridor, it would have been easier to put the camera on something with wheels as i underestimated how heavy the camera can get when holding it for a long period of time.
- It would have been easier if the camera was on the tripod instead of it being mostly hand held as the shots could have been a little more steadier and the shots could have been taller so it was more at average height
- Where i had positioned myself in the stabbing scene, as much as I was going by the 180' rule, it was hard to accomplish this as we had to make the stab look realistic but we weren't allowed to see the knife as it obviously wasn't going in to Pip

Analysing Text in Opening Sequences

This is a text Analysis of American Psycho, in this I have look at the text used in the opening sequence, which is in the same sub-genre as ours. However this is physiological thriller, but has mystery to it.  

American Psycho

American Psycho is one of many that do not use the title in the action part of the opening sequence. The text used in this opening sequence is quite bold and plain. The text is also tall and thin. As American Psycho is about the daily life of wealthy young investment banker Patrick Bateman this could represent him and how he is wealthy and how he feels that he is better than everyone else.

The text was quite fast paced and only had a small gap between the next set of words. The opening sequence did not have the casts names however is did have the crews names and the director etc.

Shooting our Opening Sequence

We shot our Opening Sequence on 4th March 2012. This is a description of what we did on this day.

• 11.00 We arrived at Southampton, but unfortunately we where unable to start filming as not everyone had arrived yet. 
• 12.30 finally everyone had arrived and we began to get everything ready for the first shoot. This was the scene where we came down the corridor, and in to the kitchen. This was not the beginning scene but we felt like it was best to do this scene first as the corridors where empty. This scene was filmed by Evalene, we all decided to film a different part of the opening sequence so we could all say we have filmed a bit.
• 1.00 we filmed the kitchen scene where everyone is getting ready to go out. we did this scene quite a few time in different angles to make sure we could get the best shot we could. 
• 1.30 we also did this scene a lot of times as we couldn't find the best angle to do it in. This was the Hardest scene to film as it was serious, and we found it hard not to laugh. This was the scene when Katie gave other the letter to Lauren, Pip, Jess and Steph.
• 4.00 We then did the scene where Lauren kills Pip. This is going to be the scene before the partying scene. This scene was filmed by Jess. 
• 5.45 We decided to film the beginning scene last as we needed to film outside. But we felt like we needed to film in the dark to make it more effective.  Lauren filmed this scene. 
• 6.20 we had finally finished are Opening sequence are we made our way back to windsor. 

Change of Ideas

After we had created our plan for our opening sequence we had come up with a change because we thought it would be to short and wanted it to be different. 

The changes we have made on our opening sequence are we starting of with a flash forward of Lauren and Pip having a argument in the kitchen which proceeds in Lauren actually stabbing Pip and Katie entering from hearing everything from standing outside the door. It will then proceed into a fast shot of the camera floating around the outside of the university which then will enter the flat and float into the kitchen but you Katie walking in to the kitchen to meet the rest of the girls having pre drinks before a night out. Jessica then enters and starts taking photos but Lauren realises there friend Abby has been missing and hasnt yet joined them, Katie then leaves the room to go look for Abby but returns with a letter she has found in the room which shows abby being tortured and writing which reads WE HAVE ABBY. DO NOT CONTACT THE POLICE YOU WILL RECEIVE INFORMATION IN ONE HOUR. The letter is then dropped on the floor and there will be a black out. 

Garage Band Steps

 These are four different stages of how we created our first practice soundtrack on Garage Band. 

The first picture is just using one sound but by the second photo we have added another sound so they mix together at the start the give a better effect. We then added a third sound which over lapped the first sound so it is able to come in before the first sound has finished and it hasn't just switched to another sound. We had also another sound to come in when the third sound has finished. Lastly we have just finished of with a longer sound which starts straight after the fourth. 

Practice Soundtrack Using GarageBand

We have created our first practice piece for our opening sequence. In this clip here we have got a range of sounds that we think go with our piece. We found it didn't flow, but as this is just a practice we didn't feel like it was necessary to add these techniques in yet. Also we have not figured out what soundtrack we are going to use for the beginning scene with Lauren and Pip. When it comes to Putting the music to the filming we will then be able to think of a good soundtrack to start our opening sequence.

Mise -en-scene: Props

When we got to our location in southampton and started filming we had other probs which werent put in before, these are all the props used when filming:

A kitchen knife was used for Lauren when she accidently stabs Pip after they are arguing.

Bottles of Alcohol were used when the girls are having pre drinks in the kitchen, Some were empty bottles but we created the drink by using water and food colouring.

We used a camera for when we had the pre drinks in the kitchen.

We also used a letter that gets sent to the girls from a mystery person. This is just the layout of what the letter would look like:

Moodboard

I created this moodboard to help us know what different mystery thrillers excist and can look at them to help us with ours.

Feedback

We filmed some test shots and this is the feedback we recieved from group 1:

They gave us some positive and negative critism. The positives were:

• The Match on Action shots worked well
• Footsteps and running show realism

The Negatives were:

• The natural noises such as the wind, airplanes and talking in the backgroud were to loud. We would have to focus on this for our actuall production because we dont want to take away any effect from the speaking and we also dont want to make it sound unrealistic.

Photos from filming