All Around You from BDC on Vimeo.

Followed. from previous blog

following on from my other blog. Here are some pictures that were taken while filming.

filming a shot from a low angle in the graveyard location. We experiemented with different angles to find the most interesting. This scene was her reading a letter. We ended up filming looking up at her reading it.


In studio. Setting up tv and sorting lighting so it was right.



By Luke

research into directors

ive decided to research into the famous director Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, who is well known for his techniques in making suspense in his physcological thrillers. His films are believed to have been extensively story boarded with the finest detail.

pace in thriller films is very important and its important to keep the pace to the music as this is what builds up the atmosphere of tension.

In many of his films he did this. I also noticed by wathing trailers of the films that the use of lighting is very important too. The more shadows and the less the audience can see the more uncomftorable they feel.


Luke

Music in a thriller

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=tMOeZmJ1yt8

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Zo4r6yVdONE

Here are some of the ideas we wanted to involve in our soundtrack.

The second one is more realistic and creepy and works well in thriller films as it builds up tension and suspense.

Luke

Editing the movie

The program we used when editing was Final Cut Pro. At first i found it very confusing and hard to understand but as i got more familiar with it i managed to start being able trimming and puting clips together.

Originally we wanted to do something different in the editing process and make an effect for one of the actors faces to fade into another. Although we realised that this was a bit hard and with such little knowledge on the program and with not much time it wouldnt have been practical.

When editing i did some of the basic things such as adjusting the colour/exposure/contrast so it all matched. (we shot the outside location over 2 days as the lighting got hard to work with) in the footage it was very noticable so i had to correct it which took a while.
Above is a picture of the kind off effect i wanted to bring into the film with the fuzzy tv screen. On certain shots i added "old tv effect" to make it look as though it was being watched on a tv by somebody making it a bit more edgy.

Luke

behind the scenes

When filming in the studio i took some pictures of the practical work which was going on. The characters makeup was done with special effects makeup by me to make her look very pale with different injuries over her face.

It was a shame that the filming of this couldnt be used in the film as i think it would have made the overall edit much more effective. The reason for this was because it was filmed on the handheld video camera which supports a different video format which we couldnt edit.

Below are some pictures of the characters makeup

applying SFX makeup for injury effects

Overall look

By Luke

Editing

When it came to editing, i initially felt nervous about using final cut pro as i had only used the programme when doing so in the prelim exercise. However, after the first editing session i soon found my confidence again as i remembered the editing techniques that i had learnt previously. The first stage of beginning the editing process was uploading all of our footage. This was time consuming as we had to label each of our clips, however this would in fact make it a lot easier when coming to putting the piece together later on as we would know clearly what shot was which. It was during this uploading stage that me and Luke came across our first serious problem. We was unable to upload all the footage from the video camera as in was in a completely different format. This therefore meant that we had to scrap the idea of having a stalker, which therefore meant cutting out all shot of Chanelle (the dead girl). Although seeming a 'huge' problem initially, we soon discovered when we came to editing that in fact it just made the sequence more simple and easier for the audience to understand as it didn't have a complicated storyline.
Because we had a lot of footage from a variety of different angles it meant that we was able to experiment by finding the best angles with the best continuity,etc. However, the only problem with this was that we found that the footage differed significantly to our original storyboard idea, however, it still had the same principle.
At times i found the editing quite stressful, as i found myself trying to do something that i didn't actually know how to do and so it was often a case of 'trail and error', although i feel that i coped with it well and the footage overall is at it's best arrangement. For example, adding in transitions, effects and titles was something i learnt how to do through a case of ' trail and error'.
The hardest part of the editing stage i personally felt was creating a soundtrack. Because i am unfamiliar with the programme i also felt it was a case of 'trail and error'. We wanted to create an eerie, sinister yet edgy piece of music which built a great deal of tension, which would put the audience on edge. It took me a few lessons, to find pieces of music, however in the end Luke was able to put it together, looping it so that it fitted well with the music. This was the main final stage of the editing process which left us only to perfect the piece, making sure that all transitions were smooth, the text was appropriate and the sound fitted with the visuals,etc.

Becky.