Finished

We have now finished the coursework! It took a while but we got it done. DVD burned and handed up!

Youtube Upload

I am in the middle of uploading our final piece, Signing Off along with our Evaluation and Bloopers to YouTube. This should be done in about 40 minutes. Ryan is working on burning our videos to a DVD and this should be finished today or tomorrow at the latest.

DVD Update

Ryan is working on creating a blooper reel (who knows why) and when this is done we will be ready to burn everything to a DVD

Evaluation complete

I've finished editing the evaluation, and it's worked out to be 12 minutes long. Ryan has created a new title for the piece on Final Cut as well which looks MUCH better than the default titling sequences that iMovie offers. With all of this, our piece is finished. All that has to be done now is burning all of this to a DVD.

Titles Update

We couldn't figure out the titling software so we resorted to using Final Cut Pro. The titles available here were high quality and easy to implement which made them ideal for us to use. We are now working on importing our piece and evaluation onto a DVD. We hope to finish this, with Paddy's help when he has free periods, by the end of the week.

Film Studios List

New Line Cinema

Lions Gate Entertainment

Fox Searchlight Pictures

Paramount Pictures

Universal Studios

Warner Bros. Pictures

Evaluation Update

We have finished filming our evaluation and we just need to edit it, adding clips and removing mistakes we made. Ryan took the camera with him to film added information for the evaluation (strengths and weaknesses of our piece) as we ran out of time when we were trying to get it filmed. Overall we only needed to film for about an hour, relatively little compared to how long the actual piece did.

Evaluation First Draft

1.       Our media product uses the tried and tested methods of creating atmosphere such as a dark setting for the pieces that build up suspense or a long shot to show isolation. I think that we challenged the conventions of media products by filming using two cameras, one that the characters are obviously aware of as they are filming using it. We referred to this as the amateur camera. The second camera was the conventional film camera that the characters are unaware of. We used this to get in the shots that the amateur camera couldn't feasibly do. We referred to this as the pro camera.

2.       Our media product represents only one social group as all of the characters are members of the group; Caucasian w/c. They are however part of an adolescent subculture. We represented this group as friendly but always aggravating their friends. We also represented them as slightly rebellious, out wandering the streets at night.

3.       We feel that the best media institution to distribute our product would be the social network YouTube as it is only around five minutes long and YouTube would allow us to distribute to a large amount of people, free for both parties, and potentially reach more members of our target demographic, which is people between the ages of 15 and 30 who enjoy horror/suspense films.

4.       We showed whoever we could during our free periods, posted the video on Facebook and YouTube. We received mostly favourable feedback with some constructive criticism from a few people, mostly those who also do Media Studies or Moving Image Arts.

5.       We have learnt a great deal more about software than hardware though we did all learn how to efficiently operate two cameras at once and a tripod. The software though was a different story. We were using iMovie for the majority of the editing, but we used Final Cut X to include the viewfinder effect in the amateur camera shots. We also tried to experiment with GarageBand to come up with a song that would fit our piece. I made an energetic piece that was unfortunately too long to include though it fit the tone of the piece quite well.

6.       The preliminary piece was of a much lower standard than our finished product. We weren’t sure what we were doing. It was definitely a learning experience. We learned that even when finished filming to hold off on the haircuts for a week or so in case you need to re-film a scene! We also learned how best to get certain angles and how to look out for possible continuity errors. We learned to be mindful of the setting and whether other people are going to use it. We applied all of these lessons to the final piece and I think it shows.

Update

We have now completed the titling and are working on the evaluation which Conchur and I are scripting. We will film it within the next week and from only need to edit it to include clips from the piece to put on the DVD.

Another Update.

All that needs to be done at this point is the titling sequence, which is probably going to be the biggest challenge since ryan and I haven't the faintest idea on how to use the software. Ryan fiddled around with it last period and I've been doing the same this period, so we're slowly trying to get used to it. Once we learn how to use the software and finish our titling sequence, all that needs to be done is burning the piece on to a DVD.

Update

It's just been me today, and yesterday, both Conchur and Paddy are sick. I've been working on finishing editing the project. It's gone fairly well; I've included all sound effects and all I need to do now is add in the titles. It's been a long haul trying to finish this by myself but I'm nearly there. Ryan Cairns

Update on editing

We have nearly finished editing our suspense piece. We nearly lost a clip but luckily we had it backed up on memory stick. Now all we need to do is add music to the clips and trim any unneeded footage.

Update

All we have left to do is to film one last scene and then obviously edit that. Aside from that we are waiting on titling software to put some titles in over the opening. We know where we're going with this as Paddy knocked up a rough edit of it to give us an idea and we liked it.

Music used in final piece

Lone Harvest - Intro
Movement Proposition - Punch and chase scene
Medusa - Flashback
Nathan walking to Aaron's house - Feral Chase
(possibly) When Alex breaks through door - Mechanolith

Update

We have to have the film finished by Monday next week but we have yet to film our scenes at Aaron's house. Paddy had to cancel again as his brother was visiting for the weekend. We are hopefully filming tomorrow (Tuesday) and should be working on editing for the rest of the week.

Changes Made to Script

The script we wrote initially had to go through a couple of changes as when we tried to film it the way it was on the page, it didn't really make sense and we thought it would look better another way. The prime example of this was the scene where Alex infects Chris, in the script we had this on screen and very obvious but we found when filming that it, to be honest, it looked really stupid and we didn't really have anything to use for blood. In the end we decided to imply the attack rather than blatantly show it. There were some slight changes made to dialogue to make it sound more natural. The biggest change to dialogue was when we cut out Nathan talking to Chris with the amateur camera. We decided to edit around this as the speech was very obviously scripted and just didn't flow well with the rest of the project.

Location Jonathan's House

We needed to use a second house and we had already used Conchur's house. Paddy's house was unavailable for use at the time and mine would be difficult for the others to get to as its out in Crumlin.

Location Sir Thomas and Lady Dixon Park

The second location that is seen in our production is Lady Dixon. We used this as it was publicly available and we were all able to readily get there and we needed a foresty area with trees and this met that requirement.

Location Conchur's House

This is the first location seen in the film and it is Conchur's house. We used Conchur's house as one of our locations as it was easy for Paddy and obviously Conchur to get there. It wasn't too difficult for me to get there either and we needed to film the scene somewhere so this was a more than acceptable location.

Editing progress

Ryan has been doing the majority of the editing in the movie. However, Paddy is working on incorporating opening titles using iMovie although we are waiting on new software to make professional titles. I worked on deleting all the footage we didn't need for each scene i.e. mess ups. I also edited the scene where Ryan punches Paddy and transferred it via memory stick to Ryan's Mac for him to add music to.

Small update on project

We have decided to refilm one or two scenes in Lady Dixon as there a few shots we have in mind of the flashback scene. This means we will have to film twice before we have all the footage we need. Me, Conchur and Ryan are available for Friday and Sunday so we will need to ask Brendan and Jonathan if they are available. If they are, we should have all the footage we need by Monday.
Currently we are working on editing, mainly trying to find music to fit each scene. We also have the introduction finished apart from the credit text.

Update on progress

We finally finished our work at Lady Dixon with an overhead shot and a POV shot filmed by me, filling in for Brendan's character Chris. Ryan (Alex) also filmed a POV shot running at Brendan and this could make for a great scene with the right editting. Jonathan was unable to film so we couldn't film the remaining house scene. We hope to have this finished by Friday and that will wrap up our filming and leave us free to work on editing and perfecting our clips.

Title Examples

http://www.artofthetitle.com/2008/03/26/se7en/

Although this is not a horror movie it is a great movie for creating a suspenseful atmosphere and this is well shown in the opening title sequence. We are hoping to recreate this sense of atmosphere in the title of our movie using appropriate music.

Filming at Aarons house

We were unable to complete filming at Aaron's house due to Paddy not being there. We did get one line recorded of Luke (Jonathan). We may use this but it is more likely that we will just re-record it when the time comes due to the lack of effort needed and to improve on it based on the atmosphere leading up to this line.

Progress on Filming

Last Sunday we got every scene that was needed in Nathan's house so we won't need to go back there to film again. However we still need to finish one scene in Lady Dixon and in Aaron's house. This should be easy to do and should only take one more week.

Update

Today Conchur and I are working on editing and trying to come up with some sort of title sequence We want it to be eerie and creepy but it may be difficult to work out the details especially since we are down a man in that Paddy is not here.

Update

Ryan is working at editing the footage we recorded using the amateur camera by inserting a viewfinder to make the clip seem more realistic and more amateur.
Paddy is working on ideas for a title sequence as we feel this will be more atmospheric than simply jumping into the movie.
I am editing out footage that we can't use and (obviously) updating the blog.

Update on recent progress

We recently started filming with Ryan in the role of Alex, Paddy in the role of Nathan, Conchur in the role of Aaron and with two of our friends Jonathan and Brendan in the roles of Luke and Chris respectively. We made good progress while filming on Friday, getting through a good portion of the outdoor scenes. However, we could not finish these scenes when filming on Sunday as Paddy had previous commitments. We were however still able to film a bit without him.

Woman In Black Trailer

This trailer is intense and unsettling without being outright scary which is worse in its own way. This is the sort of effect we are aiming to recreate in our film.
We are considering using the sharp cut in music that is heard in the trailer to further unsettle the viewer and build anticipation.
A camera shot we would like to implement is the long shot shown that emphasises the isolation of the scene and the helplessness of the characters situation.