Re-shooting and editing improvements

For the improvements we had to re-shoot some shots but when we came to do them we asked the actors if they were free and they weren't. So we just had to make do with the shots we had but they were only minor improvements anyway, most of the improvements were things like effects or sounds.

The picture above shows the title that goes over the end, over the closing of the door. The text was too boring though, the transition was nice but everyone wanted the text to be more interesting. Also we didn't have any credits so we found some and found a font that fitted both the door and the credit and applied it and I think now it is a lot more interesting.

We started with the template above and added names and job roles to fit the gaps and applied a more interesting font because the original was dreary and boring.

Above is a screen shot of the ident. Charlotte finished the ident for the final product because it was quite ready for the rough cut and she didn't want to rush it so we just saved it for the final cut. So we put it on the start and blended it so that it fitted on the start and it looked amazing. It lasted roughly 4 seconds so it only made us go over the end by a little bit  and it was only the credits that went over the time period so it didn't matter.

Sadly though the sequence of the paper boy at the end made us run over the time period by quite and lot and it confused most of the viewers so we had to cut it out of the final product.

For the last part of editing we had to finish the sound track because there was one slight section where the music stops altogether. So we just simply had to finish that and there was a few jumpy parts near the start that nobody noticed but I wanted to change them because it didn't quite sound right.

some more sound editing

'Behind closed doors rough cut' Feed back

Here's the rough cut when it was being torn apart by the class... :(

'Behind closed doors' Rough cut

Here's our rough cut :).

Evidence of editing day 6

Today was the final day of editing and so we began as always. I booted up the mac and began editing, Deanna helped when i wasn't of some sounds and Cameron help change some of the visual shots to make the soundtracks fit easier and more effectively. When we had finished we set the computer to upload the final product to Youtube so that we could later add it to our blogs.

Mr Hood then put the film up for the class to watch so that we could have some feedback on how to improve it. Meanwhile Charlotte continued to edit the script and ident making some final adjustments and then uploaded them to her blog for us all to later use.

Just finalising some sounds!

Evidence of editing day 5

Today was just a check of the foely sounds and checking to make sure that the dialogue was edited correctly. I was again in charge of the mac and I got as much of the sound edited as i possible could in the time I had. I managed to get the background tracks for scene one and most of scene 3 done.

Although there was a lot left to do I felt that I could do it in time for the deadline.

We collected the soundtracks from a website called Free SFX and it has some amazing backing tracks for nearly every mood of film. We used it because we new from last year that it was a good choice for sound effects so we scanned the website and the background tracks that we have found i think match the feel of the film very well.

Sound editing under way

Evidence of editing day 4

Editing now was primarily focused on sound because we managed to import and edit all of the visual footage now and sound was all that was left.

We got Rebecca to come in a re dub over some section where here voice went a little too quite on set. I was mostly in charge of sound editing because I had gained a lot of experience at doing it from last year. I went through each individual shot and corrected the sound by either using more or less of the hum removal and I edited the soundtrack and fitted it around the visuals to emphasise sections with his tension and anger but then also bring the tension back down again when everything had calmed down again.

Me and Cameron also went out and recorded some new foely to go over things like the bag dropping on the floor and just general background noise. All in all the editing went well with minimal faults and issues.

Evidence of editing day 3

For this session of editing we were editing the shots that made scene 3. This was a lot easier than the other shots because it didn't have any filters or effects at all which made it a lot easier to render so we could keep editing and get a lot more done. Here is a shot of Alex, The first shot from scene 3:

For this scene we used noise reduction a lot to get ride of the horrible hum in the background. We were going to over dub most of the voices in this scene but we ran out of time but in the end i think that the dialogue sounded fine anyway.

As me and Cameron were editing the shots together Deanna kept worrying that we would not fit it all in the time slot that we had but by the end we were only a few seconds out so it wasn't that bad.

Evidence of editing day 2

The next day we cam back to editing. The film was really beginning to look like it was coming together now although we had no foely or soundtrack but it still looked good.

As we were editing we realised that the voices had a slight hum/crackling in the back ground whenever we used the sound of the shot off the camera. So we asked our teacher and he showed us how to over dub it using a hum removal effect.

We also noticed that the start looked strange without an effect so we found an effect that just made  slight difference and improved the feel of the shot. It was called Cold steel and we applied it with 40% intensity.

Whilst we were editing Charlotte carried on with the editing of the ident but she couldn't find a fire crackling noise so we changed it and put an explosion instead.

Evidence of editing day 1

For editing this we had to do the visual footage and the soundtrack all on the same piece of soft ware 'Final cut pro X'. It is the updated version of the programme that we used last year and it contains the software of both Final cut and Soundtrack pro. This made things easier because we didn't have to keep exporting the product out of Final cut and putting it into Soundtrack pro.

We started by going straight into it and just getting all of the footage onto the computer and just roughly piecing it all together. We then later went back over the match-on-actions and neatened it all up.

Cameron Took over the editing of the visuals because he had the most experience and could manipulate the footage a lot more effectively than the rest of us. Here is a screen shot of us editing the shot with Alive at the bottom of the stairs:

Whilst Cameron quickly just put in as many many shots as possible into the timeline for the film, Deanna looked on the internet for soundtracks to go over the back ground. 

Like last year Deanna wanted an effect over the flash back scenes to make it clearly noticable that it was a memory and not set at the present time of the film. There was some dispute and in the end we came to the conclusion of using an effect called Dreamy (which added a fuzzy look to the shot almost like a broken, cant remember all the pieces kind of feeling) and the another effect called Romantic (this just softened up some of the edges and made it even more weird and fuzzy.

After we had applied these we noticed that some of the shots were to bright so I stepped in and came up with some pre-sets that would mess with the lighting and exposure of the shot. In the end I think that the shots looked amazing and gave of the feel of a flashback. These effects would only go over the shots in scene 2 because they were the flashback shots.

Whilst we were editing Charlotte came up with the ident. The original one that we wanted was of a volcano erupting but this proved a challenge so we simplified it.

Filming on location day 8

Location: 57 Ramillies Crescent (My house)
Filming time: 12:00pm - 9:30pm
Shots to be filmed: scene 3 and 1, shot 73 -84, 1, 2 and 10-14

Crew and Cast present:
Deanna Hopps - Director, Make-up artist and Stunt co-ordinator
Cameron Hargreaves - Cinematographer and Set Layout
Daniel Springthorpe - Sound and Stunt co-ordinator
Charlotte Smith - Lighting and Cinematography

Rebecca Chapman - Alice
Alex Marks - Richard
Millie Russell - Stacey

Summary of the day:
Today was our final day of filming so everything had to be completed. We began were we always do, first we set up the equipment and got ready to shoot Millie's scene first as it was going to be the longest due to the massive pan at the end and the timing of the shot had to be perfect. We all began to realise that we were loosing the day light so we had to be fast and do the shot "of course we can be together, if only I wanted you". It took us a few attempts to get it right then we did the rest of Millies shots like the match-on-action of her walking into the room because it didn't rely too much on the sunlight filling the room.

Our directors have a con flab about some of the shots

We spent a lot of time getting these shots done, we did the throwing away of the engagement ring several times and we did the match-on-action even though she did it nearly perfect every time, several times because we knew that we would never have another chance with the sunlight so we had to get as much filmed as possible so we could edit it all together fluidly and with ease.

Filming on location, done!!!

Volcanic productions plus Rebecca but Cameron had to take the shot so sadly he could not be present in it :(

Filming on location day 7

Location: 57 Ramillies Crescent (My house)
Filming time: 4:00pm - 9:30pm
Shots to be filmed: scene 2 and 1, shot 59-60 and 6-9

Crew and Cast present:
Deanna Hopps - Director, Make-up artist and Stunt co-ordinator
Cameron Hargreaves - Cinematographer and Set Layout
Daniel Springthorpe - Sound and Stunt co-ordinator
Charlotte Smith - Lighting and Cinematography

Rebecca Chapman - Alice
Alex Marks - Richard

Summary of the day:
This was the moment we had all been waiting for, the falling down the stairs scene. The make-up was ready and Deanna was so excited she was nearly bouncing off the walls. Here is an example of her wound that she was working on and here it is ready for filming:

Rebecca and Deanna Spent nearly two hours on the wound that would be used in the shot. They got prepare while the rest of us re-shot some previous scenes that we had checked but weren't quite right. We also had to do the stair scene, the one before the blooded head shots, a few time to get it right but there was a massive risk of Rebecca actually falling down the stairs so we had to be extremely cautious. Here are some out takes of us doing the shot:

After we had done this scene we went straight back down stairs and done all the shots with the head wound so that we would only have to film it once because Deanna was unsure that she would be able to replicate the wound again so we had to get everything done in one go.

Filming on location day 6

Location: 57 Ramillies Crescent (My house)
Filming time: 4:00pm - 8:00pm
Shots to be filmed: scene 2, shot 51-58

Crew and Cast present:
Deanna Hopps - Director, Make-up artist and Stunt co-ordinator
Cameron Hargreaves - Cinematographer and Set Layout
Daniel Springthorpe - Sound and Stunt co-ordinator
Charlotte Smith - Lighting and Cinematography

Rebecca Chapman - Alice
Alex Marks - Richard

Summary of the day:
The fact that we got such an amazing amount of work done on the last shooting day we had now finally reach the climax of the film, the death of Alice.

Firstly we did the bathroom part that would be cut around Richard walking up the stairs and knocking on the door and confronting Alice. Personally I think that this shot went amazingly well and the pan between the knocking on the door and then the pan back to the mirror as Alice covers her head was amazing. These shots are 54, 56 and 57.

After these shots we moved back downstairs to film the transition that would move the argument upstairs and complete the climax of the film. I took control of the camera for when Alice runs up the stairs because i had an idea for an angle so we tried it and it worked so we then had the footage that linked the downstairs and the upstairs together.

This shot is a little creepy but it sort of looked cool but also weird, we didn't realise it was on the camera till we checked later:

Erm... her reflection has changed...

Filming on location day 5

Location: 57 Ramillies Crescent (My house)
Filming time: 4:00pm - 9:30pm
Shots to be filmed: scene 2 and 3, shot 43-50 and shots 62-72

Crew and Cast present:
Deanna Hopps - Director, Make-up artist and Stunt co-ordinator
Cameron Hargreaves - Cinematographer and Set Layout
Daniel Springthorpe - Sound and Stunt co-ordinator
Charlotte Smith - Lighting and Cinematography

Rebecca Chapman - Alice
Alex Marks - Richard
Daniel Dabbs - Paper boy
Millie Russell - Stacey

Summary of the day:
Me (after I had got out of bed about two seconds before hand), Cameron, Deanna and Millie all arrived on set ready to film at 12:00pm. We arrived on set and began to set everything up, we were on a timer today because Millie's shots are all in daylight and because it is still sort of winter the daylight goes fast so we set up as quickly as we could and began shooting.

Firstly we got a quick shot of Richard messing with Alice's necklace out of the way first because it was a quick and simple shot to do. We then moved onto doing Millie's exterior shots of her knocking on the door. We also did an interior shot, that would be cut and put into sections to fill gaps and keep up the pace, of Richard walking up and answering the door. Me and Cameron (whilst Deanna and Charlotte were sorting out the other shots that needed to be filmed) Filmed a short section that we would use of a paper boy walking up and putting a paper through the letter box. We did quite a few shots in about half an hour and they were all first takes apart from two. So me and Cameron were very pleased.

Skip to 4:58 to see the paper boy shot:

Along side the paper boy shots me and Cameron thought we'd surprise the directors by doing Millie's shots of her walking up to the door as well but they didn't like them so we had to change angle and do it again.

Director...

Me sorting out the sound recording

Rebecca got to the filming location for 1:00pm which is well before we asked her to but it was no problem it just aloud her more time to get ready for her shots later on in the day. We filmed the rest of Millie's shots and got alex changed ready to do some more shots of scene 2. We were again pretty excited because this was the kitchen scene and we got to smash a photo frame. For the shot we got Alex to smack the photo frame off the side of the freezer but not hard enough to break it but enough to make a thud noise that we would later use. We then took the other frame outside and smashed it with a hammer to get the crack of the glass noise and also some shards of glass that we could later place and make the frame look as though it had been broken and through and pieces had gone everywhere. I used the sound recorder to get the different noises needed for the breaking of the photo frame.

Original idea for photograph in scenes 1 and 2

Filming on location day 4

Location: 57 Ramillies Crescent (My house)
Filming time: 4:00pm - 9:30pm
Shots to be filmed: scene 2, shot 31-42

Crew and Cast present:
Deanna Hopps - Director, Make-up artist and Stunt co-ordinator
Cameron Hargreaves - Cinematographer and Set Layout
Daniel Springthorpe - Sound and Stunt co-ordinator
Charlotte Smith - Lighting and Cinematography

Rebecca Chapman - Alice
Alex Marks - Richard

Summary of the day:
We were all excited today because we were gong to do our first shocker part, the slap scene. Then we would try and see how much of the kitchen scene we could get done. We obviously got everything set up and took pictures of certain things so that if we needed to re-shoot then there would be less chance of us messing up the continuity.

Cameron and Deanna sorting out props

For the slap scene we took several different angled shots so that we could quickly snap between shots so as to help build the tension. We also filmed a shot where a book is thrown to further boost the tension and anger of the scene. Originally it was a chair that we would throw down but this was too dangerous and may have of either hurt one of the actors or broken something so we changed it to throwing a book.

Here are some out takes of us attempting this shot... it took a while:

So yeah... but in the end we got the shot done and it fitted in.

Then me and Cameron went to shoot some previous hallway footage that didn't go well and also do some more foely sounds whilst Charlotte and Deanna came up with some ideas of how to now follow on that shot and bring the argument into the kitchen again. We then all came back together again at the end and put all of our ideas together and then shot a couple more shots that would then move the film in the kitchen again.

All in all today was a success and the filming that we wanted to get done was done and the shots that needed some new foely over the background were done also.

Filming on location day 3

Location: 57 Ramillies Crescent (My house)
Filming time: 4:00pm - 9:30pm
Shots to be filmed: scene 2, shot 25-30

Crew and Cast present:
Deanna Hopps - Director, Make-up artist and Stunt co-ordinator
Cameron Hargreaves - Cinematographer and Set Layout
Daniel Springthorpe - Sound and Stunt co-ordinator
Charlotte Smith - Lighting and Cinematography

Rebecca Chapman - Alice
Alex Marks - Richard

Summary of the day:
We aimed to get the rest of the hall way shot today and this included our first piece of dialogue. Now this was a big thing for me, Cameron and Deanna because we didn't use dialogue last year. It took us a little longer to set up this time because the actors had to learn their lines and the filming space was cramped and quite bright, which caused lighting issues latter on.

After a while of trying to find the correct shot types we all finally agreed and started to film and we were pleased with the shots we produced in the end. Charlotte also shot, shot 29 and 30 because we couldn't agree on a shot so Charlotte just did it so we had something but in the end it worked. So all in all it was a good day of filming.

Cameron setting up the camera for the hallway shots to start to be filmed

Filming on location day 2

Location: 57 Ramillies Crescent (My house)
Filming time: 4:00pm - 9:30pm
Shots to be filmed: scene 2, shot 16-24

Crew and Cast present:
Deanna Hopps - Director, Make-up artist and Stunt co-ordinator
Cameron Hargreaves - Cinematographer and Set Layout
Daniel Springthorpe - Sound and Stunt co-ordinator
Charlotte Smith - Lighting and Cinematography

Rebecca Chapman - Alice
Alex Marks - Richard

Summary of the day:
Like the first day of filming we started by getting everything ready. We set up the set, we got the actors make-up and costumes set up, Cameron set up the camera by making sure that the batteries were charged and making sure that the camera is working properly. I set up the sound recorder and made sure that it was working correctly. Charlotte checked the lighting equipment and made sure that they were working properly as well.

Me and Deanna setting up the table scene

We started today's filming with a new actor Alex Marks who played Richard. We had to change due to the actor not being able to film because of his parents. We started with scene two the same as last time, we got a lot of shots done. This was because Rebecca knew what we wanted her to do more in advance than the last time and she was also getting used to the crew a lot more as well.

We did all of the table scene and some of Alex entering the hallway scene.

We all got a lot done and work very efficiently together. We also found the whole process a lot easier because we all were doing a role that we were already familiar with so that aloud for us to get a lot more a feel for the film and come up with better ideas.

Transportation:
This time we had left the equipment at my house in preparation for filming so this time we had enough space in the car so we all got there together and could begin filming a lot quicker.