soundtracks

Having done quite extensive research on various copyright free websites to find my soundtrack I have decided on two different tracks I will use for the two different sections of my opening.

I heard about a website called Audio Network which enables the searching of music through styles, moods and genres. The website allowed me to search for the different tracks via how I wanted them to sound. However even then I found many tracks which weren't at all what I thought I would use, but seemed to work well with the film.

In my planning I specifically stated that I would not use a loud, obvious orchestral track, however, having tried more subtle tracks such as the one in my planning, they didn't seem to give full effect to the film. Therefore for the first part sequence in the opening I have chosen the track 'Devil Rides Tonight' by Ray Davies. I chose this because:

• It has a fast tempo of 144 bpm which keeps the pace of the chase moving.
• It is in a minor key which fits with the killing.

It is described as a "fast vintage orchestral drama" piece. And having played it with the first sequence I think that it works well in building tension and emphasising the drama of the chase and the murder.

For the second sequence with the meeting in the street and the shots of the "godfather figure", I had been very unsure in the planning stages what kind of soundtrack I would use at all. In the end I decided on the track 'The Prowl' by Tim Garland and Gareth Johnson. I chose this because:

• It effectively highlights the fact that the opening is set in the late 1940s and is an old crime thriller/gangster movie - Audio Network describes it as a "nocturnal, sleazy big band detective/spy theme with a dramatic build".
• Again it is in a Dm key with keeps the dramatic and thriller-like feel
• The tempo is a much slower 102 bmp, this slows the pace down of the opening and creates more contrast between the two separate parts of the opening.
• The track has a very moody and film noir style too which I really feel helps make the whole opening more stylish, just as classic noir films are supposed to be.

Overall I am very happy with my two soundtracks. I like the fact that I am using two separate tracks as this keeps the opening interesting by making it seem as if there is even more to it, it also creates a contrast which I feel has the same effect. Even though the tracks aren't what I had originally planned, I think they work better as they also fit so well with the style that I wanted my opening to have.

final ident

I finished my final ident that I had planned for "Jack in the Box Studios".

To make the ident i used stop motion made up of 141 stills of 31 different sketches. The idea behind the ident was to be a slightly twisted version of a typical jack in the box, in the fact that the jack in the box is dead in the box. This distorts the idea of the jack in the box being a toy for small children and twists it in to a more dark and sinister form.

to do list

By Friday 15th February I have to complete:

• My ident.

I will complete this before Wednesday 13th February.

• My titles.

I will complete this by Friday 8th February.

• Reshoot the high angle, POV tracking shot for the first sequence.

I will complete this by Thursday 7th February.

• Find a soundtrack to use.

I will complete this by Monday 11th February

• Fully finish the editing.

Complete with all other parts by 15th February.

titles

The title of the film 'Anatomy of a Murder' will appear around 00:22:00, it will be a white title on a black background and will probably look something like this:

I hope to animate it so that the title appears and then cracks is two horizontally to look like the picture above. This frame will then rip away to reveal the film playing underneath it, as shown in this rough example:

I will most likely do this using a green screen underneath the titles which I can then play the film onto. The edges of the paper will fade away so that in the end the film is playing and fills the screen as usual.

editing update

Over the past week I have continued to edit all of my footage. At the moment I have a 2 minute 20 second long opening. I am in the processes of cutting down the first section and adding in the right clips to the street scene. I have decided to edit the interior scene and the street scenes separately, then once I have finished rough cuts for both I will adjust them so that it cuts between the two.

This week I have been mainly working on the street scene, first I watched through all of the footage and was very pleased with the composition of the the shots. So far with this section I have been piecing together the dialogue shots and forming a rough cut that I am just beginning to trim down and edit more closely.

Finally, this week I also discovered that many of my shots look better in that they are less shiny, they have more depth to them, and they aren't quite as dark if instead of using the 50s TV effect on final cut, I simply reduce the global saturation to -100%. Because of this it is likely that I will colour adjust the whole opening to be like this.

editing update

I have now been editing for 2 weeks and have managed to get together a rough cut that I have also now shortened to around 3 minutes. I have mainly focused on the opening scene - the murder in the woods. This scene is now 1 minute longer so, depending on the rest of the opening, will probably be shortened by another 5-10 seconds. This scene also still requires form close editing that I will complete when I have the music in place as well so that the rhythm of the music fits with the rhythm of the editing.

So far I have been using the 50s TV effect on final cut pro on all of my clips, this has further emphasised the style of the film and the time period it is set in. However, having played around with the colours and saturation of one clip I found that the black and white may look better and more stylish if I just turned down the saturation of each clip to turn it black and white. I will experiment with these two ideas and audition clips so that I can decide later on which method I will use.

Overall so far I am happy with how my editing is going and the footage that I took, so I will continue to edit the whole sequence and will start to find a piece of music that I can use.

christmas filming

Over the Christmas holidays I was planning to film two of my locations for the opening, the woods and the street shots both of which would be filmed in Yorkshire. The filming for these locations remained on schedule and I filmed over 3 days.

On the first day I began my filming at around 2:00 leaving about 1 hour until it started to get dark having decided that for the running shots I would film while it was still light to make it easier for the actors (especially Simon who had to wear dark glasses). I will probably darken these shots in Final Cut Pro X when it comes to editing. My second day of filming in the woods took place when it was already dark so that I could do the silhouette shots and other shots that needed the darkness for the shot to work during the filming.
The third day of filming was the street shot which took place in Kirkbymoorside. This location was the hardest because it was on a road so there was a frequent problem of cars and people walking past, this meant that the filming took longer than it should of here and there are quite a lot of extra/unusable shots.

I then managed to also film my wimbledon location shots over the holidays before I had planned to. The shots for this location we very simple and therefore it didn't take long to film, and now that I have all the film it will be much easier for me to start the editing.

Overall I can say that the filming was quite time consuming, it was quite tricky at first getting to grips with each step to take for each shot. However, by the time I did my 4th day of filming in wimbledon I was much faster and more efficient at getting each shot done as it should be.