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.

a history of British film - part 4

WHAT ARE THE MAIN GENRES PRODUCED BY THE UK FILM INDUSTRY IN THE LAST 25 YEARS? WHO GOES TO SEE THESE FILMS?

The main genres produced by the UK film industry are social realism including films such as 'The Full Monty' in 1997 and 'Brassed Off' in 1996, and romantic comedy with films such as Notting Hill and Love Actually. Films produced in the UK clearly are generally about real lives and real problems affecting the country represented in different ways, such as the 1996 film 'Brassed Off' actually has quite a dark undertone while it stresses and attacks the Tory government at the time very directly. An example of a British film produced in 1997 was 'Sliding Doors', though it starred the US actress Gwyneth Paltrow, she played the part of a London girl who becomes part of a rather tragic story. Many older British people would favor these British people over any Hollywood film so the people who go to see British films the most are aged 30+, where as the younger people generally would rather go to see a Hollywood blockbuster with more action.

DNA FILMS LAST 2 PRODUCTIONS WERE DREDD 3D (2012) AND NEVER LET ME GO (2010). WHAT KIND OF FILMS ARE THEY? HOW ARE THEY DIFFERENT FROM EARLIER FILMS? HAVE THEY BEEN A BOX OFFICE SUCCESS?

DNA Films has previously produced films such as ‘The Last King of Scotland’ and ‘The History Boys’, types of films which focus on British cultural issues. These films found audiences both domestically and internationally and were both relatively successful. More recent films produced by DNA Films include ‘Dredd 3D’, an action/adventure film and ‘Never Let Me Go’, a drama/thriller. ‘Dredd’s domestic gross box office figures were $13,414,714 and worldwide this figure was almost $31,000,000. ‘Never Let Me Go’ on the other hand had a worldwide gross box office figure of almost $10,000,000, but, had a budget of $15 million compared to ‘Dredd’s 

$50 million.

SUMMARISE IN YOUR OWN WORDS WHAT KINDS OF FILMS MOMENTUM PICTURES LOOK TO DISTRIBUTE AND WHY?

Momentum Pictures distributes high budget Hollywood style films, such as ‘Seven Psychopaths’ which is in cinemas at the moment. This film is an action comedy which had a production budget of $15 million and included some extremely well known and highly regarded Hollywood talent, for example Christopher Walken. Momentum Pictures has also previously distributed many horrors such as ‘A Night in the Woods’ and ‘Apartment 143’, these were also high budget films and were filmed and produced in the Hollywood style and scale rather than on the small scale that an independent company many produce on. 

conclusion of planning and research

Having done all of my research, such as surveys, vox pops and internet research, and planning, such as a storyboard, shot list and mock ident, I now feel ready to film the opening itself. I will film over the Christmas holidays so that I can start editing as soon as I return to school where I can use Final Cut Pro X.

Whilst filming I will be using an HD camera, tripod, directional mike, clapper board, tripod and battery lights. I will make sure that when I am filming I also film plenty of extra footage including fillers, so that when it comes to editing I have more than one option for each scene in case I find that some shots do not fit well together. I will use all aspects of my planning for the filming on location to help me get exactly the shots and feel that I first envisioned plus more.

sound and light recce

This is a sound and light recce my class did using some scenes from the film Drive. We filmed in locations around our school using an HD Panasonic camera, directional mike on a boom pole, digital recorder and clapperboard for sound, and two battery lights for the lighting as well as whatever other lighting we had in our locations.

In terms of sound this recce showed us clearly that the sound recorded by the camera only isn't a good enough quality - as shown in the first clip. And, as the second clip showed, the levels on the digital audio recorder must be high enough to capture the sound well.

The lighting showed us that it didn't always come out on the camera as we thought it would so it would be a good idea either to try a few different lighting styles for each shot or to check each shot after filming it to see if the lighting is satisfactory and what was aimed for.

titles and credits

TITLES:

My titles will appear either right at the beginning or end of the opening, and I would like them to fit in with the time frame and style of the film. Below are example of styles and fonts that I would possibly use in the title. The title would be likely to also include an image that relates to the opening that could either be an image or a sketch.

I like this font because it really matches the style of the film and is similar to some font used for titles of other films such as "Double Indemnity". Also with an image behind the text I feel it could work very effectively.

This font was taken from www.dafont.com. I feel this font also fits the style of the film and is quite dramatic in itself. I especially like the 3D aspect of this font and the graphic style.

This font was also taken from www.dafont.com, it works well because of its simple style and boldness. However, it does seem a little too playful and childish for the style of the film.

The transition of my titles will be a simple fade in - fade out. I do not want to over complicate the title sequence and, as in all the other areas of the opening, I would like to replicate the style that would be used in the films that I have researched such as "Strangers On A Train" or "Vertigo".


CREDITS:
For the credits I will us a very similar style as the title, using similar fonts and styles. The transitions will be simple to match the style of previous films made in the late 1940s, and they will show whilst the film is playing. The font I use will be a more simplified version of the title font and to make it I will either use the options on Final Cut Pro X or for a more graphic effect I will take photos of sketches and make a stop-motion video which i can then overlay on top of the film itself.

sound

Diagetic sound - Sound recorded during filming, eg. speech or footsteps.

Non-diagetic sound - Sound added during editing, eg. a sound track.

NON-DIAGETIC:

This track is from Keith Jarrett's album Rio, part XIII. It is an example of a track where the first 30 seconds is similar to the type of track I would like to use as the non-diagetic sound for the murder, and could also possibly work for the rest of the opening as well since the track changes at around 30 seconds and at a few other points too.

This track would be ideal for my opening because it builds tension but not in an overly-dramatic way. For my opening I would like to build tension however I don't want to use a track that is a loud, classical track and that is very obvious in its way of trying to build tension. However a track like this would be much more subtle in building tension and therefore in my opinion be much more effective as well.


DIAGETIC:

Diagetic sound is sound which is recorded during the filming process. For the first scene (the murder in the woods), the diagetic sound will include footsteps and heavy breathing magnified for further effect. In the street scene there will be dialogue as shown in the script, however this will be kept to a minimum to reduce a loss of quality in the video due to poor sound quality. To ensure the highest quality in the sound of the speech i will use a directional mike and my location is in such a place that there will hopefully be not too much background noise anyway. For my final interior location there will only be sound such as the enhanced sound of the blade from the cigar cutter. I will record these sounds on location during filming however, depending on the quality of them, I may use either these recorded sounds or sound effects from Final Cut Pro X on which I will be editing.