Voiceovers

We had a group discussion about the idea of a voiceover, so to help us we made a spider diagram of all the possible ideas we could think of such as a police interview with the characters mother or friends, the character herself, simple narration or even news reports on the case. We also discussed who would be suitable that we know for these voices as we mainly need well spoken people (like a news reporter etc). We decided that a 4 minute conversation between two characters would be too dull and a 4 minute news report would reveal too much information to the viewer so we decided to mix our voiceover together to show chaos. We heard the song Suzanne by Plan B and thought the news reported sounded very effective especially how the names blur in and out.The entire song is very graphic however I think this is what Plan B was obviously aiming for particularily with the squirting noise of blood and chainsaws, the news report is between 2:58-3:24.

Fourth Draft

This is our fourth edit of our second film. Before we finished this edit we had a very big problem with iMovie in which our entire footage and film had dissappeared. In the end a folder name had accidentally been renamed causing iMovie to lose track of our film, once we renamed it, it all reappeared in iMovie.

While we had this problem we discussed our film name and thought it would be better to use the supposed name of the character similar to the films "Chloe", "Carrie" and "Juno". Similar to Juno we wanted an unusual name so we scanned baby name websites as none of us could think of anything and we soon found "Leyla".

Once the Mac/iMovie problem was sorted we removed the clip of the clock necklace as it looked messy. We have also finished our credits so that they flow in time completely.

Third Draft of Film

This is our current draft for our film which we have temporarily named 'Pulse'.

We have added in an elipsis at the end so that I fade and reappear down the path. We also removed parts after audience feedback as the film was too repetitive.

We spent a whole afternoon making the credits however we forgot to add "and" before "Sarah Isaacs". We managed to find a font similar to Seven's credit font, it looks very rough and etched fitting in with our genre. We also made sure each credit lasted for 4 seconds so that there is enough time for the audience to read it, however having "Aimie Condon" right after "Filmed and Edited by" makes it seem that only Aimie filmed and edited and that it does not apply to all three of us. Also added togther "Filmed and Edited by" and "Aimie Condon" makes 8 seconds which may be too long for just credits.

We now need to begin work on our voiceover but overall this second film is progressing a lot more than the previous.

Group Dicussions & Decisions

To keep a clear difference between present time and flashback we decided to change the complete black and white to having a hint of colour as the complete opposite effects between the black and whites and colour was too different and made our film seem inconsistent. We needed an effect for the flashbacks to create the hint of colour/drained effect, so we began to play around with iMovie's effects until we found one called 'Old World' which looked dream-like unlike others which were very dark and dim and we then manually changed the colour settings and it looked alot better than previously.

We decided we needed transitions also to stop the film being jumpy as well as making flashbacks and real time clear so we added a 'Fade to White' transition before every flashback although creating the perfect timing has been hard as iMovie decided automatically how long each transition should last.

We also discussed our credits again and confirmed that we all liked the creepy effect created by the Seven Credits, also like the Bulls on Parade video. We experimented how to make the flickering effect and after strenuous amount of fiddling we managed to create it by making several text boxes for every flicker of text and then changing each text box to make the writing look as though it is moving.

Here are the Seven opening credits which shows how we want our credits;

Idea of Voiceover

After our visit to the CLC we have kept music in mind. We opened Garageband on our school's Mac's and unfortunately we do not have all of the music that the CLC had on their version of Garageband so we decided to think of an alternative. We thought that a voice speaking over the random clips could provide more of an explanation rather than music. When discussing our ideas for a voice over as a group each of us has different ideas at to what it should be. We came to a decision that a police interview would fit well as it could reveal a lot to the audience with out being too blatent as well as introducing characters without showing them.
We are still unsure whether we are going to have discreet music in the background or if we are going to edit the voices.

A film which uses a similar technique to this is Trainspotting which introduces the entire theme of the film in the opening through a voiceover;

Second Day of Filming

For the second day of filming we began at Aimie's house and filmed things that happen in people's daily routines such as a point of view of pouring milk into a cup of tea and a close up of slicing cheese which will be odd for the audience as it has no significance. We filmed a clock of Aimies which is very disfunctional and spins endlessly out of control, it looked effective however it was reflective of the natural light and when we blocked out the light it was too dark to see on the camera so we scrapped the idea entirely.
We filmed a shot of my hand reaching over a shelf to try and reach a necklace, it looked very effective as the hand is very snappy and attempts to grab anything reachable, it also looks as though my character was too short to actually reach the shelf even though I was actually sat on the ground.

We then went to Forty Hall to film shots of our character waking up in a forest. We decided to use someone from our group as it was the most reliable option so I offered to do it as no one was too keen. We filmed panning shots of the location of trees as well as a point of view shot of some gates which looks wierd as the bars move along to help confuse the audience. We filmed interesting shots such as spinning around looking up to the tops of trees at a low angle which is very disorientating. I filmed a point of view shot lying on the ground looking up to the trees which was very slow paced compared to the rest of our footage. Theres a variety of shots of me lying on the floor starting from extreme close-ups all the way to long shots. We also included a pan shot of me getting up from the ground and walking away. We filmed a shot of me walking away from the camera similar to a shot from our old opening which we liked, however as the shot is very long we could cut it and add transitions to create an elipsis.

This is the second draft of our film where we have experimented as a group with black and white and colour to show the differences between real time and 'flashbacks'.
We are still in the initial stages of putting it together although I already think this is much better than the previous film;

First Draft of New Film Opening

This is the first drafted opening for our new film opening. We decided to simply piece together our footage and see how parts looked together so far. We still have another day of filming so it is quite repetitive at the moment.
Some of the clips were not muted before uploading so there is some sudden noise.

Storyboard for Second Film Opening

As a group we made a list of images and how we wanted to shoot them and from which angle. We want all the shots to be shown in a way to confuse the audience so they initially do not understand what is happening (to add to the psychological genre) so that they will want to watch the rest of the film to understand what has happened. To do this we may speed up or slow down particular shots.

We want to include a few shots from a car in night and day time to possibly show an elipsis of time and a point of view of traffic lights changing and radio stations changing. A few shots of woods and forests to make the character look lost. Over the shoulder shots of the driver, shots through the wing mirror. Different shots of a girl lying in the forest.

Here is a storyboard for our filming;

Bulls on Parade Music Video

After successfully winning free tickets to see Rage Against the Machine Molly and me were watching one of their music videos which includes a flashing text (1.15-1.30) which appears and disappears and flickers, similar to that of the film opening of Seven which as a group we discussed and liked due to its scratching, etched effect.

Radiohead's Music Video for 'Karma Police'

After watching the music video for Karma Police I realised it includes similar shots from a car involved in out film which may help us when editing.

Here is a link for the video as embedding has be disabled;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uYWYWPc9HU