Opening Jump Editing

After researching different horror films, especially those of the supernatural horror genre, we concluded that a scary 'jump' into the camera by the possessed character is usually used at the height of a suspense-filled build up within a scene. This is designed to scare the audience by appearing suddenly very close to the camera in a single,quick movement. The effect of this part of a sequence is crucial as films of the supernatural horror genre generally rely on very scary and jumpy parts to make the film successful as it conforms greatly to the genre.

First we located the raw footage of the possessed character performing the jump. Our main objective to make the jump successful in the way it would affect the audience was to speed up the actual jump in the clip and cut it off to keep the character in shot for a very short time, causing it to feel very abrupt to scare the audience.

Although we wanted to speed up the physical jump within the sequence, we wanted to leave the build up where the room and bed are both empty at normal speed to make it look natural. In order to speed up the jumping part of the but keep the build up at its original and normal speed, we needed to separate the clip just before the jump in order to work with two separate clips and apply the different speeds accordingly. We did this using the programme, 'Final Cut Pro' and used the 'blade' tool to separate the clip. 

We then experimented with different speeds for the jump part of the clip and decided to speed it up to '147%' in speed (with 100% being normal speed). We thought this speed was effective as although it was scary and would bring out a reaction from the audience, the speed does not make the movement of the girl seem too unnatural. During experimenting with the clip by applying different speeds, we found some speeds (such as x2 the original speed) that made the jump seem unnatural and amateur-looking. 

We also decided not to apply visual effects to the general clip such as a darker filter to create a more eerie atmosphere, however we decided against this as we wanted the clip to visually fit into the finished opening of our film. We also understood that non-diegetic sound is a crucial part in creating a successfully scary effect and feeling however we have not yet created original sounds to accompany this part of the opening sequence and therefore could not yet add it into the clip until later on in the post-production stage of our opening sequence. 

Evaluation:

To get our chosen speed, a few trials had to be carried out. After noting that 'x2' wouldn't work well along with the other 're-time' options, we figured out that the percentage speeds were the best option. By changing the original percentage speed to 147%, this appeared more realistic and appropriate for the supernatural genre. Overall, although a few tests had to be carried out in order to identify our correct speed, the task went well, having finally selected our correct speed.