Final Film Opening

Titles | Research and Practical

Our task for this week was to improve our titles and begin to implement them into our opening. We started by researching different ways in which we could make movements within the titles and took inspiration from the following (Whitechapel):

We liked the way the editors manipulated the text so it would flip, suddenly flash up, become larger and smaller etc. We wanted to recreate this type of text for our own opening.

We found this tutorial whilst searching for different effects we could use and we was interested in trying to replicate some of the movements, however we discovered you have to pay to get this software included in Final Cut Pro and so decided against it, instead we decided to use it as inspiration for our own movements:



We began by using a simple text box in Final Cut Pro, which was basic and plain, starting with the text in the bottom corner. We then put on the effect 'Bad TV' as we use this frequently throughout our opening and we wanted to keep a constant theme throughout, we changed the amount so it was a bit more noticable.

We changed the font to 'Trajan Pro' as felt this looked similar to real horror film titles. E.g. The Conjuring. As you can see below in the screenshot, we put in the actors name and applied the effect. We then manipulated the text in a different way.

 We copied the exact same text but as two different strips of video. Then we put one tiny short clip of text, which appeared for a fraction of a second (saying the same thing) in between.

 In the inbetween one we moved the position of the text to the opposite corner and applied the effect 'Bad TV' for a very short period of time but as a much higher amount, so it looks like it flashes up and goes very jolty and shakey.

Following this, in the longer 3rd clip we applied an effect which looks like a film burning out called '...' which can be seen in the video.

Here is what we made:

Evaluation
We are very happy with this style of title as it looks professional and very similar to the 'Whitechapel' title that we were trying to recreate. To improve we would like to make the text jolt backwards and larger and smaller like in the Whitechapel opening sequence. We also want to try adding in more quick flashes up or in slightly different places just to make it look even more impressive. However, this would require more professional skills and we'd have to download or install other software which could be costly. For now, we are happy with the results.



Transition Editing

 

In the beginning of our two minute supernatural film opening we had to put in an original film production company, our own film production company and our film name. We, as a group chose 'Warner brothers' as our original film production company, 'Fright Films' as our own film production company and 'The Possessed' as our film name. This is what it looked like before we added in any transitions when it was simple blocks with straight cut edits.

 

 

We then added the transition 'fade to colour' from final cut pro which created a slight fade between each bit of film, we also added 'breaks' (black spaces) in between the transitions to drag it out a bit longer so that it didn't go too quickly from one part to another and we thought this looked more effective overall.

This is what we ended up with:

 

Evaluation -

It took us a while to get used to using the transitions on final cut pro as we found them quite tricky to place where we wanted them to go at first. But we both agreed that using that particular transition along with the blank spaces made the beginning of our film opening look as effective and professional as want it to be. We want to continue editing this with the rest of our group to add any improvements they think can be made, and also to put some non-diegetic sound in the background of the film name.

   

Possession Editing

Through research into films of the supernatural horror we noted that a simple yet effective technique to emphasise and add to the possession feeling was to take different segments from a long clip and put them in a different order in quick succession. This editing technique makes the movements of the individual seem much more jolty and unnatural which conforms more to the supernatural horror genre than a human's real movements.

We selected a relatively long clip which is made up of a single take and located parts of the clip which we found had good movements which were able to be edited well to good effect using this technique. The clip we chose is one of the raw takes from our opening sequence which features during the early stages of possession. 

During the first attempt, we separated two segments from the clip and changed the order in which they appeared in the clip. This first attempt resulted in the segments being far too long which did not make the character's movements seem possessed and unnatural. This meant that the cuts between the shots were not quick enough in order to create the desired effect. Also, the clips were taken from an area of the main clip which are too close together resulting in similar movements of the possessed character. This means that the audience would not be able to decipher the changes between the cuts as easily as if they were taken from more obviously different parts of the clip.

Our second attempt worked well as the segments were much shorter which meant they were much quicker when played back, giving a stronger sense of possession. Despite this, I thought that the segments could be shorter in length to speed up the changes between segments to further create a sense of possession within the character's movements.

The segments created were quicker which made the sense of possession feel much more intense and which conformed more to the supernatural horror genre. The quick cut edits between the segments made the overall clip seem much more unexpected and sudden which resulted in a much more possessed-like clip in general. The sudden nature of the editing used in the clip makes the possessed character's movement seem much more shocking to the audience and are made more effective than if we decided to use natural movements.

Even though we were satisfied with how the editing made the clip seem much more effective in how a sense of possession was presented, we decided to make the segments even shorter and put them in even closer proximity. This resulted in a more effective outcome as we concluded that when the segments are shorter and the clip is made more abrupt in general, the more possessed the character seems. The clip was trimmed at the beginning and end to only show the part which we edited and experimented on. The final clip from our experiment can be viewed below.

First attempt of adding titles

      

We decided that the name of our film was going to be 'The Possessed' which then meant we were able to experiment with some title fonts. We put it after our production company but we are still undecided where it is going to be placed and whether we will overlap it with a piece of our filming. At first we looked at quite plain fonts to see what would look the most effective.







We both decided on a font we liked the best called 'Trajan Pro' as we thought it fitted our opening the best, we then added some effects to it such as 'Bad TV' which blurred it and made it jolt around like a recording camera, we thought this looked effective. But this is just one of many ideas we can try for our titles and discuss with the rest of our group.







This is a rough edit of the title put in with what we have edited so far, to show the full effect we have put on it:



Evaluation:
We both agree we like the font that we chose, and we will show it to the other two people in our group to see if they agree with us. If this is what we choose to use as our final titles, our next job will be to properly edit them in with the rest of our filming so it runs smoother than the example we have displayed above. We may experiment with some more font types and effects to see if we like any others better than the one we have chosen, but if not this will be the one we go forward with.

Sounds to use in our Opening

Last Sunday we filmed the majority of our coursework film opening in my garage, our idea is about a possessed girl so we had to film a lot of scenes with my sister with her kicking and moving her body around a lot which we could then make look effective using editing techniques and adding in non-diegetic sounds. The type of sounds we are looking for are cracking and popping noises to make it seem as if bones are breaking, and be built up when the possession becomes more violent. I looked for these types of sounds I could use on the internet to see what we could possibly use.

I came across the website freeSFX.co.uk where they had a long list of different bone clicking, snapping, crunching and cracking available to download. I picked a few that I thought sounded the most effective and what I think we should use in our coursework.

 

 

These are the five best noises that I chose which I think we should use:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shooting Script 26/01/14

Attending
Jake- filming
Mia- mise en scene
Holly- mise en scene
Gaurav- filming

Day - 26th January 2014
Meeting Time - 5pm
Location - Townley Grammar. Then walking to Mia's house/garage.

Filming Begins - 5.15pm - 6.30pm

Props to bring -
Camera and Tripod: Jake
Pillow cases: Holly
Rosary: Gaurav
Costume and Make-up: Mia

To be shot-

• Close up shots of Neve which show her arms.
• Panning shot of Neve acting possessed.
• Extra possession scenes from different angles.

Evaluation of filming -
The day went well, I made sure I set up the extension lead and got Neve ready in her costume before everyone arrived to save us time so we could begin filming straight away, we met at Townley at 5 and everyone was on time. It was a lot more organised than our first day of filming as we didn't have to wait around for Neve to come home, we knew exactly what we had to do so got it done quickly and efficiently. We put the bruise make-up on Neve's arm then got all the extra shots done as well as the ones that we needed to redo from last time.

Editing the corner shots

Our task this week was to edit the 'corner shots' from filming. The shots are supposed to show a woman putting up a video camera ready to capture some of the possessive behaviour that she has been seeing, in an attempt to get some answers.







We took our original opening clip which looked like this and began exploring different ways to edit it so it looks like home made footage. We firstly tried a green filter to make it look like CCTV, but after trying that out we decided against it as we wanted it to look like a home video, not CCTV. In the image below you can see the colour we applied to the effect.

We then decided to use the camcorder effect on Final Cut Pro, which we felt made it look more like a home movie. We felt that this was more appropriate than the CCTV hue as it made it look more genuine.





We then added the effect 'Bad tv' but turned down the effect so it wasn't as noticeable and only gave the sequence a bit of movement, as seen in the two screenshots below.

The sequence that we made is below...

Evaluation

• We like the Bad tv and camcorder effect together as it looks quite genuine
• Could experiment with other colour hues though, not just green
• Happy with the final outcome as looks like an authentic home video
• When we come to edit the rest we should look to see how the footage looks with the other parts of the sequence and how they fit together.

Make-up for the film opening

 

 

 

                                                                             

      We have already began filming our two minute supernatural film opening, and part of the criticism we received was to make the actor who is my little sister look as though she is more injured as if she has been hurting herself as she is supposed to be under some sort of possession and is restrained to a bed. Firstly I put some foundation and dark eye shadow and rubbed it into her arms to look like she has been bruised by the ties that were restraining her.                                                                     

 

 Secondly I put some fake blood along her arms over the top of the fake bruises to look as though she has been hurting herself whilst she has been restrained to the bed. I think this looked effective, but would look better once the blood has fully dried as it looks as though they have been there for a longer time, so if we decide to use this in any more filming we'd have to apply the blood a while before as it takes a long time to dry.

 Lastly I wanted to add some bruising to her face so it seems as though she has knocked and hit herself whilst struggling to get out of the restrains. I used the same as what I did to create the bruises on her arms, using a dark foundation and rubbing it in along with a dark brown eye shadow colour, which I think worked well and looked effective enough for us to use in our future filming.

 

Mise en Scene and Lighting Checks

To prepare for the filming of our two minute supernatural horror opening I had to do some lighting checks for the garage which is outside of my house and we have decided will be the place we are filming, to look like a basement where the possessed girl is kept. I also had to find some scary looking houses from the outside which we could shoot using an establishing shot right at the beginning to make it look as though that is where it is being shot.

I took these pictures at about 3 o'clock before it got dark, I think this would be a good time to start our filming as in a video it generally looks darker than it actually is, and we still want to be able to see the room and what is happening. Also we can take lots of different shots so we would also get some with it being slightly darker so we can compare them to the lighter ones.

There is some work to do in the garage, we have to put some white paint over the smiley faces that have been drawn on the walls, tidy away some of the clutter that is around the floor and board up the windows to make it seem more closed in and also so that less light gets into the room so it seems more like a basement.

This is the first scary looking house I found which I thought would be good to film at the beginning of our opening, it is only round the corner from my house so would be easy to get footage of and also looks very creepy. It is called 'the long house' it goes back quite a long way, I think people live there but I have never seen anyone go in or come out and it is usually very dark and quiet. I took the picture at about half 6 which I think was a good time as there was still light from lampposts but it was dark so added a scarier effect to the house.

This is the second scary house I looked at for the beginning of our filming, it is also only round the corner of my house so would be easy to get footage of, and it has some distinct features about it that I liked which I thought would stand out for our work, such as the top arch shaped window at the front of the house and how it is shaped it is very slim and goes back quite far. It distinctively stands out from any other house on the street which would work well at fitting the convention for our genre. I also took this picture at about half 6 which I thought was a good time as it looked effectively spooky.

Production Company Practical

 

• The original video was filmed by Jake using a type writer he owns.
• We decided as a group to use the name 'Fright Films' as it has catchy alliteration and is also short and appropriate for genre.
• Jake gave us the video, and we cut the clip so it was 5 seconds long and less shaky.

• We then sped up the clip x2 so it was then 2.5 seconds long.
• We trialled many different sounds that had a spooky edge to compliment the clip.
• We decided on two different sounds which we layered on top of each other, after lowering the volume of the original clip.

This is an initial result.

  After having a lesson in Final Cut pro with Jack, we managed to re-do our production company sequence with a better speed and then edited it further in iMovie, here are the results:   Final cut pro:

This is how we changed the speed, instead of only have x2, there was an option to drag the speed so we slightly increased it.

On iMovie, we re-added the sound.

Evaluation

Overall we are pleased with the finished product as it looks professional. To start with we had trouble mastering the technical side of iMovie as we had few skills but we have managed to develop them in order to prepare us for when we come to edit the rest of our opening. Perhaps if iMovie allowed different speed levels below x2 we would be happier with the result as we wanted it to be slightly slower for effect, but still faster than the original. We could have also played around with more visual effects to add to the clip but at the same time we did not want to decrease the quality.

Then using Final Cut Pro, we managed to solve this speed problem and then go back to iMovie to re-add the sounds.

 
 

Actor Scouting

For our supernatural film opening we have decided on the idea of using a possessed girl, for us to follow through with this and begin filming as soon as possible we need to decide on the actor who will feature in it. I have four younger sisters who we could pick from so I took a couple of pictures of all of them to compare and see who would look the most effective in our project.

 My oldest younger sister Ffion is fourteen, we wanted to use a girl who looked older rather than really young as that is a more common convention found within possession horror films, so she would be good with fitting the stereotype and making our opening look professional.

Néve is nine, she is quite confident and would also follow instructions easily and do what we want, she is my second oldest younger sister so would still fit in with the convention of a slightly older girl, as Ffion isn't as confident so wouldn't be as willing for us to film her.

 

Laila is eight, she is slightly younger so probably wouldn't be able to stay professional and may get irritable when we want to film, although she is quite tall for her age and would follow instructions, she may not fit the genre convention as well as we want.

 

 

 

Joely is six and is my youngest sister, she is very confident but as she is still quite young I don't think she would be the best choice for our film opening as she would lose interest easily and be hard to work with, she is also only little so may find it difficult to do some of the actions and positions we will need her to do when acting possessed.
 

 

Overall I think the best choice out of these four would be Néve as she would be the easiest to work with in my opinion and still fits the genre convention that we need her to, but we will continue to scout for any more actors for our films we are still undecided on what exact age we want the girl to be, so we could choose someone from our sixth form around our age or any other relatives or friends that would be willing to get involved. But we do need to consider whether the person would be willing to film the hours we need them to and will be reliable enough to show up and do everything we need them to. That is why we thought it would be convenient for it to be one of my sisters as I can bring her with me to filming and make sure she is always there when needed.