Class meeting

Today all the groups presented to eachother, our footage, to enable us to see how far we had all got over the past few weeks since the task was given. I saw some effects and ideas which i had not considered, and was given some constructive criticism which will enable me to finish my product for next wednesday, the deadline.
I was told to;
- Change contrast down on the PoV in the corridor, so it is less bright in comparison to the rest of the scene
- Ensure the music is placed back in
- Possibly record certain parts of the voice-over again so that it sounds better in quality
- Add in more subtitles to overlay in the beginning, and take out the credits, so that it doesn't look like the end of a movie

Hopefully i will have enough time to adapt from this and makre sure that the footage is polished for the deadline, thanks to this criticism from classmates.

Footage Editing - 4

I have now managed to include a voice-over, recorded from my phone, converted to high quality mp3 format, and then placed in the right areas of the footage.

I have also gone and re-filmed certain areas of the sequence where I noticed a blatent error of continuity, as the 'hitman' was still not holding the piece of paper in the next shot. Upon re-filming, I decided to add some real dialogue within the conversation, to allow the audience to begin to gain an understanding of what is going on.

The music has been taken out, as I will now need to re-align the music to the timing of the footage so that it is in time with them.

Here is the progress so far;

Footage editing - 3

My first draft with some music and edited sound in. I decided to add a score to play through the background, which would change in a way that tension would be able to be created by the music. Unfortunately it was difficult to time the music to the footage as it didn't work as i had timed it in Garageband to iMovie. My next step is to ammend this, so that it is timed perfectly, and to then consider the voice-over to include.

Footage editing - 2

I decided to remove several clips, and cut around two minutes in total from the whole set of footage. When I had cut the clips to ensure continuity, and a smooth transition from one clip to the next, i then decided to include some editing such as 'fade out' with the introduction, and some flashes when the gun is held up to the camera, to make it symbolise gunfire.
This editing to produce a new clip, was cut down to just under 2:30, and seemed to be a big improvement from the origional trailer clip i had made for this.
Here is the video so far;




Now i just need to concentrate on the sound/music to relate to this set of footage, which will include a voice-over, and a possible soundtrack overlayed in the background.

Footage editing - 1

Upon re-filming, i processed the clips together, which allowed me to decide what step to take next, in terms of editing, re-filming and sound. The clips, together added up to over four minutes long, which was two times over what i had to make it as. Here is the video of the footage taken;



Upon looking back at this after i had placed them in order of how i expected to play them, i realised what clips i wouldn't be able to use, and where i needed to cut the clips to ensure it is smaller in duration to the footage in total.

The Hunt - New storyline

There was a man who had everything you could want, a wife who loved him deerly, would do anything for him, had three beautiful children, who were very lively and looked after eachother, and a well paid job, which could pay the bills with money over. You could say he had the desired lifestyle, but a happy life does not end happily ever after.

It was Saturday, his day off from work. He decided to have a lie in, whilst his wife took the children off to the local youth centre, where they played sports for an hour each weekend. Little did he know that he wouldn’t be seeing them return.

It was 2:30PM, four hours after his wife left to take the kids to the youth centre, he knew something was wrong, there was no messages on his phone, and no sign of them having returned. He walked down into the kitchen to pour a drink of alcohol, as it seemed to help him to concentrate in certain situations. He received a phone call, the voice was suspicious, very deep, well-spoken. He was told that his children were dead, in what was described as a ‘car accident’, but that his wife had been held hostage. Hearing that his children were dead was a blow to him, his heart dropped, for a few seconds his heart stopped, his body begun to shake, he felt unable to move. This was going to cost him more than his job to save his wife.

The man on the phone arranged to meet him, where he would give him the information of his wife’s location in order for the information which he wanted, that only he knew. It was valuable to the man he heard on the phone, and had been held a secret for many years. The man then prepared to come face to face with the man who murdered his children, and held his wife tied up in a hidden location. This was the time for him to avenge his children, and put an end to the people who had been spying on his family, and to escape from all of the chaos around him, with the woman who loves him, running away together, a new world, without their children.

The Hunt - New footage

This is just showing the camerashot's which have been used (i suggest to be played without sound), as this is just simply for the camera shots, not for sound at this stage. This enabled me to see possible problems which have occurred, and also to see how the hard shots actually turned out in the end.

Draft 1 - Film trailer

This is the initial draft of the trailer for my film "The Hunt". It was a test to see what my origional camera shots and editing would look like, this is NOT the final product. It did however make me realise the many shots, use of editing and addition of mise en scene which i would need to consider including, as this looks very basic, the use of long, static camera shots.

There are many errors i noticed straight away with this;

• Continuity problem with hand to chair
• Clothing lacks connection to character type
• Sound and voice-over needed
• More variety of shots
• Mise en scene needed to be changed slightly

This is just in brief terms, in the next video to be posted will be shots of the improvements which have been made to the shots after the discussions.

Recent progress - Filming & changes

After a long discussion with my colleague, we agreed that it would be best for us to proceed from the stage we are at, if we separated and participated with the filming separately. The reason for this was that we found it prove to be difficult for us both to be able to arrange times where we can meet so the filming can proceed. We live a good distance away from each other, so the only times we could film successfully with enough time would be on the weekend, which isn’t ideal for us to enable to complete the filming. This separation also allows us to compare each other’s final product from the storyboard we had initially planned out, and how our own ideas had changed the original plan we had created.

I was allowed to take out some important hardware from the media department to enable me to catch up from the work I had left myself to fall behind on. I took out a camera, tripod and an Apple mini, along with a keyboard and mouse, which could then be plugged into my monitor at home, and I would have the software which is used back in my lessons. Being able to book these out to use at home has helped boost the speed and progress of my work greatly, and proved to be much easier to get the work done in the time off from school, such as the filming, and editing in the evenings.

During the half term I had begun to find it a challenge to contact someone who was able to assist me with the filming, as they were busy, with work or other things important to them. After many phone calls, I managed to get hold of someone who was able to help me. I met up with this person during the end of the week, and we discussed the footage which would be taken, and what’s involved. We concluded to a decision that many changes would be taken, such as setting, camera shots, script, mise en scene and we also arranged who else we could film, as I needed more than one person.

We then filmed the next week, with the setting prepared, and the mise en scene arranged, which took a while to prepare. We took some footage of basic shots, to give the basis for the footage to be included. There were a few mistakes which were noticed, such as a slight continuity problem upon one shot to the next of holding the chair and sitting down, but nothing too major to amend. Watching it back over after the editing of what it would possibly look like, and a discussion with my media teachers, we decided that several improvements could be made;

• More variety of shots, CU’s, PoV’s, HAS’s, Track/Pan, Over the shoulder and 180

  ⁰ rule for the conversation

• Light the candle for symbolism
• Take advantage of the lighting and setting to create more mystery to fit the story and the film noir theme
• Use some zoom in/out shots
• Take more shots, faster cuts, increase of pace and action

I arranged an evening to film this, but instead we ended up discussing the scenes and story again, to enable a detailed discussion, so that changes could be made, but also so that we had a better idea of what to do, and what would be going to be involved in the shots, to help the people who would be acting, and for myself to prepare the shots, concentrate on the continuity, props and ensure that it goes as planned, with any changes made along the way.

We then arranged another date to then refilm, including the new shots, mise en scene features, editing and ensuring that it became a big improvement from the original footage which was taken. It took us alot longer to finish this filming, just over two days, but we all felt that it had been more successful. Along the process of taking the footage, we changed our initial ideas slightly, and made amendments we felt would improve it. I then took it home, uploaded all of the shots, took out the ‘bloopers’ and placed the shots which would be used in order, so that the next day I could meet up with those who were assisting me, and they could see the progress, and we could discuss any improvements which would be needed to take place.

Upon looking back over the footage we had taken, we noticed a slight continuity problem upon a few shots, concerning the clothing due to how we had filmed across more than one day. It was an easy mistake, but meant that we would have to arrange some more time to film so that we could make sure that there is no continuity problems like there was in the original footage we took at first.

We met up the next day and took the final part of footage, to cut out the continuity errors. This is the stage we are now at, the next progress is to;

• re-edit the new set of footage
• see for problems
• refilm if it’s needed
• add in sound, voice-over and possibly a soundtrack

Once this is done, I will then look for some feedback from both my media teachers, and those who assisted me in my filming, and look for any improvements to add in if there is time before the deadline.