Revelations: Final Piece

EDITING- Titles

On Friday Oscar and I were doing some editing, the main thing we had left to do was to add in the titles so we decided to do this. After trying them in a few places we decided that we would have our titles changing from both the bottom left hand and right hand corners; I think it looks better this way as this is how most films have the titles and it's more interesting to watch when they change places. 

After we did this I showed our work to Mr Michie who told us that we needed to re-record the very end of our title sequence when you hear the child saying 'Daddy, I taught the dog a new trick.' We all agreed that this line wasn't really good enough and wasn't conventional, so I went away on the weekend and re-recorded the child saying 'Daddy, please come and play.' I think that this now sounds much better, making the child seem innocent and naive, creating a contrast between the protagonist holding a knife to victims neck and his child wanting to play with him. 

EDITING- Titles

Charlee and I have been deciding our titles and which order to show them. We looked back at our research and the order which the titles come up in these films. These are our final decisions:

Lucid Productions

Starring

-Aidan Lever

-Lucy Wise

-Angelo Gizzi

REVELATIONS

Cinematography by

-Oscar Bath

Sound and Music by

-Charlee Murphy Frost

Editing by

- Oscar Bath

Written by

-Bethany Ainsworth Coles

Produced by 

-Bethany Ainsworth Coles

Director

-Imogen Welsford

PLANNING- Name of our film

A few weeks ago we decided on the name of our film, we came up with a few ideas but none of them suited the film. We finally decided on the name 'Revelations'. We decided to have this name because it fits with the thriller genre and it suits our film as it's about revelations. How the characters have had their secrets revealed. I think this name was the best idea that we came up with and works really well with our film.

EDITING- Final Changes

This week is our last week to get everything finished as our final cut is in for next Wednesday. We've spent this week editing and making the final changes; I think that we will get our work done in time and I'm really happy with how our work is looking at the moment.

Changes:
Yesterday we decided to change the music, we had originally made the music ourselves and we were going to use this, however when we edited it in with the film it didn't really fit and I didn't think it sounded quite right in the film as it was too fast and changed the pace of the whole film. Therefore we decided to look online for some more music and see if we could find anything more suitable. Oscar found some new music which we all agreed that we really liked and it suited the film as it's quite slow, sounds quite scary and is conventional for a thriller film.

Watching the film back and looking at some other thriller openings and other peoples work we decided that we should include an establishing shot of the house to include in the beginning to make the audience aware of the location. I went to the house yesterday and filmed it myself, I think this will add to the realism, and allow the audience to understand the location. 

RESEARCH- Se7en

Whilst researching for my evaluation questions I came across the film Se7en, which has a very similar storyline to our film. I decided to watch the opening sequence to look if anything was similar, which it wasn't really. Although it did have some similarities, such as it's all in black and white which is similar to some parts of ours, and it includes the protagonist obsessing over things, writing things down and obsessing over something which isn't clear in the opening. 
This will help me with my evaluation for the question on who would distribute my film, I will research films similar to mine (films like Se7en) and look who the distributers are for this.

SECOND DRAFT

This is our second draft, this is completely different to our first draft as we didn't use any of the same footage. I think this this has improved so much and is a lot better than our first draft, since making this second draft we've changed a lot and it's got a lot more effects and non diabetic sound. 

FIRST DRAFT

This is our first draft. Since we made this we changed a lot. We changed the location, changed some of the actors and we changed some parts of the storyline. We didn't manage to get any non diagetic sound into this as we ran out of time before this was due in. 
When we make our final film we will have more non diagetic sound, sound effects and music, and we'll also have more editing and effects included to achieve the thriller conventions. 

Evaluation Questions

In our lesson this week we looked at the evaluation questions and went though what we needed to write about. I found this really useful as I was struggling to answer the questions as I wasn't sure what to include, when I continue answering the questions I will be sure on what to write and know exactly what I need to include.

EDITING- Sound

Our film doesn't need many sound effects however we have found a selection of sound effects which we may be using. We've found a sound effect to use for the transitions in the beginning when it cuts from the living room to the garage; I think that the sound is really good and fits in well, it's a sharp sound which is conventional for a thriller film and it's similar to some of the sounds I heard whilst watching thrillers for research. We may also need sound effects for doors closing which we were going to record ourselves at first, however we found a website which has thousands of sounds to choose from so it's most likely we'll be using one from here.

For the music we've had a piece recorded especially, Beth spent a few lessons trying to find music online which we could use however none of us agreed on any of her choices so we decided it would be best if we made the music ourselves as it meant we were all able to describe exactly what we wanted and then go from there. I think that the music we've chosen really suits the pace of the film and helps make the tone more sinister, having a slow pace and times and then creating a faster pace. 

Evaluation Questions

These are the evaluation questions which I've decided to start work on as our deadlines are coming up very soon.

•  In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?  

•  How does your media product represent particular social groups?  

•  What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?  

•  Who would be the audience for your media product?  

•  How did you attract/address your audience?

•  What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?  

•  Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

EDITING

Ever since we began editing Oscar has been doing most of the work because he's the only one who has experience in editing and knows how to do everything. Although Beth, Charlee and I learned how to edit when we were doing our continuity task, editing is still something which I'm not very comfortable with doing, however I do want to learn so that I can help out more and do some of the editing for myself. I think that we should all start taking it in turns to do the editing, so this week and next week I would like to start doing some more editing. 

FILMING- Re- Shooting Vicar Speech

Today we decided to film for the opening of our film, the scene where the Vicar is being interviewed for the news. We decided to change this scene to an interview because we thought that it would work better as an interview so that we could address more issues in the questions. 

Beth and I filmed this scene with 2 different actors Finley Harnett and Luis Harding, however this didn't go successfully as we didn't have enough time to film. The actors hadn't yet learned the lines and on top of this people kept walking past us when we were trying to film.

We will be filming this scene again, next time at a time when there wont be any people about. In the meantime the actors will be able to learn the script so that next time our filming goes successfully. We don't have much time left as the deadline is coming up very soon so whilst we film we will continue to edit the scenes which we've already filmed.

EDITING- Fonts

(Revelations is spelt incorrectly in all of the images)

Yesterday myself and Charlee began to look at fonts to use for the titles. As we're making a horror-thriller I think it's good if we use a font which is fits in with this. A font that's quite large and masculine, therefore I think we should use a sans serif font so it appears masculine. 

This was the first font which we looked at, I think this this would be a good choice as it's very similar to some other fonts in thrillers which I've looked at. I think the capitals are interesting as they stand out and make the font look masculine and powerful. 

The second font we looked at is also quite spooky, the serifs make the font look like trees or sticks which makes it look scary but doesn't really fit in with the theme of our film. The fact that it's serif is another reason I don't really like this font is because it looks quite feminine which isn't conventional for a thriller film. Fonts in thrillers tend to be sans serif and quite bold and bright which this one isn't.

The third font which we looked at was this, it's very similar to the first one however I think that I prefer it as it's still sans serif and conventional for a thriller, however the letters are different heights which make it appear more interesting and appealing to look at. 

Overall I think we should use the final font, 'Dirty Headline' however it's something which we'll need to decide on as a group. 

PLANNING- Dialouge

This is the dialouge which beth wrote for the news shown on the TV.

Announcer:

Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen and welcome to Spotlight. Here today to explain to us the dramatic resigning of Pope Benedict due to the Saint sinner killings. The Lords messenger Arch Bishop Hartley.

Hartley:

May our lord bless you and keep you citizens of God we have received information about the dead sinners who whilst their sin was great their souls were redeemable without this violence.

Announcer:

What is the church doing about this situation?

Hartley:

Well we are obviously working with the police on these so called Saint Sinner murders and are trying to solve this as quickly as possible. There will not be a government enquiry but these murders are in no way connected to the resignation of the Pope.

Announcer:

I think the public will refuse to believe that, we all know what’s going on in the Vatican and no one here would be surprised if one of your alter boys turned and did the killings. We all know the treatment they get.

Hartley:

Obviously this has nothing to…The Vatican is in no way implicated, no minister or vicar is involved this is obviously a fanatic carrying out God’s work.

Announcer:

Are you saying you agree with the killings?

Hartley:

Obviously this is an observation upon the prophecy and the true Christians are being tested. I assure you everything is being done to persecute them but…

Announcer:

That wasn’t an answer to my question

Hartley:

Well obviously I don’t agree but in principle Satan and his hoards must be punished.

Announcer:

Final question then your Holiness.

Hartley:

Yes, fire away

Announcer:

Where is your God now?


Although we filmed this scene previously without an announcer, some of us agreed that it would be better if we made a new script, I'm still not sure if we should use the new script and film again or if we should use the old part which we filmed, however we can always decided which would fit better afterwards. 

EDITING

After our first draft we decided we needed to film the whole thing again which meant editing the whole opening again as well. Last time in our first draft I think that there were too many fades in between cuts so this time I think we need to do some more jump cuts and try some different transitions to create more of a pace and not have the whole opening slow. 

We've changed it so we now have cuts to the room where the torture victims are, so when the protagonist gets up and starts walking it cuts to the garage showing the victims, we've done this in black and white and have used an effect for each cut and each transition. I think it's great that we've used black and white as this was one of our early ideas and something that we've always been very keen on doing, we've juist never worked out how to include it before. The black and white is useful to us as it connotes that the room shown in black and white is a dark and dangerous place, which may be seen as unsafe, this juxtaposes with the other room used in the opening which doesn't have an effect and is bright and colourful. This creates a great contrast between the two locations, one being a safe, happy, family room and another being a dark, dangerous room; which will shock viewers as both rooms are in the same house. 

At first I was worried that this would look like a flash back or something that wasn't actually happening as opposed to something happening at the same time but just a different room, however we asked some of our peers and Mr Ford and they all said that they understood that it's at the same time. I believe that we've made many improvements and it definitely looks a lot more like a thriller opening sequence.