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Editing tutorial

Today we did our introduction to editing by using final cut pro to match cut BAIT- the little boy in the cafe. Even though we were instructed by a teacher step by step I found it much easier than I expected for some reason. Each person in the class put the different scenes in different orders but they all somehow made sense. The teacher then showed us the original version and how it all fitted together.

Intro to cameras and risk assessment

We learned how to use all the functions of the camera including the record button, rewind, fast forward and also how to position it correctly onto the tripod. We learnt about the 5 second rule, which means we have to press the record button and then wait 5 seconds before we say action for editing purposes.

First filming exercise

We were given 1 prop to use which was a pack of playing cards. As a group we brainstormed and decided that we should use a room and just the two male characters (oneme and Elliot) playing a game of cards while a female character (ginette) walks in with a briefcase containing a prize. Oneme wins but Elliot attacks oneme and then walks away with the prize money. When we actually filmed it the main difficulty we had was finding a location as we had to use the college and were getting too many complaints from a particular moany teacher lol. Next was editing, we found this surprisingly easy as each member of our group had listened enough when we had the tutorial and knew exactly what we had to do.
We added special effects such as speed alterations as we had extra time to spare. When everyone in the class got together to watch everyone else’s work, we got a positive feedback as everyone was in stitches of laughter at the way oneme was on the floor and how elliot was running in slow motion due to our use of effects. As this was a practice for the real thing we decided to go that extra mile just for laughs. Personally I think ours was the best :).

Brainstorming the thriller genre and all the sub genres

At first, I personally thought that thriller and horror were the same thing. But today’s lesson enlightened me and my fellow classmates. Thrillers don’t particularly have to be scary but just need to contain some action and create suspense. Horrors are just scary movies such as Saw, for example. This lesson helped me develop my understanding of all the different genres of movies whereas before I was a bit confused.

The thriller movie-the shining (watched in class)

Today we watched a thriller by Alfred Hitchcock called "The Shining". The movie was about a family who head to an isolated hotel for the winter where an evil spiritual presence influences the father (Jack Nicholson) into violence, while his gifted son who has "the shining" sees disturbing events from the past and future which occurred in the hotel.
This gruesome thriller is quite a popular movie which enabled it to be remade successfully.
Before we watched it, Andrew outlined what makes a thriller. This helped me alot as I didn't know the difference between a thrill and a horror movie.
This enabled us to develop ideas for our thriller opening, by looking at what a thriller should contain.

Preliminary task

Our preliminary task was like another practice. This time our idea was that Oneme was late for a meeting with his ‘boss’ for a dodgy deal. Elliot ‘the boss’ beats up Oneme in the end. Our ending scene of the over turned chair and the noises of him getting beaten up in the background was very effective as it made the whole class laugh like the last time. Lol I don’t think our group can help but add that humorous flair due to our imaginations. 

Brainstorming-again

We finally brainstormed our endless ideas for our thriller opening. We had so many ideas it was unbelievable :o. One of our ideas was a man who received a phonecall from a phonebox and was branded ‘the chosen one’ and he had to save the world, but we realised it had already been done in a film before and with our 4 magnificent brains we could think of something much more unique . After many potential ideas, we came up with our storyline..A woman who kills her ex-boyfriends who have cheated on her/treated her badly. In our thriller opening we would show her latest victim tied to a chair, while she prepared her murder weapons. This would create suspense as well as a feeling of “oh my god, what will happen next” amongst the audience. We then got told that we would have to pitch our ideas to judges.

Pitching to the judges

In lesson today, we had to pitch our ideas for our thriller opening to 4 teachers- Tony, Marisa, Mickey and Andrew. It was a bit like the X factor lol. It took a lot of persuasion and we had to really make the judges get into our idea and make them want to ‘fund us’. I got a real feel of what it would be like to be a real life movie maker, and in the end the judges liked our idea. It was interesting hearing my other classmates’ ideas and most of them were funny because of the judges reactions or just the storylines in general. It was very interesting finding out other peoples creativity and after we received some constructive criticism we managed to make our idea better.

Our first day of filming.

Today we started filming our thriller opening after much preparation. We decided to get our shots of the victim (Elliot Bonney). We got a dark room and used a spotlight . We put duct tape over Elliot’s mouth and tied his hands behind him with rope. To create a ‘sweat’ effect we used Vaseline and water on elliot’s face and arms. This was really effective as it looked like he was really sweating. Elliot wore a t shirt ,three quarter lengths and socks he was originally wearing underneath his clothes as this made it seem like he was stripped of his outside clothes. We got shots of his shadow, made by the spotlight along with panning shots of his face from different angles. We also got quick shots of his face from different angles along with shots of the rope. Our original idea was to get a bird’s eye view of Elliot, but this was tried and failed as we needed a high place to film from and the highest place that we had was a table, which was unsuccessful. But overall, me and my group worked well as a team, making sure that everyone had their say and had a chance to use the equipment. Today was a successful filming experience.

Second day of filming.

We decided to film the features of the killer today. We wanted to capture shots of the weapon, and also the woman’s high heeled boots walking. We needed an effective setting, so we chose two locations. A sink in a changing room in college and a small kitchen in college. We had a slight problem though, the changing room had no electrical sockets so we had to use a big heavy battery for the camera. Another problem we had was we had to deal with another particularly rude and moany teacher, who wouldn’t let us have enough time to get our shots. When we filmed in the changing room we used a toy gun whereas when we filmed in the kitchen we used a shiny bronze silky cloth to represent the woman’s femininity, and a butchers knife as the weapon. The spotlight combined with the cloth gave a really good effect. We also tried to film our idea of the victim getting a phone call from ‘Mumzy’ and the killer rejecting the call, to show the killer is in control and is in possession of his phone. When it came to downloading the shots to the computer, in the end we scrapped the gun scenes as we thought shooting someone is boring and quick( lol) and the killer should stab him instead, also it was due to our insufficient scenes thanks to the moany teacher. We also decided to re-film the mobile phone shots, as they were too blurry.

Another day of filming.

We decided to have an exciting location for our killer’s boots. Our Media teacher suggested a building across the road from college, which we had to pay like £2.50 for (loooooool) and it was a café, but we went exploring when we shouldn’t have and discovered that upstairs there was an abandoned factory-like gallery. As soon as we saw it we knew it was the right location. Even though it was a very scary place to be, we got all our correct shots, such as the killer walking towards a dark segment of the room, the killer opening a door and going down stairs, and also we captured shots of the paintings which gave it an eerie and mysterious feel. We realised that the paintings also may give the audience some clues as to the killer’s background, especially as one of the paintings was of a woman looking out of the window at a womb floating in the sky, maybe suggesting infertility or maybe she had an abortion/lost a baby. Another painting was of a woman performing an operation on a man, which showed overpowerment.

Editing.

We downloaded everything to the computer, and log and captured our footage. Everyone in our group managed to master it, which was helpful as we worked really fast and well. In the last days of working, nearer to our deadline, we alternated the people in our group to sort out the soundtrack, effects, credits etc. The highlight of the last day was the last 15 minutes when we were just gathered around the computer and finally…..WE FINISHED  we felt so accomplished and it felt like there was a big weight lifted off our chests.

The viewing.

We went to a cinema called ‘Vue’ to watch everyone’s end thrillers. We got a good audience reaction.