Fixing the sound for our Friday 28th March first draft deadline

Being that our deadline for our initial draft of the film opening is Friday 28th, I felt it prudent to fix, to the extent of my ability, the audio. Below shows the screen shots of what I did, with in-depth annotation explanation.

First of all, I took the audio that I had made for the death scene, disabling it, so that it wasn't deleted, but I could add a new non-diegetic sound instead. I also added the soundtrack that Hayley and I found on YouTube onto the footage- Tension Building Sound Track 3.

At the point in the footage where it goes from really fast pace editing to a continuous shot, I cut the sound, adding a quieter, more calm sound finishing off the scene and the film opening. This, I did to link to the building in intensity of the visuals in the footage, then the peak and  then the after wave- ending the extract.

I then started looking at the transition from the chase scenes non-diegetic sound to the death scenes. This, I unfortunately was able to do little to make better, rendering the chase scenes sound to be cut off just before the final few shots. This will be something that we will have to fix, but will not be able to do before the Friday deadline.

I then decided to keep my idea of the diegetic sounds accompanying the non-diegetic music, and so, I applied the appropriate sound effects, that I had collected for my home-made audio, to the places that needed them- adding a more realistic effect and depth to the audio of the death scene. This took quite a long time applying the correct sounds into the correct places, and then making sure that they sound appropriate, adding layers of sounds to ensure the desired effect was created.

As a final addition, I decided to add a under-sound to the chase scene of a single not getting more and more intense. This, accompanied with the chase scene non-diegetic sound that is currently in place, works well to build up tension within the scene, linking the audio more with the slasher genre.

Above is a screen shot of all of the audio, and the footage that is currently in place, ready for the Friday deadline where it will be put on YouTube for comments to be made for the initial draft.

The only things that I'm not really happy about with the audio, but am not able to change before Friday, is at the end of the chase scene, the non-diegetic sound  needs an ending note to be recorded of which hasn't been recorded, and so, the audio just cuts off. We will need to fix this as soon as possible.

Editing the Chase Scene:

As I had directed and filmed the majority of the chase scene, I knew what editing techniques I had in mind and so I was left in charge of editing it.

We were happy with the majority of the videos taken although there are a few which are slightly dodgy where the lighting isn't bright enough for example.

First I imported all the videos into Final Cut Pro. In total, they came to nearly 3 minutes and as we want our chase scene to be really quick, it's my job to cut it down to around 20-30 seconds.

After trimming down most of the clips and removing the audio from them, the time was reduced to just over a minute, not taking into consideration that some clips are going to be alternated and others sped up.

I retimed most of the clips so they were slightly faster than normal, therefore reducing the overall time of all of the clips. The majority were around 130% faster and when they were all retimed, the time came down to around 35 seconds.

When thinking of what music/sound to put over the chase scene, I liked the idea of having sad, emotional music rather than intense loud upbeat music as in my opinion, I want the audience to feel sorry for our victim while at the same time, not using diegetic sounds gives the impression that he does this a lot and she is just another girl like numerous others that he's taken and killed.

This could then be contrasted against the sounds/music for the death scene and flashbacks which I imagined to be more urgent and upbeat, showing how happy and comfortable he is in the situation and to emphasis how disgusting what he is doing is.

I liked the music from the video below, but mainly the section from about 45 seconds onwards where the violins build up and it makes it more intense yet still creepy and sad. The only problem is that it's described as "Epic and Dramatic Trailer Music" which is kind of what we want but it might give connotations of trailer music whereas we would want music more associated with film openings.



Even though the majority would be non-diegeti music, I did like the idea of including some diegetic noises, especially the heartbeat sound effect below. I timed it so it began just as the villain grabs the victim and she turns around and begins to struggle.

For a first draft, I felt that it wasn't too bad and it was kind of what I had imagined in terms of editing, pace, music and atmosphere. After consulting with my group, we realised that the music at the beginning should be more intense, similar to the opening credits of Se7en, so my next task will be to possible find that type of music that we could use or to possibly play around and create my own using music software.

Chase Scene Final Storyboard:

I was in charge of the second re-filming of the chase scene but I used the ideas from Raman's previous storyboard and just altered the location. I had an idea of shooting it around the bridge near school and ended up coming up with this storyboard.

Firstly I wanted our victim to be running along roads with the villain in the background, using a variety of camera angles.
I then wanted her running onto the bridge and along it still with the villain behind, using camera angles where she is running towards and away from the camera as it would be good to edit them so the shots alternate.

Still with the victim running on the bridge, I really liked the idea of her looking over the bridge down to the motorway, almost as if she is contemplating suicide but decides not to. I wanted to do this in a POV shot as I think it would look effective and would give the audience an insight into her feelings at this moment. 

She then runs towards the other side of the bridge and goes down the stairs, I included a POV shot which would could alternate with the shots of her running down. 

The villain then comes down behind her and as the victim lies down on the stone bit under the bridge, he finally catches up with her.

The chase scene then ends with the original shot that Raman planned with the camera going into the victims mouth after she's been struggling for a few seconds. I liked this idea and planned to keep it in as a good way to transition from the chase scene to the death scene/flashbacks. 

We ended up using this storyboard in our final filming session and we used most of the shots explained here, so hopefully we should be able to edit them so the footage can be cut down to around 30-35 seconds.

Non-Diegetic Chase Scene Music Creation:

I had originally planned for the chase scene to have the music I mentioned in the previous post but after a discussion with my group we agreed it didn't really work with the atmosphere we were trying to portray. I then decided to look into, with the help of my friend, making our own with Logic Pro and keeping it similar to the one I had chosen while making it more intense and more fast paced.

However I encountered problems when trying to get the simple piano setting up on Logic so I decided to switch to GarageBand which in my opinion is more user friendly.

We started by trying to create a similar sound to the original music with the idea of adding layers to it to make it more intense, but by building up to the moment at the end through the use of volume, pace and pitch.

We recorded a simple regular pattern that would serve as the base for our music and we would create all the other layers around it by changing the pitch and making it an octave lower or higher.

We then added to it, repeating the same pattern but with a higher and lower pitch so it was the same sound but at three different pitches, making it more interesting rather than just the one sound level.

We also added a drone sound effect by having a low note playing for a few seconds at regular intervals.

We then realised we didn't like the way it began and moved everything to a few seconds later so we could include a beginning pattern that would then lead into the big build up of sound.

We then continued to add more and more different sounds and patterns that we thought sounded effective and would increase the tension in the scene and highlight her desperation as she's trying to get away.

We used the fading out technique to see if it would be better to cut it off completely and then have the heartbeat sound or to fade it out slightly and build in either the heartbeat or other music that would be used for the death scene. After trying it out we decided it didn't work and left it at staying at the normal volume as the amount we had recorded would be too long for the chase scene so it would have to be trimmed down on Final Cut Pro.

After consulting with my group and our teacher, we realised it wasn't as effective as we had hoped and it didn't really work with the footage, as to cut down the time of our opening, a lot of the clips had been sped up and this made the scene look slightly comical and like a 'silent movie'. In order to use this piece of music we would have to slow down either the footage or the music and that could make it lose the urgency factor which is key for our opening.

Evaluation of Filming the Chase Scene

On Saturday 8th February, we filmed the chase scene under a bridge in Bexleyheath. We liked this area because it had this triangular construction < which we felt would be appropriate for the killer to corner the victim upon, and then strangle her. Filming this part went quickly and smoothly; Hayley filmed (she filmed and directed the whole of the chase scene) and Annie and I provided lighting.






When we were filming on the stairs, however, it was difficult to illuminate the actors without making them too bright, otherwise it would not have looked like the scene was at night. Annie and I had to keep the torches still because of some of the footage, we could see the light moving on the brick wall, so we had to re-do it.







These are the roads surrounding the tunnel which we filmed along. As it was tedious to keep moving out extra equipment, I stayed with it under the bridge while Annie and Hayley went down these roads to film.

The victim's make-up by Annie. This was very quick to do, it took about 5 minutes then we filmed the strangle part.

The killer's mask.

Hayley filming, Annie and I holding the torches.

Also, we filmed on the bridge, along the pavement which was easy to film because it was late in the evening and there were not many cars driving past.

We filmed a low-angle shot of the victim running along the bridge, with camera under the bridge. This was quite difficult to film because the railing on the bridge covered most of the actors, we were only able to see the top of their heads. To resolve this, we told the actors to stand closer to the railing so we could clearly see their heads as they ran.

Us watching through footage to see if we needed to make amendments.

During the filming process, it began to rain so I held an umbrella over the camera and Hayley.













Overall, the filming process of the chase scene went very well; better than the first attempt. Our actors' clothes and props were as my group wanted, and the location was good because we were able to utilise the stairs, bridge, under the bridge and side roads to create an effective chase scene.

Evaluation of Filming - 2/2/14

When we first filmed the chase scene, there were a lot of aspects that we weren't happy with as mentioned in Annie's post.

When planning our second attempt at filming we took into consideration all of the aspects we wanted to change such as the location, time of filming and costumes.

 ~ We decided to film in Bexleyheath as it was a local urban area and would fit in with the storyline.

 ~ We aimed to film in the evening, when it was completely dark as the street lighting would be sufficient enough for our characters to show up clearly on screen. 

 ~ With our victim, we changed her outfit from the dress to the black skirt and red top but kept the bruise and her extreme makeup. We also decided against her wearing a fake stomach as it would be more obvious in the next scene that she was pregnant. 

 ~ We also didn't like the fact that we could see the villain's face and the outfit he was wearing so he would wear just casual dark clothing with a hood and a white mask.

How it turned out:

We had planned to meet in Bexleyheath, travel to my grandparents house to film the death scene and then back to Bexleyheath for the chase scene. 

The main problem was that one of actors had a family emergency, on the day of filming and so was unable to join us for the chase scene and the scenes in the garage. As we wanted to get a majority of the filming done on that day, I had to play the villain for the shots we had planned out. 

'Back-up villain'

Candles

Annie taking the candles shot 

Doing Emily's makeup

Annie's 'killer' hands

Raman setting up the camera 

Preparing to film

Fake tears

Raman filming

Annie filming

When looking at the footage from the day, I really wasn't happy with myself playing the villain as it didn't look right and would be much better if it were our preferred actor. Although I liked the location that we chose (the alleyway) it was extremely difficult to film in as the lighting was too dark for the camera to stay focused for a long amount of time.

This also meant that our villain didn't show up on the screen as well as we would have hoped. It was quite dark and blurry and I didn't think this would look good enough for our final coursework. Also with the location that we had chosen, we didn't realise how many people would be walking past on a Sunday evening which interrupted the shot a lot.

Here is a selection of screenshots from our footage, showing why I wasn't satisfied with the result.

While we were filming the chase scene, the camera ran out of battery due to the amount of times we had to film the different shots and this meant only part of the chase scene was filmed. Therefore as we would have to set another day for filming anyway and after looking at the footage, it would make sense to re-film the whole thing.