A+E- Two minute Film Opening

Finalising the film opening video

Being our official deadline today, my group and I needed to make sure that our film opening was perfect and complete. Below shows the editing that I carried out to produce our final product, of which we have published on YouTube as the official "A+E" two minuet film opening.

The first step in this process was to replace the chase scene's original non-diegetic sound with the sound that Hayley and I found that we felt would be more appropriate to the genre of the film, being a slasher. The sound that I input, "Free Sound FX Horror Spooky Film Theme Scary", suited the footage really well. I simply needed to do minor edits to the footage to make the sound fitting, the "bangs" within the sound linking to changes in shot, and the tension building through the scene, linking to the quick paced editing of the struggle at the end.

Once this was added, I then looked at the heart beating sound played within the struggle between the killer and victim at the end of the scene. Manipulating it, and moving it around, I was able to edit it so that it linked to the beats of the death scene non-diegetic sound, making the transition from the chase scene to the death scene sound smoother. This, however did take some time.

I then fixed the death scene diegetic sound so that the change from the intensifying, building up in the non-diegetic music peaked to where it then dipped to a deeper, calmer sound, creating an after effect of the build up, and ending the extract off nicely. I wanted the sound transition to be placed at the correct point, rather than where it was in the first draft. I moved it to dip at the start of the clip where you see the killer close the victims eyes and the editing goes from lots of quick straight cuts to one longer continuous shot, rather than halfway through the longer shot. This looked much better, making the extract "flow" more continuously.

Next, I fixed the positioning all of the diegetic sounds within the death scene, making sure that they matched the visuals on the screen.

Deciding with Raman that we didn't like the scream that was originally in place, we went back onto the freesfx site that I used to collect the diegetic sound effects for the death scene, finding a more appropriate scream. This I input into the correct position, matching the visuals on the screen.

Not liking the sound transition from the chase scene into the death scene still, I cut the scream up, elongated it so that as soon as the scream dissipates, the initial "bang" of the death scene non-diegetic sound initiates. This seemed to make the audio transfer from the chase scene to the death scene much better.

Finally, I watched the entire sequence through a few more times, tweaking certain inconsistencies related to the sound and footage.

The editing that Raman and I carried out today was to fix any problems highlighted from the comments made on our first draft, of which we produced on the 28th of March, listed by Hayley in a previous blog post. We also fixed problems that the group had with the video. The video of our final product is shown below:

Ghost House Production Company

From my deconstruction (here), I chose our film opening to be produced by Ghost House because they have produced horror films such as Evil Dead, 30 Days Of Night and The Grudge. Therefore, Ghost House would be appropriate for our film opening because our genre is slasher/horror.

In addition to the production investigated in my previous post, there are other production companies which produced successful horror films. These include:

• New Line Cinema (Texas Chainsaw Massacre & The Conjuring)
  
  
• Blumhouse Productions (Sinister & The Purge)

• Lionsgate (Saw & The Cabin In The Woods)

• Universal Pictures (Hannibal & Mama)

Universal Pictures could be suitable for as our production company however some horror films they have produced such as The Thing and Mama contain supernatural themes as well. Our genre is strictly slasher so Universal would not be appropriate.

Though these are well-known production companies, my group and I wanted our existing production company to appear ominous and dark to foreshadow our film opening to the audience. Therefore, we were considering either Twisted Pictures (also produced the Saw films & Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D) or Ghost House because they looked dark and sinister which would be appropriate alongside our opening.



 In the end, my group and I chose Ghost House because, from watching previous horror film openings from A-Level students we saw the majority of them had used Twisted Pictures. So we decided to choose something different. During the editing process, in Final Cut Pro we added a grey effect over the Ghost House clip so it was more dark and to conform to the horror genre.

Ghost House's conventions for their horror/slasher films is to have lots of gore (Evil Dead) and scary-looking deranged characters (The Grudge & Drag Me To Hell). I felt this would be suitable as our production company because ours contains a lot of gore & includes a deranged and scary looking character because he wears a plain menacing mask and has words etched into his skin.

 

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.

Editing Flashbacks - Effects

I investigated different effects:

Memory: created a 'washed-out/faded' effect which is appropriate because this is a 'memory' the killer is recalling.

 I tested the Romantic effect and this did not do much, it simply blurred the edges of the shot.

 The Seasons effect changed the colour of the clip to dark blue which downplayed the gruesomeness of the wound, so I chose not to include this effect because this is a slasher where the conventions are to be as gory as possible.

 Sepia changed the colour to a beige tone, this also understated the blood and bruises on the victim's face. Therefore, I chose not to insert this effect on the clip.

 I tested the Side Lights effect and this did not make much difference. It made the clip a little brighter but bright lights are not a typical slasher convention so I did not include that.

Old World: made the clip darker however I did not like that because it did not emphasize the blood and bruises on her face.

So I played around with the colouring and intensified the colour, increased the saturation and decreased the exposure to highlight the blood all over the victim.

Next, I tested some effects on the clip and tried threshold. This effect added on the colour change intensified both the blood and the bruises which is good as our film is a slasher.

This effect I tested was called Bleach Bypass, I did not like this effect because it did not make a significant difference to the clip.

This effect is called Glory & I liked this because it is glorifying the victim's mutilated dead body, making her look angelic and innocent when she is actually the opposite.

Next, I tried Flashing as well as increasing the clip's exposure and this worked very well. The Flashing effect zoomed into the stomach and Annie preferred this to other effects.

On this clip I changed the colouring and increased the colour and exposure and fully increased the saturation to add a harsh red glow to the victim's face. Also, I added the Prism effect which made the clip fuzzy.

With this clip, I split off the last second and added the X-Ray effect so it flashes from the normal colouring to the X-Ray for a second then moves on to the next clip. I chose to have this because I was inspired by Se7en's opening credits.

Annie & I slowed down this clip because we could see the victim breathing slightly, and I added the Sci-Fi as it exaggerated her bruises, blood and wound. This effect is also on a second long split clip so it flashes up, catching the audience off-guard.

Mise en Scene of Killer's Den

In Hayley's shed, we placed candles on some of the shelves to add a romantic ambience which is ironic because he is going to kill her. cut her open and take her foetus. Also, the candles add additional lighting, but it was not a lot so we used other lighting to aid the filming process. We used a lamp because it had an orange undertone, adding to the ambience of the scene. 

 We placed plastic on the floor because, firstly it would help keep the floor clean from any fake blood, and secondly because our group is trying to emphasize the killer's obsession with death and gore. He is a doctor and likes everything to be neat and orderly. As well, we did this because we were inspired by Dexter's Room from a previous post. When we film the rest of the opening, we are going to put plastic on the garage door and along the walls, as seen in Dexter's room.

Also, we put black bin bags on the windows to block out any natural lighting, but some still came through which was beneficial so we could film and see what we were doing. However, these bags will not be shown in the film opening.

 In the room, the shelves still had all the garden tools and bags on them because we did not put any books or chairs by it as this section will not be shown in the flashbacks. However, when we film the second part of the opening, we will take off these items and put on health and pregnancy books and the foetus jars.

This is where the killer will sit and we are going to put a chair there. We are going to change the stickers on this small cabinet so it says things such as:

• "nails"
• "hair"
• "teeth"
• "fingers"

However, we will not make the killer open these drawers, it is only suggestive to make the audience squirm and to stress his obsession with human bodies.