Tuesday, 20 December 2011
December 20th
Although we didn't get through everything we expected we would in this lesson, we are happy with our progress. Today, we continued placing the clips into the timeline. This took longer than desired due to the clips having to be cut to the chosen length before we were allowed to place them onto the timeline. Aswell as this we continued to develop the editing, making sure the colour and sound levels were appropriate for each of the clips.
Sunday, 18 December 2011
December 18th
Due to the unsuccesful lesson previous (lack of time), we decided not to waste any time today and overcome our previous issues. we thought they may work on the microsoft computers at school, as we had previously plugged the camera into a microsoft computer at home. We plugged the camera into one of the computers in the library successfully and managed to transfer the video clips onto a memory stick. We were finally able to upload the videos onto the mac and import the video clips into Final Cut Express without any problems. We were concerned as to whether the quality of the videos would lessen, but we were thankfully proved wrong .We were tight on time and just about managed to get the videos into the timeline (not in order) which we will carry on with next time.
Friday, 16 December 2011
December 16th
Todays lesson was very problematic and which we hope to correct when we next get a chance. We started by uploading the videos filmed on 14th December which were filmed on the different camera, due to the difficulties we were facing due to the lack of memroy space, low battery and the fact that we were running out of time. The videos initually worked impeccably. For some reason Final cut Express would not recognise the format of the clips, denying us access to inport the clips. The technician was unavailable so we have decided to leave it until we can see what he thinks is the best solution.
Thursday, 15 December 2011
December 15th
In todays lesson we uploaded all of our re-shot videos. We ended up having to shoot some of the various scenes on a different camera, due to some complications of memory space. Although we had to upload both sets of footage from seperate cameras, import them into Final cut Express, place and cut them to preffered size and length onto the timeline, it didnt take as long as last time as the camera was fully functional with the Macs and the editing programme. When we started editing we changed the brightness and colour of the clips due to the fact that some of the scenes filmed on the flip camera were far too dark. By altering the settings we made these scenes fit in well, keeping the continuety intact.
Wednesday, 14 December 2011
December 14th
Today was the schedueled day in whcih we decided to re-shoot various scenes of our film opening to improve the overall project. The scnenes that we have decided to re-shoot are:
When originally shot them, the Living Room scenes were filmed at mid day, creating alot of problems with the lighting and brightness as the scene is supposed to be at night time. We therefore met up at a much later and more reasonable hour this time. Intitually, we filmed the kitchen scene at Emma's house so therefore decided to re shoot the living room scene at her house too as it helped maintain the continuety as our main character travels from the kitchen to the livingroom. Whilst filming the livingroom scene we thought we might aswell re-film the staircase scene while we had the chance. Alike the livingroom scene the previous shots were far too bright than suitable. We used a low angle shot by shortening the tripod and tilting it to look in an upwards direction. This gave an eerie element, as if our character was being watched from below, as if he is, not knowing it, walking up to his doom and there is nothing he can do about it.
We only came across a few minor issues icluding christmas decorations in the shot, aswell as the camera which we borrowed from school running out of battery. We overcame these by taking down decorations and making sure there were no elements of decoration in the shot, i.e. christams tree, cards etc. We had no choice but to wait for the camera to charge, which was a slow process and messed up our scheduel slightly but was an obsticle that we could not do anything about.
We all came to the decission that it would be best if we refilmed the bedroom scenes as again, they was far too much light coming through the windows. These scenes were filmed at callums house at a later hour of night. The first few shots we did were of our main character walking down the corridor and into my bedroom. We wanted hardly any light to get in the shot to add to the dark, dreary atmosphere of the scenes, however this proved worse for the quality as it made the scene almost pitch black and impossible to know what was happening. We agreed that maybe a small source of light, i.e. a desk lamp would allow the scene to be clear and visible, but not too bright to take away from the atmosphere of the scene. The lamped improved the levels of light in the scene, but made the filming difficult as we desperately tried to avoid getting the lamp in the frame. We then tried to add a more effective camera shot after our main character awakes from a nightmare. We placed the tripod at the end of the bed, looking through the railings, which gives a sense of someone watching our victim and he sleeps innocently. Everytime callum sat up, the arch of the bed railings got in the way of his facial reaction or gut his head out of the frame completely, so we solved this by simply re-adjusting the length and position of the tripod in which the camera was placed.
When we previously filmed our main character arriving back to his house we came across alot of continuety errors which were easily fixable if filmed again. Before callum entered the door the lights inside were already on and shining through the door, but when he opens the door and walks in side the lights are turned off. We also did a shot of callum walking through the front door and putting his bag down on the floor, which again was necessary for a steady flow of continuety. We also felt that this would add to the continuity of our film. . These types of scene were easy to refilm so the whole shot could link to the next one with continuety. We felt we had not taken full advantage of filming techniques as our film was pretty simple and had no interesting camera angles so we attempted to include some more when we were re-filming these scenes including, tilt, extreme close up, over the shoulder and low angle shots.
- The living room scene
- The Bedroom scene
- The House Arrival scenes
When originally shot them, the Living Room scenes were filmed at mid day, creating alot of problems with the lighting and brightness as the scene is supposed to be at night time. We therefore met up at a much later and more reasonable hour this time. Intitually, we filmed the kitchen scene at Emma's house so therefore decided to re shoot the living room scene at her house too as it helped maintain the continuety as our main character travels from the kitchen to the livingroom. Whilst filming the livingroom scene we thought we might aswell re-film the staircase scene while we had the chance. Alike the livingroom scene the previous shots were far too bright than suitable. We used a low angle shot by shortening the tripod and tilting it to look in an upwards direction. This gave an eerie element, as if our character was being watched from below, as if he is, not knowing it, walking up to his doom and there is nothing he can do about it.
We only came across a few minor issues icluding christmas decorations in the shot, aswell as the camera which we borrowed from school running out of battery. We overcame these by taking down decorations and making sure there were no elements of decoration in the shot, i.e. christams tree, cards etc. We had no choice but to wait for the camera to charge, which was a slow process and messed up our scheduel slightly but was an obsticle that we could not do anything about.
We all came to the decission that it would be best if we refilmed the bedroom scenes as again, they was far too much light coming through the windows. These scenes were filmed at callums house at a later hour of night. The first few shots we did were of our main character walking down the corridor and into my bedroom. We wanted hardly any light to get in the shot to add to the dark, dreary atmosphere of the scenes, however this proved worse for the quality as it made the scene almost pitch black and impossible to know what was happening. We agreed that maybe a small source of light, i.e. a desk lamp would allow the scene to be clear and visible, but not too bright to take away from the atmosphere of the scene. The lamped improved the levels of light in the scene, but made the filming difficult as we desperately tried to avoid getting the lamp in the frame. We then tried to add a more effective camera shot after our main character awakes from a nightmare. We placed the tripod at the end of the bed, looking through the railings, which gives a sense of someone watching our victim and he sleeps innocently. Everytime callum sat up, the arch of the bed railings got in the way of his facial reaction or gut his head out of the frame completely, so we solved this by simply re-adjusting the length and position of the tripod in which the camera was placed.
When we previously filmed our main character arriving back to his house we came across alot of continuety errors which were easily fixable if filmed again. Before callum entered the door the lights inside were already on and shining through the door, but when he opens the door and walks in side the lights are turned off. We also did a shot of callum walking through the front door and putting his bag down on the floor, which again was necessary for a steady flow of continuety. We also felt that this would add to the continuity of our film. . These types of scene were easy to refilm so the whole shot could link to the next one with continuety. We felt we had not taken full advantage of filming techniques as our film was pretty simple and had no interesting camera angles so we attempted to include some more when we were re-filming these scenes including, tilt, extreme close up, over the shoulder and low angle shots.
Friday, 9 December 2011
December 9th
In todays lesson we focussed solely on the editing of our film. We played about with various effects. On some of the clips we shot ( the bedroom scenes), the lighting was quite bad and wasn't very clear due to the lack of light source. We liked the dark, spooky atmosphere, but the quality of the clip was quite poor. To improve this we changed the colour scheme to black and white. We also edited the bright levels of the clips. This gave a better quality and effect to the scenes. The bright levels made the scene clearer, whilst the black and white effect brought an artistic element to the piece, adding an interesting clasification of night. This occurred more than once and we had to repeatedly adjust the colouring of the clips. Editing the colouring of scenes was easy to do on Final Cut Express. It was only a subtle, simple change but very effective and it looked impressive on the final copy.
Thursday, 8 December 2011
December 8th
It was a joint decission in our group that we should re-shoot various scenes of our horror film. We felt that we could improve some of our techniques when filming,i.e. using a high definition camera from school, aswell as borrowing a tripod to give a sturdier, more professional look to the way the opening is filmed. We feel these elements will all contribute to a better quality of filming. We therefore created an additional filming scheduel as shown below:
Friday, 2 December 2011
December 2nd
In todays lesson, we started to add the music to our video. Due to the fact that some of our music choses did not suit or match the video clips we had intended them for, This process took longer than we had Initially estimated. There were also over issues concernng th music, the main one being the volume. The screams and cries for help from the victim in the first scene were drowned out by the soundtrack, so we lowered the volume to make the diegetic dialogue clear for the ears.
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