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.
Monday, 28 November 2011
November 28th
In todays lesson we decided to start cutting the sound clips so they would fit in with our video clips. This process was extremely challenging as getting the sound to synchronise precisely with the video footage was very awkward. To resolve this, we resolved this issue by starting over again, which allowed us to cut the video clips and sound clips concurrently.
Although we found the process of restarting quite frustrating, it did not take as long as we thought due to the fact that we had only recently done it so we could remember how most of it was arranged.
We reflected the thought of dubbing over the film but agreed it would prove a difficult, long process and felt that dubbed sound would not have the same effect.
We agreed that the sound would not be essential as our film opening does not include an excess amount of dialogue, However we felt the lack of diegetic sound would reduct the value and quality of the film.
I felt this lesson was productive in the development of our film opening and hope next lesson that we will complete the sound/music aspect of the project.
Although we found the process of restarting quite frustrating, it did not take as long as we thought due to the fact that we had only recently done it so we could remember how most of it was arranged.
We reflected the thought of dubbing over the film but agreed it would prove a difficult, long process and felt that dubbed sound would not have the same effect.
We agreed that the sound would not be essential as our film opening does not include an excess amount of dialogue, However we felt the lack of diegetic sound would reduct the value and quality of the film.
I felt this lesson was productive in the development of our film opening and hope next lesson that we will complete the sound/music aspect of the project.
Friday, 25 November 2011
November 25th
In todays lesson, we were planning on having an hour of looking back on our work and progress so far on the course. Whilst viewing our film to date, we came across a major problem which needed solving urgently. When the film played, the clips worked fine, however none of the clips had accompanying sound. To solve this problem we dragged the clips onto the timeline again. We thought this may cause the sound to connect with the clips, however, this was uneffective. After this failed attempt, we looked for advice from our fellow classmates who were, alike us, also editing on Final Cut Express, hoping they would be able to figure out a solution. We found out that after dragging their files onto the timeline, the sound clips were already attatched to it, which was not the case in our situation. Our final resort was to pass our queries onto the computer technician, who managed to discover the cause of the problem, (the problem being that the camera we used did not have an adequate voice recorder that was compatible on the Final cut Express software. He managed to rip the sound from the video clips. This allowed us to import them into the programme as ditatched files. This was quite a problematic experience, however it taught us how to overcome this problem in the future.
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