Initial Audience Feedback

We showed our film in progress to our media class of 16 and 17 year olds which is close to our target audience of 15.

 - Feedback was mainly positive after showing the unfinished product
 - The use of non-digetic sound against the addition of non-digetic sound was argued over because there were contrasting ideas on what would work best
 - The majority of the class thought the use of non-diegetic sounds would be most effective.
 - People thought that adding non-diegetic sound would make the opening seem cliche
 - However I think that depending on the non-diegetic sound, it may enhance the experience.

Editing: Colour Correction

Colour correction is a huge part of the editing process as it can change the lighting of a scene to suit your needs as standard footage without colour correction might not be visually appealing to the audience. It's a small thing that can make a huge difference in presenting the film as it gets rid of any flares or contrasts and can make scenes more or less darker to show a certain mood or atmosphere. 

You can see the difference in the video below:

PS: The colour corrected version is the one on the left, the non-colour corrected version is on the right.

Editing Film Opening

•  For our edit of our film opening, we tried using iMovie for it but it wasn't effective in achieving what we wanted since it wasn't precise enough.
• We moved into Tyler's house to use Lightworks editing software which was much better since it allowed smoother straight cutting of scenes and colour correction which is Tyler's expertise
• You can see the difference in the complexity of the two editing software in the two pictures.
• Overall the editing process went really well despite it taking much longer than anticipated. The film really benefited from the colour correction whilst it not being very noticeable.

Final Day and Day 3 of Film Opening Review

With the final day of filming, we decided to do a vlog behind-the-scenes video.

- We managed to complete our film opening in this day
- It rained a lot which was a problem because it could damage the camera
- The fake blood that I made smelt really bad
- The lighting worked really well in our favour because it wasn't too dark
- We did a variety of shots and angles with a lot of takes
- The sounds weren't too loud or distracting
- Overall a solid and productive day of filming

Day 2 of Filming Review

This is a review of day 2 of filming of the opening. We filmed all the flashback scenes with the abandoned building which included the ending as well.

We filmed at the former Mercedes-Benz garage at Winterstoke Road near Leigh Woods. The site in which we filmed was blocked by a gate but we managed to climb over with ease. It was unknown whether we would get in trouble for trespassing into the abandoned site but luckily no one was around and there were no cameras in the vicinity. Finding another abandoned building would be a huge blow to our schedule so we had to make this one work. An issue that would put us in a lot of trouble would be the prop gun that we're using looks incredibly realistic and if a member of the public saw then we could have been arrested so luckily that didn't happen but we did take a lot of precautions to avoid that scenario. However due to the danger of being at the abandoned site, we were also pressured by time therefore we didn't take as long as we hoped to film all the shots we wanted. But the most essential shots were taken and the finished product should look fine without it.

There were times where we had to do a few takes because Ewan or Tyler wouldn't be able to say their lines properly or the traffic was too loud in the background. Also there is a POV continuous sequence that occurs at the end of the scene which was difficult to do because you would need to hold the camera whilst holding a gun and have it so the gun lines up with the camera. I also needed to keep the camera steady when I was walking so that took quite a few takes too. But I'd say we managed to film it all very efficiently considering the amount that we had to film. I reckon that this is only slightly longer than filming in the cafe scene because there were so many variables in the environment.

 I think the lighting would need to be edited afterwards because the scene needs to be slightly darker to reflect the mood and atmosphere. It's still undecided what else needs to be added to the clips we've filmed because we need to film the forest scenes for it to all make sense. We're going to have to edit the sound to cut out some of the background noise. We'll also need the clips to be edited for us to make a judgement on what works or not. 

Here's a behind-the-scenes picture: 

Blog Update

Unfortunately today when we were looking for our location for filming our next scene of our opening which is supposed to take place in an abandoned building in Redcliffe, it was sealed off (probably recently) and were unable to film. This was unknown to us and we thought that we would be able to film in that location.

As you can see the entire entrance is completely sealed off to the public by a metal plate. All other possible entrances were also sealed in the same manner. Although there were possible solutions to get to the roof, it proved to be too dangerous to even try. Therefore Ewan suggested that we go to a derelict building near where he lives. We will go there on Friday 5th February to film the abandoned building scenes.

Day 1 of Filming Review

This is a review of day 1 of our filming of our opening. We decided to film the flashback sequences first because the clothing (mise en scene) needed to look pristine for the flashbacks but dirty in the present day. Therefore it would be easier to film the flashbacks first. The cafe scene was filmed in Grounded near Redcliffe and was arguably the easiest to film as it didn't need much for it to work. Unfortunately, I was not present on the day of the filming because it was such a small scene but my teammates: Dan, Ewan and Tyler managed to film the scene and tell me about all the problems they faced. Here is a picture of the day 1 filming below.

As you can see, we had only one camera to work with therefore we had to film the conversation twice so that there won't be any continuity errors in the camera position. However, the high-key lighting did work in our favour as we aimed to have bright vibrant colours in the flashback whereas in the present, the lighting would be very low-key. Therefore I think this worked very well. Also the location of the filming was very good because the scenery is very fancy and conveys happiness which will be contrasted to the bleakness of what is about to insinuate. I really like how casual Tyler and Ewan look in this picture because we really wanted to avoid 'cringey' or 'cheesey' low-budget cliches. The costumes as part of mise en scene are well done and the bright colours of Tyler's costume is contrasted to the black and white costume that Ewan is wearing. The pristine white shirt that Ewan is wearing is meant to represent his purity and life at this point in time but his shirt will start to get messier as the opening goes on to foreshadow his impending demise.

Here are some of the outtakes:

As you can see, getting the glasses to sync properly took a long time as it needed to the right in the middle of the camera shot. This was one of few problems that were faced in the filming process.

My teammates had to start filming at around 12pm to get the most out of the day. I do think the use of the tripod is very useful in this scenario as it stabilizes the shot and avoids any shakiness in the movement. There wasn't much movement in this scene as it primarily focused on the conversation between these two characters and their relationship. However I also thought that a microphone might have been useful for projecting the diegetic sound better. But we don't have the best of technology so we just had to roll with it. The one big issue with the clip is that it may be too long. We were given 2 minutes for the film opening and this scene alone turned out to be 30 seconds. This would have to be shortened down if we are to fit in the rest of the film. The glass filling up was unnecessarily long because it took up half of the clip's time. I argued to fast forward that part of the clip but the diegetic synchronous sound of the wind made it so the cut to the next shot had a drastic difference. Therefore we will have to find a way to remedy this problem, possibly muting that shot and adding sound of our own instead. The hardest challenge of all would be the editing process as we will have to cut down on alot of scenes or speed them up which would ruin the quality of the scenes. I do argue that 2 minutes is definitely no time to do a film opening and most film openings are far longer than 2 minutes. Tyler edited the clip afterwards which took around 1 hour to edit so it was relatively quick and provides encouragement to Tyler's editing ability.

Without further ado, this is the scene fully edited: