End of Week 8

I was able to get some feedback on my second edit and have taken note of this. I shall be finalising my main brief really soon. Some of the feedback I received included thoughts about my credits, which I hadn't produced. So, I was able to research different fonts to use for these and was able to determine the appearance of my credits. I noticed I hadn't stuck to a frame on my storyboard where the antagonist has pitch black eyes, so I played around on Photoshop and was able to create the effect that I wanted.

Week 8: Credits

We've decided to colour our credit text with a white palette and display the majority of them on a black background to emphasise the contrast between death and life, and evil and purity. Some credits will be placed on top of the action in the opening sequence so that the credits are not classified as a title sequence and so that the thought of innocence remains in our audience's thoughts throughout.

At this stage, we were also able to decide on a name for our institution and have concluded it to be Modulus Entertainment.

This name for our company was chosen as the word 'modulus' refers to Young's modulus of physics. This is the ratio of stress (units of pressure) and strain. We made this reference as the conflict between science and religion is mainly represented in the paranormal subgenre of horror. Moreover, as Young's modulus units are of pressure, we feel that this could relate to the pressure being put on the audience to watch the rest of the film after our opening sequence as they are under the stress of not knowing the true story and meaning of what happened in the opening.

Week 8: Fonts

Tuesday 22nd November 2016 - Wednesday 23rd November 2016: Find/create and position title and credits onto footage.
I chose these fonts as they are typical of the horror genre. Some are quite bold and sharp, depicting the feel of terror. The loose edges of these fonts illustrate irrational thoughts and behaviour, traits that are used by our antagonist.

These texts were taken from the following website;
http://www.fontspace.com/category/horror?p=16







I chose this font as it holds a sense of irony. It's ironic how the word 'blackout' resembles darkness, yet the font displays it with a glow. However, the font as a whole resembles too much of the sci-fi subgenre.


The movement of the text is jagged, demonstrating the central antagonist's fragmented mindset. This font supplies rough edges on each letter, emphasising the lifestyle that the antagonist involves herself in.


These texts were taken from the following website;

http://www.flamingtext.co.uk/Free-Logo-Designs

Photoshop/Paint

I tried to edit my female character's eyes today. I started off with Microsoft Paint as I was familiar with this platform and found it easy to equip the right tools. I then moved onto Adobe Photoshop CS6 as it is a more professional platform and offers a larger variety of effects that I could add to make my character's eyes more realistic.

Week 8: Second Edit Feedback

Week 8: Main Brief Second Edit

Thursday 17th November 2016 - Monday 21st November 2016: Edit soundtrack and sound effects on top of the footage.

In response to the feedback received from our first cut, I decided to alter the edit and improve our media text by adding in sound and letting our footage remain in its natural colour. I also discovered that in most horror film openings the antagonist is unknown. I depicted this by not revealing my antagonist's face so that later on in the film the audience will be surprised as to who the main source of destruction was within the film.

Editing Choices

I decided to produce a dynamic soundtrack by grouping various pieces of sound together - to resemble the atmospheric feel of a horror.

End of Week 7

There goes week 7. We were able to share the editing between me and Dominic and produced two separate edits. I decided to use his edit as a guideline for what my edit can improve on. I have also been using our rough cut feedback to develop my edit. The second edit should be finished by the end of week 8.

Week 7: Main Brief Rough Cut Feedback

Week 7: Main Brief Rough Cut

Monday 14th November 2016 - Wednesday 16th November 2016: Edit footage.

End of Week 6

Week 6 was a handful! We had so much to get done but thankfully completed each task and was able to make a new schedule that each group member could abide by. We also managed to secure the use of the school elevator for our main brief, get the equipment needed, and finally film! Unfortunately we had to change cast members, but hopefully, the end result of our main brief will turn out better than we think it will because of this change.

Week 6: Sound

Friday 11th November 2016: Make a soundbank of possible soundtracks and sound effects to use when editing. 

As I play a string instrument, I thought it was a clever idea to produce some of the sound effects for our opening sequence myself. I did this by plucking my strings, as bowing on the strings in different areas to create soft and harsh sounds (i.e. creaking).

Here is a sample of the sounds I have produced;



I have also put together a sound bank full of copyright-free sound effects that we could include in our main brief; https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3R8lsiNpVNlN3pNSmExaGd6M2M
I gathered these sounds from https://www.freesound.org.

I also retrieved a music soundtrack from http://freemusicarchive.org/.

Week 6: Filming day!

Thursday 10th November 2016: Go to school elevator and film.

Update on Casting

We updated our cast with this new actress as she goes to our school and her availability is quite flexible. This is really great for us we will be able to contact her very easily regarding re-filming.

We figured her height, shorter than the previous actress, will create an element of innocence as she seems childlike. This will surprise the audience as they underestimate her timid stance. We will use her scars as recounts of how many souls the antagonist has taken and devoured. This actress is also affordable. Her difficulty to focus may be a letdown as were are on a tight schedule and cannot afford to go over filming time in order to get the perfect shots or re-film.

Her costume is similar to the previous actress', with smaller inched heels.

Week 6: Update on Location Recce

Wednesday 9th November 2016: Take recce pictures of school elevator.

We have decided to use the elevator in our school instead of the elevator at the Westfield Stratford City car park as it is available to us on a regular basis, allowing us to film each day of the week. As our media text will take place in school, we will have to change our casting and cast a new female to be the antagonist.

We attempted to act out the scenes in order to figure out the positioning within the elevator.

Equipment Borrowing

As no member of my group had a camera and tripod handy, I had to fill out this form to borrow equipment from school. I decided to return it the following Monday and keep the equipment over the weekend just in case we had to re-film after reviewing the footage we had taken and not being pleased.

Week 6: Update on Location

As a group, we have decided not to film at Westfield Stratford City as my group and I are unfamiliar with the setting and unaware of its availability. Additionally, as the location isn't within a 5-mile radius of some group members' homes, it would be difficult to arrange another time to re-film if shots did not turn out as planned. We couldn't take the risk of just showing up to the location unprepared without any permission rights and seeing what happens as this is poor management which would result in a low-quality main brief.

Week 6: Schedules of the Group

In order for us to stick to our production schedule, we have frequently been messaging on WhatsApp Messenger. Here we discussed casting and spoke to each other about times that members will be free to film after school hours. This was tricky as everyone has their private lives and extra-curricular activities they partake in, so members were always busy.

Fortunately, we were able to work around this problem, set a date to film, and finalise our actors.

End of Week 5

This week we started to reconsider the different roles within our group but was able to designate the correct roles to the members of our group who had strengths in each particular area of the project (editing, direction, production etc.). Thankfully we organised a new production schedule to stick by to as we feel that the setback from Waitrose has made us fall behind schedule.

Week 5: Updated Production Role Profiles