Kirsty, Lucy, Maddi & Pippa - Group 5: February 2011

Sunday, 20 February 2011

Friday, 18 February 2011

As the film itself is about someone's obsession evolving into stalking and abduction, we needed a title that conveyed this, without giving too much away. The idea for the title came from the large wall of photos; there are dozens of photos from various times, showing how long the stalker has been obsessed with the female character. We googled synonyms of 'follow' and 'stalk', and discovered 'shadow'. We agreed that this would be a good title, as it is vague and doesn't give the plot away, and due to this, the audience will be intrigued and want to carry on watching.

Final Music

After researching the lyrics and meanings behind the songs, we tried each song with the edited footage, and asked members of our class which they preferred. Out of the 14 people we asked, half preferred Massive Attack's 'Angel'.

The song itself is quite eerie, and successfully builds atmosphere. The repetitive lyrics 'you are my angel...her eyes, she's on the dark side...love you, love you, love you...' emphasise a fixation, similar to that which our stalker character would have. However, the original swells too often, and the volume of the lyrics take focus away from the steady beat, so we searched on youtube for a remix of the original to give a more contemporary feel and found the 'Blur' remix;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-48LMmJLUpg
The slower tempo and repetitiveness of the lyrics creates an even eerier atmosphere, with the climax of tension towards the end with the piano cords.
I edited the orginal remix to make it shorter and remove the robotic voice spelling out ANGEL as we felt it ruined the atmosphere. After putting the new song in the film, all those asked agreed that it created the atmosphere needed for a successful thriller film.

Original song - Massive Attack - Angel

Original remix - Massive Attack - Angel (Blur Remix) Damon Albarn

Tempo slowed and lyrics cut on 'Audacity'.

shots

These are printscreens of the most effective shots and edits used in our coursework.

'Shadow'

This is the finished edit of our thriller opening. In the editing frame you can clearly see the combination of shots, frames and transmissions, as well as edits on the soundtrack. In total, we used 34 cuts of film, with 23 transmissions and 7 frames.

Thursday, 17 February 2011

Shots used -

Throughout the process of creating, editing and filming our Thriller opening we have discussed the different ways in which we can represent different ideas about differnt characters for the audience. To show the 'stalker' has a powerful position in the action we used low angle shots, or shots in which he was in the foreground. The low angle shots allow the stalker to appear bigger and more powerful and there fore more dangerous. Editing has alos allowed us to represent different ideas about certain characters. The shots in which the stalker is involved have been edited to appear darker and more sinister. We feel that the transitions we have chosen to use are also representative, shots that are going to include Hayley, the victim, have the dip to white transitions and cross fades. These dip to white transition make her seem like the innocent victim as white has connatations of innocence and purity. Whereas the scenes involving the stalker have used dip to black transitions in order to represent connotations of danger, darness and mystery.
The shots of Hayley are mainly from a higher angle which shows that she has less power int he action and is likely to be in some kind of danger. These shots have been edited to appear lighter and more innocent to convey her character type. We felt as a group that we should have at least one medium, to close up shot of Hayley as it would allow the audience to connect with her and empathise with her situation.

Editing-

The day before the deadline we have managed to complete our thriller opening. This process involved rearranging afew shots and adding in others that we thought were better. The group worked to create a dramatic effect that allowed suspense to be created.

Tuesday, 15 February 2011

Filming

We have now managed to finish the filming process and capture all of the footage onto the Mac and start editing. We have filmed the footage at five different times...
1. Shots of Hayley walking - camera tape was dirty which meant some of the shots were pixelated and quite blurry. We managed to use a few of these shots however the majority weren't usable.
2. Second attempt at shots of Hayley- new tape which meant the shots we filmed were much clearer and generally of better quality. However on this day the weather was very different to the first day of filming, this has meant we have had to edit the shots in order to look similar to those we already had.
3. Shots of the stalker in the 'shed' - for these shots we used a tripod so they were clear and steady. In the shed the light was also quite good so we were able to use that to our own advantage and create a certain atmosphere. When uploaded onto the mac we decided to darken so of these shots in order to make them seem more dangerous and eerie.
4. Final filming attempt- the weather was again very different to the second attempt however it was more similar to the first attempt. These shots were again of Hayley but we felt it was necessary to have the stalker in some shots with Hayley. We discussed this idea as a group and felt shots like this would link the two characters together. Although these shots were good and usable we had a slight problem with some of the footage being filmed over by accident, but we still had some shots we could use.
5. After watching and putting together all of the footage we had, we felt we needed a close up of Hayley in order for the audience to establish an emotional connection with her. As we didn't have this shot the group filmed during a free period. These shots were what was needed to finish the opening.

Editing

While editing our opening, we have decided to use particular transitions in particular places to represent different ideas. When the victim is in a scene we have tried to make the footage lighter to portray her as innocent and display to the audience that she is the victim in the situation. We have also used the dip to white transition to show this innocence, however when we put the transition in we could not get it to the exact white that we wanted to. For this reason we have looked at using different transitions such as fades and dips, although these aren't exactly what we planned to use they help to create a flow of action within the opening.
When the stalker is shown we have attempted to use darker editing. We have tried to achieve this darkness through lowering the brightness of the shot and changing the contrast. This has meant the scene is overall darker and therefore more eerie and seemingly more dangerous.
During the filming process we had to film on two seperate days. Although we tried to get similar weather conditions, we were unablke to achieve this exactly. For this reason we have had to edit some shots in order to achieve similar weather conditions. We have found that when we have edited some shots e.g. changed brightness and contrast, that the shot becomes a bit jittery and less smooth flowing.