Techniques

I have used many different techniques in order to capture the attention and the emotion of the audience, as well as to portray certain key themes.

In final cut, using certain video filters such as "Day for night" and Gamma correction, in order to get the right amount of light in the shot at any one time and also to create a setting fit for the mood. Transitions such as fadeout and whiteout are also useful when trying to set a good transition between two shots of varying brightness or mood.

Titles

When it came to the creation of titles, I decided to almost randomly generate names of people, however, the company names I tried to seem more related to the feel of the film itself (after watching a horror myself and making note of the production company as "Dark Castle").
I tried to keep a fairly serious sounding company name- in this case "Goliath"- which suggests power and to a degree large size. This is supposed to represent the power and the wealth of the company (whether or not that is the case).

When it came to the font of the title sequence, I had previously thought that Perhaps having a scrawled handwritten and slightly dirty font, so as to resemble the handwritten work that the killer would do.
Unfortunately, this became somewhat of a pipe-dream as i hadn't the time nor the expertise in order to produce convincing handwriting via mouse.

So, feeling as though the "handwritten font" in final cut, or indeed any other application i found wasn't nearly convincing enough.
Working around this, I decided to go on a fairly formal font which i would then distort (via exchanging letters for numbers), so as to fit the theme of "Unlucky Numbers".
As the font goes farther and farther through the title sequence, it can be observed that they become changed more and more. This is to symbolize the storyline- as the story progresses, so the evidence, the killings and the scenario becomes more and more distorted to the will of the killer (as the titles progress, it takes less and less time for the names of the staff to become letters and numbers).
But, the final name (the name of the director) is left completely normal and is indeed slightly larger than the rest.

As many people would agree this is somewhat confusing and goes against the theme that had been previously set up.
The director of the movie is supposed to represent the role of the killer; as the killer is the one who is pulling all the strings and is in control, his existence is the only one that is not represented by a number. The other members of the cast are meant to represent the other characters, who are almost totally playing to the tune of the killer.
Naturally, as this would be the case, the director would be the only one who, at the end, would be completely in control, and not be distorted.
I agree this is not very obvious, but it has some meaning none the less.

Final Cut Feedback II

For this second piece of feedback, our thriller opening was shown to the class. we recieved mixed feedback about our project. However, there are some aspects of the

Final Cut

Here is the final cut.

final cut feedback

there has been a mixed response in accordance to our final cut sequence, many people have felt that the contrast between the two halves of our opening has been too large.

some of our feedback tells us that we have a good first section- good music, well portrayed, good camera-work, etc- but that the second half was too different and it somewhat ruined the feeling of the sequence. Whilst the other reviews have stated that the opening is far too boring and that the second half (with the fast paced beat music) was far more engaging- Interesting camera angles/ titles.

Photoshop

Some gore may be used for one of the effects in the title-sequence- for this we need photoshop.
There is some problems with this, however:

Positive points:

• If done correctly, can look very professional
• Is a very useful program, and can be done individually whilst another groupmember works.
• Can be done with relatively no experience prior

Negative points:

• Can be extremely time absorbing
• Can be very hard to acheive professional look
• Could be difficult to mesh neatly with the rest of the title-sequence as it would be the only static frame in the peice.
• should something go wrong, it may end up becoming less useful than it was in the first place

Even though there are very heavy arguments as to why one should not add a freeze-frame photoshop image to the opening, it seems only too appropriate to do one anyway. Even though this problem could be navigated around, i believe that the peice could benifit from having more work done to it in that way.

This will be tried for about 5 minutes whilst my partner is working on editing the peice, should the task prove unsuccessful or unpromising, it shall be abandoned.

Daniel Swanton--

Revelation.

After some thought on the day of the rough-cut feedback, i have decided to completely revise my project in order to make the work more understandable and more interesting:

Instead of using the shots I have taken in order to portray a linear story I have chosen to mix the story into the title-sequence so as to make both sides seem more active.
This way, characters and concepts (such as murder and detection) can be gotten out of the way early so that there is little need for explaination when the movie begins.
This course of action was also advised by our teacher, so I believe that it is a good step to take.

It is a shame that we have been forced to wander so far from the animatic we had so previously heralded as infallable, but it seems as though time and mark is on the line, so appropriate measures must be taken.

Daniel Swanton--

Rough cut feedback

On the day we reviewed eachother's rough cuts, it gave me quite an insight into how much work I had done in relation to other groups.
From what was gathered after that activity, we have discovered that some of our work is in need of shortening, or indeed adding some variation to- some work will need to be mixed to make the scene more interesting for the audience, as some themes and shots perhaps continue for too long, and seems perhaps too static.
Fortunately, we have recieved much praise for the music and the camera work, however, there is much editing to do, as it appears to be our weakest attribute.
However, things such these were all expected from the beginning and will be dealt with and will be finished indefinately in the next four lessons.
However, there is one thing that was not expected, and that was the degree to which the change of scenery was taken- it appears as though whilst the first half of the peice was acceptable, there was a heavy contrast present in relation to the second half, which seemed to be "an entirely different movie altogether".
This is troubling, as it may lead to some kind of delay to the date at which this peice must be done by.

I have chosen to ignore some criticism because the comments made did not reflect on what my envisioning of the final peice to be, comments such as "the plot is confusing" and "the diagetic sound is poor" is irrelavant to me, as i do not intend for there to be any diagetic sound that was recorded at the shooting day, and not all of the shots were shown on the rough-cut quicktime file.

More work shall follow.

Daniel Swanton--

Rough cut

We have finally managed to complete more than half of our piece in the form of our rough cut.
I believe that with some hard work we could be done very soon, perhaps even in three lessons.
However, with this work comes a problem; in accordance with our feedback, some aspects must be changed (or it is at least advisable to do so) in order to make our piece more effective.
This may somewhat make our time lessen as we will need to improve that which is already there, rather than progressing with new material.

rough cut

Overcoming obstacles.

In the past few weeks I have been forced to work upon my media project alone; my partner has not been present in lessons for around four lessons. However, in that time, i believe i have accomplished much.
I have already finished the title sequence of the project and i am now endeavoring to finish the rest of the cutting.

Tom will also be needed later for work on some more filming should the need arise. (as some shots are unusable.)


Daniel Swanton--

THRILLER ROUGH CUT

Here is a rough cut of what has been done.
Some of the clips have not been added yet, but unfortunately i have had a larger workload than i had anticipated- (my partner has been away for a few lessons prior).


Daniel Swanton--

music

Whilst my partner Tom was away, I have been given the opportunity to concentrate upon the title-sequence musically for two days.
I feel as though I have reached a breakthrough and have set about going through the sequence with a fine tooth comb- without the need to check what I'm doing with Tom so that it is a joint effort.

Shooting Day

On the 5th of February, we began to film our thriller peice, we met in a cafe and finalised the planning of our characters and got the fine details on what dialogue we would have during shots.
This took around two and a half hours and when three oclock came, we drove to Haslingfield where we immediately got to work and got a friend to help us be an extra (in this case a victim).
Time was not on our side as the sun was rapidly setting, we managed fifteen minutes of filming before we were forced inside due to heavy rain (we decided to try some rain shots too, but they did not work as well as it should).

Spending around half an hour in the comfort of the derilict room, we recorded the opening scene using the rest of the time we had and the paper left in the printer, We had to work around some points such as the blind over the window did not quite cover all, there was a rug in the corner of the room that we were not allowed to remove and there were issues of space where we were going to place all of the excess equipment.

At around five oclock we were forced to stop filming and Tom went home, The extra and I waited for nightfall until continuing the rest of the shooting for the victim scenes.

thriller update

today we are going to upload the footage that we filmed yesterday of the opening sequence, we did three different shots of all the scenes and we are going to see which ones look best and use them.
we have not finished all of the filming for the murder scene as it began to rain, so we are going to postpone that scene until we are both free to finish it off, we got about half way through so it should only take about another 20 minutes to finish it off.

with the rest of the footage that we have, which includes;
- the very opening scene of the killer in his place of work,
- half of the murder scene where the detective and his assistant are examining the body of the victim,
- the killer murdering his victim showing how she dies.

to edit all of these scenes we shall be using final cut. We also need to find a suitable sound track that will go with the whole scenes.

The rundown of the opening sequence.

What we have organized so far.

The beginning: (location: Dan's room)
(Credits are shown written on the book as hand flicks back and forth to different pages[names written on separate pages])

First shot: Closeup of hand writing on an old copy of the yellow pages.
Second shot: medium shot on the killer's back.
Third shot: (Pan left) Closeup on writing hands on book.
fourth shot: static, book is slowly closed as the hands go over names and numbers. The book is slammed and the title is written on the front of the book. fadeout and the title continues to show.

The Kill scene: (Haslingfield quarry).

First shot: Music jumps and the body is shown (music stops after that, diagetic sound follows)
Second shot: Medium shot of detective looking around the horizon, the shot pans with the detective to the body and the detective endeavors to take photographs.
Third shot: Crouching mid shot from PoV of body. (mild dialogue spoken by the detective to himself) Credits shown to the right of the detective (detective on the left side of the shot), enter assistant when title has gone.
Fourth shot: long shot showing both characters side by side, with body. (dialogue)
Fifth shot: closeup on detective's face, with room to the side to show the assistant, more dialogue.
Sixth shot: closeup on assistant's face.
Seventh shot: closeup on detective's.
Eighth shot: Zoom in on the body
Ninth shot: zoom in on the eyes of the detective. (some dialogue still assistant leaves) gradual buildup of noise.

The final scene: (Dan's room)

First shot: the noise stops as a light is turned out by hand (queue Day-for-night)
Second shot: picture of man falling asleep, midshot of body on bed.
Third shot: shot of door with light coming from underneath it.(buildup of music)
Fourth shot: closeup on man's reaction
Fifth shot: Zoom in on shadows of the door.(music continues)
Sixth shot: man's eyes extreme closeup.
Seventh shot: Music stops for a moment. door is burst open and the title is shown again on black screen.

Location list

Potential locations that could be used include:
Haslingfield quarry
Longstanton golf-course
Tom Wright's house
Daniel Swanton's house

We have decided that to remove some work in asking the owners of the golf course for permission, we shall simply take shots and leave-- there should be no problem as far as shooting goes.

Here is the Animatic that our group has chosen, we have spent time going through the types of shot that we are considering shot duration, position, location and camera movements.
These are not all of the shots that we have considered, merely the beginning of the thought process of what the shots must contain in quality and diversity of camera location.

More work must and will be done later to ensure a range of shots and angles that reflect mood.
Scripting shall also be done before the shooting commences.

Further pitching ideas.

_UNLUCKY_NUMBERS_

We have decided to abandon the "running through the field" scene that we had previously envisioned, deciding it was perhaps too contrived for the plot.

Other potential scenes we could use:
1. Darkened room, low lighting, dusky setting (a use for Dayfornight so we can see characters)
2. Shots solving other crimes in Cambridge/Longroad?
3. Killing Scene? Involving the method of killing?

We've realized that being a genius mathematician, the killer would be unlikely to Knife his victims to death, so here are some alternate kill methods:
1.lures the victim into a trap and kills them by shooting them after telling them why.
2. poisons the victims with a deadly cocktail?
3. kidnaps victims and tortures them in a room of death?

Victims:
1. politicians
2. people of a certain bloodline
3. Phonebook people******

******gives Maths a chance to show, rather than just killing systematically for some kind of personal gain.

pitching feedback

we gave our idea to the class and got some of the following feedback;
- Too short perhaps?
- Some ideas and scenes might contrast with the overall plot/themes.
- Perhaps a little unoriginal.
- Some themes might be difficult to portray in a small amount of time.
- The topic is rather generic.

We have taken these ideas on board and will now spend some time revising the plot and the scenes we shall use.

Newpitching ideas.

"U(pi)lucky Numbers" Has been chosen.
Detective:tom wright
Killer:Dan Swanton
Extra-victim:

Settings: Cambridge, haslingfield, longstanton, longroad college,

Pitching.

Detective Thriller--
Potentual plots-
Detective solving a series of mathematical murders by genious killer?*
Killer that can't be found, has no fingerprints and no trace of DNA.
Killer who's next victim is the detective.
Killer who is a relation to the detective.
Killer who cannot die?

Potentual shots/locations.
Lots of shots of closeups of the killer's hands/equations.
darkened/dirty rooms candlelit? killer's identitiy is hidden by darkness.
Voice masker? longshots of the killer sitting in a darkened room at a
desk?

props: Voice masker, pictures of previous victims maths equations on sheets, fake blood for hands, suits for the detective, Notepad + pen, calling cards left on the victims bodies?

sound: slow, creepy music. potentually music put on by the killer, (CD player or tapes) maybe classical?

potential names--
U(pi)lucky (pi)umbers?
killer maths?
blood relation?

Pitching.

Two beginning ideas, Mobster Thriller- Dectective Thriller.
Detective thriller, unrealistic- few props, no adequate locations, limited cast.
Mobster Thriller chosen.

Mobster Thriller--
Potentual plots-
Killer attacking Hitman
Hitman being hunted by mob.*
Hitman doing an impossible/suicide job?
Hitman being set up by the target?

Potentual shots/locations to help with story development ideas:
Running in field (Haslingfield quarry?/Longstanton golfcourse) being chased- not certain from first few seconds. Hitman attacking hit, but it's the wrong one! and the mobguy's all like, you killed my son. Suddenly the hitman is the target.

uses of supercloseup, the super close ups will be used to see the hitman and the target's face. we will be using long distance shots to see the hitman or targets distance from eachother? freeze-frames, in order for photoshop of certain charaters.

potential props: suits for every character, plastic guns, fake blood capsules.

sounds: fast-pased music (james bond style) for the chases.

Potential names--
the after target?
the hit?
the mob relation?

Se7en

This movie opening for "se7en" includes some interesting use of extreme closeups and jerky camera movement.
This gives a somewhat disorientating effect for the audience which perhaps is reflective of the mood of the movie itself.

The titles are seemingly hand drawn, and give the impression that it has been hurredly put together- being fast moving and rather messy.

The opening scene is shrouded in mystery and darkness and you dont get a feel of what the main storyline might be, but you do get an idea of what the mood will be

"cityscape"

This is a rather long video I used to experiment with the music of the application "garage band". I tried to use a variety of musical styles within this short video, however the audio does run over the video somewhat.

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