Editing my first draft

Here a print screen of the editing process. I used final cut express which was extremely difficult to get to grips with when trying to use it for my first draft.

Things I've learnt

I've learnt how to put all my scenes together which was pretty easy process. Of simply dragging my scenes downwards and placing them together in the order that I preferred. Another thing I've learnt which was crucial was putting in a flicker effect. This involved using the cut tool and cutting scenes into small bits. Then I would space them out which would allow the screen to go black before going back to the image.

Peer assessment

After completing the first draft of my coursework I decided to get some reviews from people who have already done A2 media. A previous member of my school visited our media class and so I took the opportunity to ask him to look at my first draft and to give me a couple of things that I should do to improve.

Some of the things that Lewis said that worked well were:

• He thought that some of the pink colour filters worked well. Particularly in the second establishing shot. When I asked him to elaborate further he said that it helped to foreshadow the murder and death that was to come. He also said the by using pink it alluded to the blood that the first complete scene was filled with.
• The next thing he said that he liked was the handheld camera work. This is something that I've tried to implement subtlety into some bits of the trailer. It also shows that my research into the handheld camera work used in the paranormal activity series was paying diffidence.
• He said the editing was sharp and focused.
• Mise en scene- He liked the consistency of camera angles as well as the use of black and whites which he found profound and striking.
• One piece of constructive criticism was that although he liked the music he thought that I could sharpen some aspects of it.



Reactions to my first draft

Here is a printscreen from my youtube page with reactions from people who have viewed the first draft of my trailer.  Most of the responses offered some valuble contributions like constuctive criticism that can help me further improve my work. And other people praised some aspects that they liked from the trailer, which hopefully I will keep the same.

"supercaba"  said that they enjoyed the way there was a constant use of cuts, but most importantly they said that I used them approprietly. This is interesting because I took the risk of using a stuttering effect which meant blending establishing shots with quick cuts of the creepers victim. And its good to see that people like it. Moreover they said that the music used was perfect. I happy to hear this because when editing the trailer is was important to have a slow and mellow music in the beginning, but as soon as the trailers main scenes begin to kick into action I wanted the 2nd piece of music to be piercing and jarring.

The second valuble response was made by "hamsandwich" . She reiterated "supercaba" point on the music. As they  both enjoyed the slow and tense build up that the piano music was able to create.  However they did't like the pink colour pallete that was used primarily in the establishing shot at the beginning of the trailer. They argued that it should be a much more profound and suggested using a darker colour like red. This was a intresting idea because using red as the dominant colour in the trailer will mix well with the font colour of the superimposes which are all red. They enjoyed the use of cuts/jump cuts as it had a strong and powerful effect. However they did identify some continuality errors. Like some shots having a different colour pallete to others.

The Creeper [Teaser Trailer] Draft

Here is my first draft of my trailer. The trailer starts of with a superimpose with words " In a quite peaceful neighbourhood". I did this because it immediately sets the tone and establishes to the audience where the film will be taking place. Straight afterwards we use a establishing shot. We have intercut this with flickers from a scene that will be reviewed later on in the trailer.

Mise en scene
In terms of mise en scene like in my previous blog where i talked about dutch angle you can see that almost all our shots our comprised of this camera angle. We have done this to create a sense of uneasiness. Moreover we used it in order to conform to the conventions of the horro genre.

Lighting- Becasue it was a first draft we tried to darken some of the scenes to create a spooky atmosphere. However we did't do much with the lighting because we encountered some difficulities when trying to add some effects like some cross dissolves. But in a future draft will definetly try and improve the lighting and add a colour palette for example more blue or green into the movie.

Sound- For the majority of the trailer we used a slow and mellow piano music in order to set a gothical tone. But as soon as the trailer pics up in intensity we used a slow building violin that rapidly increased in pitch. I did this to disorientate the viewer because having a high pitch sound helps to foreshaddow the death and murder that is about to occur.

Length of trailer

Due to the changes in my story I decided to increase the length of the trailer. I've done this because firstly it will allow my trailer to feel like it has its own narrative. This is because the first half of the trailer consists of the creepers first victim being killed in his "trap" which is essentially an empty hallway. In the second half of the trailer the second victim will be systematically stalked and will eventually be led into his trap. But unlike the beginning of the trailer I will not reveal exactly what happened to her. However at the end of the trailer I will have a short clip after the name of the movie is revealed which will show blood on the creepers hand. Therefore showing that something that something bad has happened, but also leaving the rest to the audiences imaginations.

How long should do I want the trailer?
I'm aiming at the trailer being around the 2:20/2:20 mark. my justification for this is that other horror trailers like the recent "scream 4" also had a trailer with a similar length.

Micro element- Mise en scene

For our teaser trailer we have targeted the mise en scene and in particular the camera angles for our trailer. I have chosen to use dutch angles in our trailer because  it is conventional in  the horror/thriller genre. A dutch angle is a a tilt shot where the camera is titled in order to create a tension and to disorientate the viewer. It was a camera technique often used by renowned directer Albert Hitchcock.

The key to making this shot even more profound is the lighting. During the editing our our trailer I hope to make the trailer predominantly black and white because it will make the dutch angles stand out more and as a consequence the atmosphere the trailer could potentially create would be really creepy.

First day of filming

Our first day of filming was both a complicated but a extremely fulfilling day. We chose to film in locations that were primarily near out school of bishop Douglass. This was because it was only a short distance away and this allowed us up to 2 hours to focus on shooting, and it allowed us time to get the right shots.

Timing of shooting- We chose to shoot earlier in the morning for numerous reasons. Firstly because it improved the mise en scene. As it was extremely foggy and so it would create a relatively sinister atmosphere.

Here are a couple of pictures from the shoot.

In this picture is an image of "The creeper". Who is of course systematically stalking the protagonist. One of the things we noticed during filing was that the mask looked brilliant and extremely scary.



Here me and jack. I was the cameraman (director of cinematography)

Here's a picture of both Jack and Rimante. Rimante who is our protagonist in the film and she preformed well.





What problems did we face?

• Well one problem was that we had to have many takes just to get the perfect shot. This was both time consuming and we lost a lot of time.
• Also we ran out of time so it could be argued that we did't have enough time to perfect everything.

Here is a short clip of one of the scenes we filmed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKNcXhXLdUQ