Final product- Thriller opening sequence

Burning onto a disk

This week we have been editing in our lessons, frees, lunch hour and after school to make sure the final product is fully complete. 
And in today's lesson we completed the psychological thriller opening sequence and burnt it to a disk. 

Final feedback

We got positive and negative feedback from our class. I have produced a animation on 'GoAnimate' showing some of the comments we got from our audience. 

From the comments we made several improvements: 

     Some of which we intended on doing anyway such as adding a soundtrack. But both our feedback from the A2 and AS level students recommend that we should use a childlike soundtrack. We took this advice and it has helped us narrow down our search for an audio clip. However, even though we agree with this suggestion we do not want the childlike soundtrack to create a sinister horror theme.  

We are also going to add audio in on the end shot make a connection between the mother and daughter showing how the relationship has been broken.

We also made small changes to the colour, transitions and duration. 

There were some other feedback suggested by our audience, however we didn't make all the changes as we thought it didn't connote the meaning we were trying to suggest and these comments had been stated/supported by several people. 

Development of editing- audio

Today we focused on the audio:
We uploaded the voiceover and placed it over the video footage. We used the trim and blade tool to ensure the audio and video work together and create meaning.

We also added non-copyright 'Steel and Seething' music from incompetech
http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/?keywords=medusa to create a tense atmosphere in the scene of the child alone in the wood/stream location.

We also added a gentle childlike soundtrack and diegetic sounds to play quietly underneath the starting scene with the voiceover. This then followed onto the scene of the child playing in the garden. The copyright free 'Promises to Keep' music contrasted well with the 'Steel and Seething' soundtrack showing the difference in time. 

We added non-diegetic sound of a cymbal to the ident and then faded the sound of the cymbal out and faded in the diegetic sounds of the woods. We then reversed the audio clip of the cymbal, faded the sound back into the video, so as the ident appeared so did the audio of the cymbal. 

Filming audio

On Saturday 23rd November: we filmed the audio (voiceover) for our thriller extract. We planned to use the sound recorder equipment but it appeared to be unclear so we decided to use my iPhone which was a success, and the quality was much better. 
The voiceover stated:
"Poppy Jones.
For nine months I dreamed of buying her pretty dresses, taking her to be first ballet class, reading her bed times stories whilst she cuddled up with her teddies, kissing her goodnight...
But that's not my Poppy Jones.
This is-"

Feedback from A2 media students

To help us improve our thriller opening sequence we got feedback from A2 media students. This was helpful as they know the terminology and software and most of all did the same task last year in their preliminary task. Also, if they recommended any improvement that we didn't know how to do, they could show us helping us to develop our editing skills. 
In today's lesson we watched the Year 13's AS level work, especially emphasising how they produced their idents. They gave us advice on what they found useful when they produced their work.

We had positive feedback stating:

• "Changing the opacity on the three teddy bears was effective." 
• "The ident creates disorientation and links well to a thriller genre."

We also had feedback suggesting improvements:

• "You could change the lighting, and make it darker to show the change in location and narrative."
• "Needs music. You could add a childlike soundtrack to create a sinister mood but be careful not to turn it into a horror." " You could add a tense 'thriller' soundtrack when in the different location to keep it away from a horror genre and again to show the change in narrative."
• "Include a mother and daughter shot to show the connection between the two and show the broken relationship."

     We have now gone on to make these alterations and improvements. We had previously changed the lighting in the scene of the mother in her bedroom and the girl playing in the garden. We changed the saturation and exposure, making the shot brighter/whiter creating a positive atmosphere in these scenes. The narrative starts at the equilibrium with the mother comfortably in her bedroom, then it moves on to show the disequilibrium via the child's strange behaviour.
     Since the feedback we have recorded the voiceover, and found the other sound clips we want to use in the opening sequence. We intend to edit the audio in the week of the 25th-29th. I will upload a audio post discussing the things we intend to do or have done.
     Also, we took into consideration the comment about showing the connection/relationship between the mother and daughter via a two shot. But, we did not want to go back and film again as the mise en scene would be different and this was the only thing we would have to re-film. So, we have decided to merge the two shots of the child picking up her necklace and the mother holding her necklace, to show how the child has taken something away from her mother and has broken the relationship.

Representations- ident

To track our understanding and progress in class, I was given the question:
'Explain the representations that you have created in your ident and how you have made them.'
So my teachers could check to see if I was keeping on track with my work.

     Firstly, in the creation of our product we had to produce an ident which must suit the thriller genre. Therefore, we have researched other ident productions to see the different film genres different idents target. The majority of thriller ident used dark colours (mainly black and white) to emphasise the mystery and secrecy of a thriller. When editing we used this technique of draining the colour from the footage to connote mystery and to create a negative atmosphere. Also, we used a range of camera movements to make the audience feel disorientated and vulnerable. We started the extract with a tilt, moving from the base of the trees to the top making the audience feel small/intimidated. Another camera movement we used was the use of the pan of the tree leaves looking directly up at from the ground. When editing we sped up the pan to make the audience feel confused/disorientated mimicking the confusion of the plot often used in a thriller genre. In addition we used a tilt travelling back down the trunk of the tree to the roots where the 'HW' productions name appears. The movement up, around and down the tree imitates Todorov's structure which is generally used in thriller extracts. It mimics the stage of this structure with the base of the tree being the equilibrium, the movement up the tree being the disequilibrium, the pan of the branches and leaves being the recognition of disruption, and the movement back down the tree as the attempt to repair. The last shot finishes back down at the base of the tree representing the return to equilibrium. We have not yet completed the editing of the ident, we need to include sound to create meaning and a negative mood for the rest of the film. 

Development of editing- video

During editing we had to develop our basic skills with the simple tools like blade, trim and zoom. We had used these previously when editing our AS prelim task and I have used the Final Cut Pro when editing last year in GCSE Media. 
There are several other editing techniques we have became more advanced on when editing the video. Some of the editing we did was: 

Changed lighting Saturation and exposure.
In some shots we did this to make the footage clearer and others we did it to create a purpose effect. For example we wanted the white/high key lighting in the scene of the mother as it shows how she is blind to reality and lives in her own 'perfect' world and shuts any problems out. Hence how her daughter is always shown outside, emphasising the problems within their relationship. We decided to use high key lighting in the main scene of the mother and low key lighting in the main scene of the daughter to show the divide between the two characters.

Added transitions.
In the screen shot on the left we decided to added transitions such as the 'cross fade' to create a link between the two locations. Using transitions also makes the extract more interesting and allows us to develop our editing skills.

Changed speed.

Changing the speed is useful to make the extracts quality better and to create meaning. It helps reduce the sequence if it is too long/boring but doesn't break the continuity of the footage like it would if you used the blade or trim tool to cut it out. We also used the speed tool to make the camera movement smoother, to minimise any unsteadiness in the footage.
During the ident we decided to speed up the clip to create meaning, by making the clip below faster we could create disorientation in the audience supporting the thriller genre and how they often portray mystery and confusion.

Added effects and filters.
This changed the mood of the thriller opening sequence and again allowed us to develop upon our editing skills. In the shot on the left we used lighting effects such as 'Numerik' to create a negative tone and to show the difference in time and location. Other effect's such as the use of flashes created confusion in audience which is a stereotypical feature used in thriller genres.



Changed opacity levels.
We changed the opacity to make the shot of the teddy bear more dramatic, it highlights the child repetitive and strange behaviour as she walk around the garden dragging the teddy behind her. We have used opacity levels in other areas of the opening sequence to help integrate shots to link meaning- for example we show a shot with the mothers necklace in her hand integrated with a shot of the daughter unhooking her necklace from the tree. In editing we changed the opacity levels so the two shots were overlapping each other making it appear that the child took the necklace out of the mothers hand showing emphasising their broken and distant relationship. 


Added titles.
It is important to have titles in a opening sequence as all opening/title sequences include the name of the extract, names of the producers and they are often used in an ident. In our extract we used titles for our names, the extract name and for extra information such as the date to clearly show the difference in time. There are several different type of font and colours you can use, to get the effect that you want to represent in your extract.

Changed the scale.
This can be used for several reasons: For example if the shot is wrong. If you had a close-up and wanted an extreme close-up you could change the scale and zoom into the shot. 
If there was something unwanted in the shot e.g. a piece of filming equipment. Using the scale or crop tool you could remove some of the shot.

Many of the techniques and alterations you make in editing should be correct when filming the footage for example the shot type. But, editing ensures the footage can be perfected and you don't have to film it again.
Editing also allows you to add effects that would be possible in filming.
From editing the footage my skills on Final Cut Pro and the Mackintosh computers have developed and I am much more confident with the software.  

Upload footage

We completed all of our filming over the half term, so when we returned to Westwood we could upload all our footage and start the editing process.