Practical Production First Cut/ Feedback

Today we presented the first cut of our production to the class and gained feedback from our teacher and our peers, some of which being our target audience. We gained a range of feedback of both positive and negative. An improvement which we were told we could improve was the shot of Liam when he appeared as alone from 0.44 seconds- 0.52 seconds. When we filmed this shot we tried to create the idea that his mind was oblivious to the people who were trying to reach out to him and contact him, we thought the best technique to create this was to place him in a shot with little Mise en Scene. We came up with a number of ideas how we could improve this shot; one idea that we had is that we could use the time-lapse effect on a shot of Liam appearing in a busy environment. We hope this would show how deeply Liam has been affected by the abduction of his younger brother Alfie. Another idea we came up with would be using the ghosting effect on different shots of Liam and over lapping them into one shot. These shots can reflect the emotions Liam is suffering as a result of his Brothers abduction and his arrest. We were also told we needed to add titles to our sequence in order to improve. We are aware of this and are going to do so at a later date as we are planning to overlap them over a different set of clips.

The positive feedback we gained included music, we were told that the music in our opening sequence was effective and was a strong convention of the horror genre. The majority of our audience also enjoyed the echoed voices layered over the shot of Liam as they thought it was a very effective technique and it did in fact appear that Liam was in a ‘trance’ and was oblivious to everybody. Moving forward we are going to take the constructive criticism into consideration and improve our work to the best of our ability. We had issues when exporting our production which effected the speed duration of particular clips; this issue was explained to our audience before presenting our footage so they took this into consideration when assessing our work. The date for our first cut to be completed by was delayed due to exams. At this stage we are behind schedule as we originally predicted this day as our final completion date. We don't see this as an issue as we are able to finish filming within the next week and will continue to edit in lesson and leisure time.

Production Update

Today our main focus was on editing the scene where Liam appears oblivious to his surroundings. We used a zoom shot of Liam against a plain background and the camera gradually zooms into to his face creating an extreme close up. We used a ghosting effect which blurs the shot slightly we hope this creates the sense that’s Liam’s mind is lagging. We copied this shot and overlay it on top of the other moving it slightly to the left further emphasising the ‘mind blur’ that Liam is trapped in due to the disappearance of his younger brother Alfie. We also cut and editing the ‘name calling’ voiceovers according. We layered them above one and other on premiere creating an overlapping effect. For some of the voiceovers we added an echoing effect to create the sense of however long people try to communicate with Liam he continues to ignore them; the repetition also emphasises how hard Liam’s family members/friends are trying to reach out to him. 
 

Production Update

Before the holidays we were ahead of schedule so we had previously recorded the voice overs which we required for our opening sequence, these included the police arrest, interview and name callings to Liam. Initially we had scheduled to film these clips over the holidays; however we had already done so beforehand. We took the opportunity to further put ourselves ahead of schedule therefore we worked on filming close up shots of possessions of Alfie’s. The purpose of these shots was that when we came to editing them that we could overlay titles on top of the shots. These shots included filming Alfie’s toys such as figures, cars etc. We also took the opportunity to film the notice board in Alfie’s room. This reflects a young boy’s life well as it contains holiday photos, drawings and certificates. Finally we filmed a picture which Alfie had drawn. We filmed this in low key light and highlighting the drawing with the use of an artificial spotlight in order to create a suspicious gloomy effect. We are now in a position where we are still ahead of schedule which puts us at an advantage. 

Production Update

Example of shots where continuity is broken

Today we were in preparation for our first cut deadline. We spent the majority of our time and attention on making sure the transitions between shots were smooth and created continuity.  We were aware some shots broke continuity as our sequence flows from different time periods e.g. past and present. However at points in our sequence we want to the continuity to appear as broken for example during home videos. This will create a ‘rough’ effect which emphasises the fact that they are home videos, as many videos which are filmed on a camera at home are paused and played according to the event, therefore in this case broken continuity works to our advantage. 

We also tried our best to make all the shots appear as credible by cutting out any unnecessary footage so the characters appear in their natural setting where they look as if they are comfortable. Finally today we adapted the film grain canvas to make the videos further appear as old. We didn't export our production today as the deadline of our first cut was extended to next Friday. This is an advantage to us as we are able to spend more time on editing the footage which we already have.

Production Update

Today we spent time editing some more of our footage that we had filmed on the 9^th of December. We still had clips remaining that we wanted to be seen as home videos, so in order to create this effect we cropped them down and split them into three, then deleted the middle section. As well as editing our footage, we also made some voice recordings in which we were going to later include as a voice over (non diegetic sound); over the top of a scene. These recordings consisted of different people trying to get Liam’s attention, and it will be played over the top of the shot where Liam is oblivious to his surroundings. We will experiment with these various recordings and consdier overlaying the clips or maybe adding an echo effect to some.  

Production Update

Today we began to edit to the first section of our opening sequence which we filmed on the 9^th December. Firstly we began to edit the shot which show Alfie receiving and opening a present from Liam. We noticed that this shot was quite long and appeared as boring. We made the decision to split the clip into three parts, we deleted the middle section, we believed by doing so it made it appear as a home video as it shows pauses and ‘rough’ filming. In addition we zoomed in on various points of the clip which also further made the shot appear more like a home video. We also added the music (non-diegetic sound) over the top of the videos which we chose earlier on in the project. There is no ambient or diegetic sound in the scene which makes the videos appear as sinister as you aren't aware of what the characters are saying etc. The addition of the music makes the videos appear as creepy and mysterious which is the atmosphere in which we are hoping to create. We placed an old style video countdown at the beginning of our sequence so it indicates to the audience that the video clips being shown are old; it also raises questions to the audience as to why they are being shown and what relevance it has to the film. We still remaining slightly ahead of schedule which is a positive as it allows us more time to edit. 

Production Update

Today we filmed the opening section to our production. We focused mainly on filming the home video feature first. The purpose of these videos are to show the strong relationship between the two brothers. The videos included Alfie and Liam playing with toys such as a train set and lego opening a Christmas present which shows how Alfie imitates  his brother as he is copying his actions and then finally drawing a picture on the chalkboard which reveals a subtle yet vital message to the film which is discovered later in the extract. We filmed another section to our sequence which shows Liam affected after the arrest. This shot shows a zoom shot from the torso (medium long shot) into the eyes (extreme close up).  Once we finished filming these shots we uploaded them and converted the shots using Format Factory into MP4 files, by doing this it meant we are ahead of schedule, this puts us at an advantage as it means we are able to spend more time editing the footage.