Filming (After School)

was quite an interesting experience today although unfortunately we didn't have the sufficient time that we needed due to the battery of the camera running out. However we were really pleased as we mastered the usage of the tripod and although we haven't been able to look at our current filmed footage ( due to this inconvenience that we faced) we tried out as many angles as we could with the short period that we did have.As I entered the field the first thing i noticed was that in the center was a ring of trees bare of leaves and gnarled which really gave me the sense of mythology- it seemed so mysterious. However when researched it simply said that it these are purely coincidental and are known as a grove. What i also liked about this particular area of our location was that as if by contrast was a spattering of Daffodils in full bloom which would perhaps provide a sense of false security as well as a secluded area of brambles which were extremely sharp and deadly. Perhaps we could have a juxtaposition shot of Zoe hiding behind the brambles with a shot of me sniffing daffodils looking peacefully serene and at one with nature- to show the contrast between the two characters dispositions. 
Our first shot entailed the usage of  a high angle of me surrounded by the ring of trees, looking around in wonderment with childlike tendencies to show the immaturity of my personality.Maybe we can have a chorus of birds in the background ( non-diegetic sound but not appearence) to demonstrate my isolation as im completely lost in the wilderness. Is there perhaps another way we can symbolise the desolation that im facing ? I may research ways of doing this later if i have enough time.
We also captured an extreme closeup of the petal/ closeup of the flower itself to show a reflection of purity ,serenity and a glimmer of hope as if im wishing for rescue.
Due to the battery loss we had to stop our filming which was really unfortunate as we didnt capture many shots but we did generate a great deal of ideas which we may wish to incorperate in our later stages of filming. These are the inclusion of the following:

• Low point of veiw angle shot of Zoe swinging her legs in the tree to give the audience a false sense of security by implying that she isnt a sinsister, evil character ( though she is) but also to display her dominance over me if coupled with a high angle shot of me to demonstrate my inferiority and vunerability. The lighting here could be given a higher contrast( as in lighter than many of the other frames) with  the soundtrack increasing in tempo the more she swings her legs to show that something bad is about to happen. Perhaps we could also make the music seem more jagged and erractic, by tweaking the audio levels or i could research a program which entails the usage of tweaking these functions.
• Me in the background sniffing daffidols with two daffidols in the foreground.At this point we could enhance the sound of background noises to give a naturalistic effect, subverting against the surrealistic narrative which we have entailed. If we go on YouTube and search these noise effects , convert them and then apply them to certain areas of our film- this will again seem more realistic.
• Me behind a withered tree as if im playing peek- a boo ( again to display the childishness of my disposition and how im exposed to vunerability as im not sure as to what is occuring. If we use this then we will need quick, snappy shots as a symbolisation  of the severity of the events  taking place.
• An over the shoulder shot of me as i'v realised that Zoe is lurking in the shadows, to show me frozen in shock as i think that i am secure in this desolate wilderness.

Editing 5

After school yesterday Ana and I did some editing, coming up with some discoveries which has really left us feeling panicked considering we have only now got 19 days left. We began by carefully analysing our current clip realising that alot of our footage desperately needs to be re filmed as well as generally correcting all the mistakes we can do without having to replace shots. We started by the usage of the fade in within the primary fame. Ana noted, that the red contrast used on the last frame of the bear, was too dark a shade in hue, though the camerawork within was quite good. Possibly if we revert it back to it's original contrast it would look more realistic and less blurry with better quality of footage.We also noticed that for some reason  random flashes of lights kept appearing in the following frames:

1. Both the last and 2nd to last frame
2. Between the two easels whereI am drawing
3. A red flash in the dream sequence both in the middle and the end
4. A flash where Ana's sit down

You can see by the evidence displayed here, there is alot of faults within our film, which should be high in our priority list to organize. What we regret is that we filmed so early that we should have had plenty of time to re film certain frames and yet didn't use our time wisely.

Our film has several problematic factors:

1. Shaky camera movements when filming the sleeping scene and certain elements of the dream sequence, such as the panning movement around Ana (we should change this to tracking instead as well re filming it) where Ana is sitting in the grass and the camera cuts half of her head off and doesen't put her in the center of the frame despite her being the supposed focal point within the frame and a cape shot where Zoe's head gets cut off screen
2. Violation of match- on action in the following shots: A particular easel frame where I am drawing and the next frame has my hand off the page which is inappropriate and does not look good for the examiner, a shot where the camera walks round Zoe and then randomly cuts to a shot using both a different angle and placement as she is at the side, at 1minute 11seconds 14ms my position changes from a wide shot to a side angle depsite the importance of me being in the same position
3. Bad use of Jump cuts- where Ana's hair is blowing in the wind (we have cut this) and it jumps backwards then forwards/ where the camera rotates around the bear (also cut)
4. Bad use of zoom- 5 Seconds into the zoom it stops halfway for a second and then continues (cut)
5. Inappropriation of Mise-en-scene: one particular frame with Ana and Zoe in it needs to be filmed again as you can visibly see the school tennis court and pylon (which is clear to the examiner that it has been filmed at school which doesn't really show ideally seclusion and wilderness) and shots which has visibility of Ana wearing a black shirt which is not apparent in other shots 
1. What we need to imrpove on;
1.  re film the running sequence as it jumps back by mistake
2. check our primary footage
3. film Ana collapsing in the grass
4. Change some of the narrative
5. Add some dialogue to our film though minimal in its quantity

We have 1 minute 19 seconds of footage so there is still plenty of space to refilm frames/ add new footage. As well as this we looked at effects for texts by double clicking which came up with fades (fade in/ fade out/ roll/ crawl options/timing/frames  and pre roll).

Editing 4

In Miss Martin's lesson we decided to create a guideline of what we needed to do most within the lesson. We watched our animatic where we realised that we only had 30 seconds of drawings but the material we did have too lengthy. We need to cut them down to appropriate length as well as the inclusion of more drawings, so that it is a realistic representation of our own film. However the group disagreed, stating that it does not have to be an exact scale replica of our final piece. We then ordered it into the correct positions as well as setting properties in the PC files and folders. After this we enabled the use of different transitions to see which we felt was simplistic yet effective in it's usage which included the following:

• Shear- Similar to Smear, a blurry effect which transcends subtly into the next frame
• Smear- Blurs the picture out and looks effective on certain slides but not good for excessive use 
• Roll-Looks cool but probably inappropriate  
• Shake- Could be used in certain frames to depict disruption but overuse would result in the audience concentrating more on effects than actions
• Wave- I disliked this effect as it seemed a little bit tacky to me and it doesn't follow the professionalism within effects
• Zoom- simple and direct, with the right incorporation it could work really well

Charley liked both Zoom and Wave the best but we want our film to look professional following the traditional style of a movie. However its good to experiment, but at this stage of the film's augmentation we need to think realistically and be very critical as to what makes the cut and what doesn't. In the sleeping scene we used Zoom which appeared to evoke some relevance to our theme but did not work in the dream sequence, so Charley used the inclusion of Wave with Shake to show disruption of character . However I said we don't want to many effects at once as it's better in some cases to use the theme of simplicity, with the film evoking the right message than too many effects, making the film look messy and chaotic in a negative manner. We had a thought and decided that we should start doing after school editing sessions after school as we only have about 20 days to complete our work 

I was then showed the text which had been chosen, with Ana and I both agreeing that a standardised font such as Times New Roman or Ariel Black font would be more suitable to show the conventions of a true movie. Charley tried out a plain text with shaded effect, compression as well as being stretched out and a reduction of size from 60 down to 51 Ariel Narrow. However this was still wrong for our movie so this time we had a reduction down to size 37 Century Gothic Regular  which already made the film seem more professional despite the minority of the change.

Editing 3

In this double lesson Mr Oswick said that we were allowed to continue working on our editing as we have found out that our first deadline is on the 30th March, with our final deadline being the 13th of May. We started off the lesson by the deduction of all background sound, through the application of  volume clip volume  at - 00dB on our film frames, so we can finally begin to input the usage of either recorded sound or founded sound next lesson if we either wish to do so or even have enough time to carry out this task. As well as this we could also introduce sounds in terms of background noises (e.g. Wind) and characters (e.g. sound of the characters footsteps enhanced by asynchronous/ synchronization ). We also looked at Image control (containing brightness, contrast, hue and saturation), Motion (position, scale and rotation), Opacity (fade in and fade out) as well as Balance ( bypass and balance ). What was interesting was that there were many possibilities that we could experiment with, so we adjucated that our first exploration would entail the use of Image Control to improve both the quality and contrast of our frames , to ensure it's not seen as bad filming . The easel scenes we put the brightness levels of -2.4 with a contrast of 1425, hue of 0.0 and saturation of 1000 . Overall it emphasized the easel in a difinitive manner by giving an asthethic appearence as well as providing easy veiwing. Initially in our sleeping frames we used -1.8 brightness, -107.7 contrast with default use of saturation and hue but it seemed quite importinate so we thought that -6.6 brightness alongside the same levels of contrast, making our film seem as though it is using higher quality definition . Next we experimented  on a slide which incooperated a quick flash of light, using brighness of -24.5 and a contrast of 200.0 which allowed the picture to become almost translucent  with saturation of 100.0 .This gave the effect of making the light seem blinding  and piercing, demonstrating perhaps a premonition of my loss of innocence. In the end we decided that a darker picture may look more frightening so we tried brightness of -22.4, contrast of -112.9 , neutral hue and saturation levels of 100.0 which almost gave the feel of a painting as though it was a depiction of altered reality. We really like this method , especially the way it changed certain features such as the darkness of Ana's hair, really standing out against the black and white background. For the last 2 frames we used brightness of 36.7 as the previous image control usage proved to ( due to the natural lighting) be futile as it became a differnet hue to the others. However by inputting the number above it now fits the pattern and flows in synchronized rhythm. Moving on from contrasts, we looked at video effects to experiment with the use of text addition which we tried on a new slide. We were quite surprised as to the amount of options  available such as fonts, styles, shadow effects , colour properties ect, but we only had a quick look as we would go back later and check it out. For now however we needed to carry on making changes to the footage, so after further rendering we watched it again, as it is important to view your work incessantly due to problems which may occur such as frames being out of sync or violation of Match On Action. One particular frame which stood out was where Ana's hunched over in the grass, her back facing the audience with Zoe crouched over in the distance. The grass in this scene was darker in brightness in Zoe's section than Ana's to possibly portray the imbalnace as well as arising conflict between their two characters - Good and Evil. At this point our total time came to 1 minute 50 seconds , so we carried on with task of deducting footage, that dosen't neccessarily flow within our piece. An example of this is where Zoe is marching which abruptly transcends into long regal strides which subverts against Match on action, nso we cut out the 1st section of the frame to see whether it would flow after this transformation. We realised that after watching it again, that it jumped back so in the end we decided to cut the frame out completely, ensuring that we only keep the best footage material.  Mr Oswick suggested to the class that if shots aren't right then we should reshoot them as we want to get the best grade possible. Charley suggested that if we were to re-film that perhaps we could do the frame where Zoe is lurking in the grass behind Ana. So her basic idea was to subvert our traditional character placement, having Ana face the audience with Zoe behind me in the background. Mr Oswick then watched the film and when asked for critisms stated that he wasn't sure as to what was purposely filmed badly and what was just bad filming. Also he commented that we can use timelines to do this referring to the range of fade options using right click.In fact there was even an oppurtunity to use an expansion of  time which could be used in conjunction with the synchronization of the control exercised between Ana and Zoe (being controlled as puppets). Referring back to the fades however we used a fade out in this particular frame, transcending into a fade in on the very last frame. In fact this proved the right descion to do as the transitions are much smoother now. We then magnified the timeline to see the pictures so we could continue the application and noticed that the sleeping scenes were still a real problem as the shots are so jumpy which may be a result of the usage of a handheld camera. Zoe said that perhaps we could elongate the scene to smooth over the jumpcuts though im not sure we can be able to do this but we can certainly give it try. She also thought of the ideal of using a shear or smear effect between each bedroom scene to show the laspe of time and predominatly just to show that Ana is sleeping.  We chose a black and white italic block font, with 3d shadow although now thinking back on it.  Whilst we were here we changed the direction of the shadow , looked at the ghost effect which again looked cool but not nesseraily standard procedure. Zoe also thought that we should alternate the alignment of font right than left and so on .

Editing 2

We really felt that in this lesson  we used our time efficiently and it was extremely beneficial in completing our tasks which were set for today, as well as additional research and findings. Firstly we began analysing the rendering of our video, checking to see where we needed to make adjustments and experimentations in our sequences (luckily the video had successfully rendered which enabled easy veiwing of the video which made it seem as though the sequences were flowing into each other). Primarily we noticed after watching the full clip, that we needed to cut the end frame which entails a bear which is dark in contrast, as it didn't flow in comparison to the rest of the movie. After we had made this minor adjustment we watched it again from the start. Also Charley thought of having our title sequence at the end which does subvert traditional movie discourse but it could enagage the audiences attention more easily. Maybe when it gets to this section in the film, we could put in a recorded sound of Ana screaming as the title is apparant, to shows the possesion of Ana's character. It could also provide a more ambigious ending which is what our film is all about as throughout the film the watchers are constantly having to piece together the narrative, as the implicature is not clear.  Charley also thought of the  having our names alongside a characters whilst the action is playing, to just go straight into the movie, quickening the pace of our footage as well as clearly identifying who is who. This is because we are all playing characters different to our actual selves so the audience is able to distinguish the differences between all of our roles. As well as this it generally makes our film look more asthetic and professional. We thought that a good place to put them was after the frame where Ana and Zoe are slung to the side as this provides a sense of dubiety as well as introducing the start of the film.   We also decided on no credits as these are usually used at the end of the film.  We then reffered back to the idea of the old fashioned countdown  but werent sure as to whether it was a form of copyright, so we checked with Mr Oswick and he adjucated that it wasn't.  An input of a ticking noise of while this countdown is occuring. Instantly we found one which although different from our previous findings (this one was brown in it's hue instead of black and white) actually had more of an impact as had poor quality due to the static of the sequence. However it was very impressive and we really feel that if we can somehow embed it on to Premeire then it would really show that we have pushed boundaries (as at the moment we are not even sure that it is possible to do) Charley stated that instead of using it at the start of the film we could use it to start the dream sequence, to trick the audience into thinking its the end of the film but in fact it's only just began. We then borrowed headphones from Mr Oswick so we could listen to our footage and found that we needed to blank space our background sound. We looked at ' Broken Music Box' which was 1 minute 30 seconds, which we listened to twice and realised that it wasn't relevant prior to our film narrative as it was very harmonic and melodic instead of the sinister dark edged feel we were hoping to invoke. Next we looked at 'Haunted Music Box' (1 minute 31 seconds)  which on the contrary was  abominal despie being high pitched in it's tone but this made it seem more sinister. The use of the pace within it was profoundly clever as it was slow which like it's namesake seemed haunting and generally gives the audience an indication of the genre. We then listened to the audio of ' Scary Music Box'  that had  a steadier and faster paced rhythm with a mixture of what seemed windchimes and xylophones. Miss gave us valuable advice and said that personally she preferred the latter as she believes that a slower rhythm increases tension more than a faster one as it seems more negatively composed in repsonse. We agreed as we like the overall effect that it gave us, as it really emotionally challenges you, making you think.  Finally we looked at another audio file which was 'The Teddy Bear's picnic' Played on the accordian but after a few seconds of listening we thought we would just use the 'Haunted Music Box' as out of the three we thought this was the most relevant and frightening. 

Animatic Storyboard

Fortunately we were given  Mr Oswick's lesson on Thursday to carry on with our coursework, giving us the opportunity to continue editing as well as attempting to continue the animatic. Firstly we saved our file as an Mpg, which Sir said would render for several minutes, in order to allow us to preview our footage with smooth transitions [instead of the jolty footage which Adobe usually has]. Whilst this was happening we decided we would try to complete our animatic which we needed to get that finished. Our primary thought was that watching the playback showed us that the frame durations were out of sync, due to the long shots, making the transitions appear quite jolty - despite us wanting flowing transitions for easy viewing. So we decided that we should cut the shots accordingly prior to the events which are taking place for example: the panning shot around Ana in the grass was an estimation 16 seconds long. As well as this that shot would need to be shorter to create a snappy approach, quickening the pace of the film.  We also need to add a soundtrack which we feel will convey the theme of our piece. Maybe an instrumental solo which is haunting and melodic or a more sinister, jagged and surreal piece could work just as well. Secondly we experimented with several factors to see if they would be effective for our piece.This included image control ,where we used rotation transformations to align our frames. However it turned out that it didn't have much of an effect, instead being extremely subtle opposed to our wishes of a dramatic effect - perhaps a sense of irony? Next we tried the opacity fade out alongside the experimentation of the audio mixer balance alignment audio 1-0.0 on Adobe, realising that the mixers were unbalanced thus setting all the audio levels to 0 to maintain equality and to ensure the smoothness of our animatic. Our next job was to look at entertainment edit to start our animatic where we previewed the following: Showtime (use of the primary colour red which would engage the audience), Adventure (a vast green woodland which looked realistic) and night vision (quite simply a navy blue looking background with enhanced definition). Finally in this lesson we transferred over to YouTube where we looked at old fashioned countdowns to start our movie, making it seem more authentic and old fashioned and discovered an extremely good black and white reel which was actually used in black and white movies.

Editing 1

On Monday lesson we continued the process of filming which included editing the rest of our footage. Due to Charley not being here, we decided that all of us would contribute to the session, as we felt that our blog posts were essentially up to date, the fundamental focus being to finish our editing. Firstly we played back our footage, as well as rewinding it afterwards to ensure that transitions were smooth and flowing to display continuity editing. Once we had looked over footage we had realised that our main issues where rooted in the primary scene due to poor lighting, as well as  the absence of smooth footage . This is because we frequently deducted the footage, without taking into account the film as a whole rather than an individual frame. What we must do is experiment with slide transitions, alongside the completion of the footage, which when done can be perfected through touch ups.  Next we looked at the primary scene in terms of footage deduction, where we started off with the teddy bear and realised that we had too many frames, taken up by this prop (30 seconds as an estimation). To ensure we captured the essence of the film (in terms of the teddy bear frames), we looked at two which were filmed under different lighting- one was bathed in a blurry red glow whereas the other had the same blurry quality but was more darker in contrast. We decided that we would keep the first frame as we felt it would invoke more fear as well as providing a contrast towards the rest of the footage in this scene - due to the burst of colour in comparison to the darker frames. Next we went back to the dream sequence where we cut several frames,  mainly those which didn't look right in our piece. This included several facial expressions which had been filmed unconvincingly (which may have been a result of the numerous distractions we faced) part of the extreme closeup on Ana's face looking frightened as it was taking up to much footage and finally our end footage, where Ana and Zoe are in synchronized movement (we cut off the very last bit as instead of ending with their heads raised high, their heads are jolted to the side to demonstrate that they are just puppets). We then transferred over to the singular frame where the canvas displays the ominous words' its coming' and decided to place it at the beginning, to immediately show the audience the genre (fantasy/horror).  Our footage is now at 2 minute and roughly 34 seconds which means that we still need to cut out footage , as we need to put in credits as well as our title (courtesy of working title films). As we had basically finished all of our footage we decided to look at editing effects, transitions and titles quickly to give us a rough idea of what we wanted to put in. For effects we looked at several including: doors, card flip, page curl, shear and smear where we decided that the most proficient and professional was shear , which we accessed from new blue motion blend (adobe premiere software). The reason we thought shear was the others we felt although cool aesthetically, wouldn't actually appear so in our piece. We then looked at transitions and effects (colour) to which we thought weren't suited to our film, although I did like the colour use of the line drawing but the others did not think the same. Finally we looked at titles and picked out the best ones and found that we liked music video text, night vision and blue notes credits. This could be accompanied by a ticking clock to represent the passing of time, a key film within our film.