G321 Foundation Portfolio in Media: 2015

Message to Moderator

The brief I was given was to create the opening scene to a Horror film that had to include titles such as "Directed By" during the opening as well as a main title that would com up to show people the name of the film. This had to last at least two minutes and our film we created lasted 2:30 with finalised editing. Our film was titled "The Horror in the Woods" as it was meant to be all based around the woods and what happened one night if we were to make it a full film.

Question 6

Question 5

Question 2

Question 2 evaluation from Josh-West

Question 7 (Padlet)

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Question 7

Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Looking back on our preliminary task I feel like that we have learnt to take work that is given to us more seriously. I think we have improved on this because during parts of our preliminary we were just learning to use the editing software so we were joking about with the edits. This ended up making our Preliminary task more random and we tried to make it "Funny" I feel like this brought our marks down as we were meant to make a crime drama and that type of genre would be serious with very little effects. With our full product however, we have improved a lot in this. We learnt that you can't just joke about with the edits, which we feel like we have improved on mainly because we already know what all the edits do and we realized that you couldn't just have random jokes in a psychological Horror. This time, we didn’t use that many effects apart from on the title and all of the effects used on the title were relevant to make it look professional, this included the blood that related to the horror genre that we chosen as it also followed the death of the character at the end this therefore relates with this as the blood symbolizes death that therefore relates with the horror genre and also adds an eerie atmospheric feeling. This helped us progress a lot from our preliminary task.

Another thing I feel like we have improved on since our Preliminary task was storyline. Our preliminary task didn't have a clear story as I heard someone say they didn't even understand what was going on and why someone was being questioned. We wanted to keep everything a mystery and realized after filming that you can't keep everything a mystery (for example, why someone is being killed and why that specific person is being questioned). This is why in our full product we have decided to keep it a mystery during the opening and then later try to add hints as to who he is and why he is chasing these two people, confirming it in the ending scene but still leaving the audience with more questions so they don't get bored. This has greatly improved our full product compare to our preliminary task and helped us progress a lot.

Question 4

Question 1

Question 1 from HarryScarbrough

Question 3

Question 3 From Harry Scarbrough

Finalized Timeline

This is the Finalized Timeline of our Film opening, this shows all the different parts we have used to create out film, all the separate shots. The center blue boxes are each individual shot that was used. The Long Blue box we put at the top of the timeline was to add a cinematic border across the full film instead of having to edit each shot to have one in. The Blue boxed randomly along the timeline are where each Title is placed and the Green boxes along the bottom of the timeline are the sounds we have used so the opening wasn't just recorded sounds. The Two boxes on the very end of the timeline are the title screen for the film and the directed by page.

These Gray boxes in Between the shots at the beginning and in the two scenes where the hidden character is talking on the phone shows where a transition has been added. This particular Transition that is in the picture above was to Blur slightly and then go back to him talking. The reason we done this was because we took separate shots of The character talking and he wasn't sat in the same position so we tried blurring it part way so it wasn't just randomly jumping shots of the same person talking.

These two Images are showing all the effects that are used on just the final title screen. This was to make it look professional and not just a static title that looks boring. I feel like it isn't overdone and works, the audio underneath might be a bit much but the visuals of the title work very well in mine and the groups opinion.

Storyboard (Finalized)

This is the Finalized version of our Storyboard. This is what we will be going off when it comes to filming and if we can't film any parts for whatever reason then we will have to improvise and come up with the new ideas on the spot, come back to film another day or see how it works out and edit what we have to see if any of it makes sense. The bottom of the text has been cut out for some reason and I had to photocopy the two halfs separately which is why there is a random line in the middle of the page and the bottom of the right hand side is missing.

Final Cut (Extended)

This is the final version of the opening we made which has been extended to add more information in as to why this has happened. This extended version adds a few more shots to show what happened to the camper and what was meant to happen to him later on in the film.

QUESTION 6

Question 6

From the construction process we have learned a few new edits on final cut pro. Most of these edits were used in creating the title effects at the end of the opening. One of the ones that weren’t used in the title was the overlaying black bars above and below the film. We already knew how to make the titles overlay so that wasn’t really a new technology. I’d say the best effects we used are the ones on the title since we Used about six of them to make it look unique. We changed the colour of the original title from a hardwood background and blue ink to a black background and red ink. We then edited the shading of the red to make it look like blood. The handheld effect was used to add the slight shake, Glory was used to sharpen and highlight the edges. Keyer was used to darken the overall image and take way the over sharpening that glory added, trimming the white line by a lot. Water Pane added the rain effect on the screen, to fit with the genre as rain and thunder strikes fit in quite well. Quick Flash/spin was used to add the dramatic intro to the title. We also added opening credits over the video but that wasn’t really learning since we already knew how to do it.

We noticed some errors with the camera equipment when we were filming so we only managed to film about half as much as we had liked to. Despite this, we still learned that the cameras we used were very good for battery life as we managed to go out and film for a good couple of hours and by the time we had finished it was still above half battery life left. The problem we had though was that every time we tried ending the recording it was freeze for about two or three minutes. This doesn’t sound like much but since we had about 4/5 shots for every shot in most cases it did make quite a difference in the long run and reduced the amount of time we had to film. The camera itself is quite good quality however so if we started filming early we would have been able to get most of the filming we wanted doing actually done.

When I was making the front cover for the film I used Photoshop. I got a picture of Google images that was taken the middle of a forest. I then used the bucket tool to change all of the trees and branches black. After I done this I thickened the black on the trees to attempt to make it slightly sketchy look. I then changed every other colour in the background to white. The problem with the way I done this was that the bucket tool will stop colouring as soon as the colour hits a different shade so It took a while to colour the entire background and trees as there were different shades all the time. We got it done though. After that I used the smudge tool to make an oval on the top and bottom, to make it look like someone was looking at the forest and the camera was someone’s eye. I then blurred the edges so you couldn’t see a sharp smudge running across the bottom and top.

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