Post Production Evaluation of the Main Task

Overall I think I can say that the editing process is one of the most important parts of our thriller. Since it is a title sequence we need to focus especially on the integration of titles and due to the style of the sequence there is a lot of work which needs to be done in after effects.

In our post editing process of our main task we mainly used after effect to create the wished effects. Since our sequence is a title sequence, we decided to set the whole thing up as if it were a diary entry and used hand written ‘diary entries’ to create a very stylized title sequence. When we started using after effects I thought it was very difficult to use but through quite a bit of work I got my head around it and I am very pleased with the results which we have achieved so far. Compared to our preliminary task I think that we have really improved our use of skills for post production. In our preliminary task we just used final cut and tried to piece the storyboard together to make it work. For our main task we first struggled a little to get it into an order and structure which we were happy with before we blew it up to HD and put it into After Effects. We made it a little easier for ourselves because we didn’t use any people in our main task which ensured the correct continuity of certain shots, which was one thing which we struggled with in our Preliminary task. In terms of the use of final cut I think we have become quicker and a little more efficient in our working since our preliminary task and it was also easier to keep our shots the same length and speed since our subjects didn’t keep moving. We applied certain effects and transitions in Final Cut which we had no idea of when we were doing our prelim task so I think we have become more flexible in the use of final cut. 

In our post production process we realized that all of our shots had a brown base colour and it all looked quite dull. Therefore we decided to stylize it by changing the hue of most of our shots going over the colour scheme from blue over purple, to red and ending up with black and white. Since this title sequence is a little journey through our characters mental state of mind and she goes crazy by the end, we decided to fit the colours accordingly. Blue is a very cool and calm colour representing a calm state of mind and very sad emotions. In our next shot we have a dark purple which represents the beginning of her depressions and anger and after that we have a red base colour which represents plain fury, fear and depression. Right at the end in our last shot we decided to make it black and white representing her losing her mind and having been tipped over the edge at the thought of aging. I think this colour scheme gave our sequence a little more depth and interesting aspects. Additionally to this we also added certain layers of writing from the ‘diary‘ and also a couple of layers of interesting paper surfaces. This created a more stylized effect and it now looks more like a title sequence as it doesn’t have a plot and we have stopped trying to make sense of everything. This new version looks a lot more interesting and it is also a proper title sequence, including all of the titles needed, integrating them in a more interesting way. I have to admit that I thought that our sequence was very boring before we put it through after effects because of its dull colour and lack of anything happening. Now that we have integrated the idea of the person having huge problems with aging and going insane under the pressure I think it could actually be the opening of a proper film. Due to its artistic nature we decided that it needed a certain style in order to make it look more professional. This was quite difficult to create for us since the base colour of all our shots was brown which made them partially quite dull. Therefore we started thinking about what we could do to make it more interesting to watch. During one of our lessons two people from our group started doing research on what reminded them of our sequence and they came up with different styles of pictures throughout. Some where medical records and scans of brains and others were edited and montaged pictures which were quite scientific, also representing the psychological link.

From these we started thinking about either making it a medical condition which is more physical than mental or making it a more psychological issue. In the end we decided that to a certain extent we could link both of those and we then also decided the structure of our sequence. This is that we have one shot and transformation with titles, then pictures of medical records, then another shot and transformation with titles, and some more mdeical records, and so on all the way through the sequence. This makes the whole sequence a bit more thematic and realistic in a way since it was quite lifeless and dull beforehand. Since it is a thematic title sequence we tried to create a certain style during our shoot and I think in terms of camera work and ideas this worked well, I do believe though that we maybe should have been more careful with the use of colour and adjusted our mise en scene accordingly.
The purpose of our title sequence is to show the audience the style of the movie and prepare them for the main part of it. There is no narrative in our opening sequence which means that the audience can't really be drawn into it. Therefore we just feed the audience examples of the main character's condition and introduce the cast and crew working for the film.


In terms of sound in our sequence we also tried to adjust the style to the pictures. The style of sound we used were ambient soundtracks, just creating a background sound for our sequence. This gives it an eerie and slightly mysterious feeling when you watch the clip. In this sequence we have in fact no diegetic sounds at all and all it depends on is the use of ambient music to set the mood. Another thing we addd to the soundtrack was talking where we recorded someone reading out our diary entries. We then layered the voices over one another creating a whisper of voices and aiming to confuse the audience in a way. So overall we have a rumble of ambient music which just forms a base for the soundtrack, over the top of that we have two or sometimes three layers at a time of a voice speaking at different levels.    

For the titles in our sequence we first thought that we would use quite ordinary titles throughout our sequence. We then decided that we would have handwritten titles instead which we did in the same way as our diary entries. We got one member of our group to write them, then I took a picture and then we edited them in after effects and photoshop to make it look better. For our titles we initially thought that we would write the names in capital letters adn the jobs in lower case writing. We then thought it looked a bit too clumsy and although people actually read the title more thoroughly when it is in capital letters we decided to highlight the names based on the size of the writing. I think our titles work really well because they fit in with the diary style of it and continued the strongly stylized feel to it the whole way through. 

Overall I think most of our sequence was created through after effects since we didn't use that much footage at all. Since our target audience are teenagers from 15-25 and people who are into arty films I think the style which we used works very well. The style is quite modern which appeals to our young target audience and it is also arty and a little abstract which appeals to the other part of our target audience. Our whole sequence is quite slow and flowing which means that we also chose to adjust the music accordingly along with the way the titles appear and disappear. The whole sequence is based on our titles since it is a title sequence and this is why we focused everything on the style of the sequence and the speed, creating a nice smooth effect and an eerie feeling.  

Account of Thriller Shoot Day

On the day of our media shoot, which was the 21st of January 2011, we first had to finish our set up. We started this in the afternoon of the previous day but due to an event that evening we couldn't continue. So we had to finish setting up and dressing our set in the morning of our shoot. We started this at around 8.30 am and actually started shooting around 10.00 am. Because our title sequence was thematic and we didn't use any cast, we thought that we would finish quite quickly. This turned out to be a miscalculation due to the fact that our shots were made up of close ups, and they took a long time to set up and to adjust lighting and set. For our shoot we mainly stuck to the storyboard and didn't make any big changes which was good as it enabled us to keep complete control of what we were doing.

On the day I think we were quite well prepared although we had a couple of problems beforehand. In order to collect all of our set we had to run around a lot, organising and borrowing certain things needed. When we got it all done it felt really good and gave us a certain confidence for the day. We knew the whole time what effect we were going for, which was quite a detached and arty effect, underlining the sequences we chose for our introduction. The most difficult thing about this was that sometimes we struggled to recreate the image in our heads although we managed it at the end. This is probably why we took such a long time to shoot the whole thing, since we took long to set up the shots and really be happy with the results we got.

We were going for a arty thriller which we tried to do by making everything seem atristic and enigmatic. This means that we would require a more intellectual, sophisticated audience, seeing as it is a more mind twisting plot which wouldn't be understood by smaller children.  

For our thriller introduction we decided to film completely in the studio which made it easier for us to film as our shoot was not affected by the weather. I also don't think it would have worked outside the studio as we literally just had close ups of certain things, which are being transformed in one way or another in post editing. Our piece was all about the detail and you can't see any landscapes or backgrounds behind those details so there wouldn't have been any point in filming outside. Filming inside also means that we could light the details effectively clarifying our shots and being able to focus on the right things making it easier for post editing. The studio environment also enabled us to have nice tracking shots, avoiding uneven grounds, and ridding ourselves of unnecessary aspects. 

The shots we used were all either slow tracking/panning or partially stills. This made our piece more moody and enables the viewer to see what transformation is happening on screen, underlining the titles. We encountered a problem with the way we had planned to integrate the titles in our sequence. We were originally going to do 3 dimensional titles being included in our shots, which we then found out was not possible just due to the fact that we didn't have the possibilities to do 3 dimensional titles. We can do two dimensional ones but to add the extra dimension is so much more difficult, as we would have had to 3D scan every setting which we can't do due to missing equipment for the purpose. So we had to rethink and we decided that we would only do panning/tracking/still shots which excludes the third dimension. This means that we couldn't do any arc shots which we would have liked to do for some of it. Because of the close ups which we did of our set we needed quite a lot of space to maneuver around it and not bump into anything. This was due to the fact that we had to have a focal length of at least one metre in order for the camera to be able to focus. There were certain shots which took way too long such as a tracking shots were the camera was moved at the same time as we had to pull the focus. This took about 20 takes in order to finish that part of the thriller but I think that it looks good now and it worked out well in the end. 
We also had one shot were we have a computer mouse turn into a real one and I think the shot works as we did it but I would have preferred a live mouse which wasn't possible for us to get so we had to buy a dead one. The shot would have worked better I think if we had a live mouse and a little more movement to it. Another shot we did was one where we watched an ice cube melt, which took about one hour to do but which I think will work really well if we reverse it and speed it up in our sequence. 

Our whole thriller was mainly based on the use of props and the way in which they 'transform' through a certain effect. For instance we used a fruit bowl one with good fruit and one with bad fruit and had them transform through the use of a wine bottle. In this tracking shot we wouldn't have achieved the wished effect without the use of props since we woukdnb't have had anything to film. The fruit is just one shot out of a row of different ones to make up a thematic thriller and I think it works well since you can see the protagonist's view of everything being 'Askew'. We thought quite a while about what we could use to represent this view of everything looking different to what it is and we came up that we could have something live like flowers or fruit rott to show how askew it is. I think the fruit works well because it shows the contrast between the living fruit and the dead and rotten fruit. Another way in which we used the props is when we used the light bulb to have it flicker in front of the camera and being able to integrate titles in the blackouts. This I think worked quite well because it represents the change of something - in this case his views. I do believe that we should have had the flickers for a longer period of time in order to be able to integrate the titles better but overall I really like the props we used and the shot we got.

The lighting we used was only strictly controlled lighting since we worked in the studio and had control over every single lamp such as redheads and blondes. Through the use of this artificial ligthting I think we managed to create an interesting effect to some of the shots although I believe that we should have used the lighting in a smarter way to give more depth to the shots. The problem with this would have been that the exposure would have been difficult to construct in this case and you might not have been able to see the shots clearly. Overall I think it was really helpful that we had controlled lighting as we often had to do quite a lot of takes of a shot in order to make it perfect, and the shots linking to each other such as the fruit bowl would have been disasterous if there had been a great change of lighting. 

So far we haven't made any separate sound recordings and I don't think that we will have to either, since our introduction sequence is thematic and we will propably put non diegetic sound (i.e. music) over it. Because we also only had shots which do not require a great use of sound since there is not a lot moving anyway. One of the only ones of our shots which are going to need the use of diegetic sound is probably the one of the light bulb so we can hear the flickering of the bulb below the score of the music to create a more mysterious and creepy effect. 

The role I played within our team varied throughout the day. Overall I would say I was probably what resembled the producer since I organized most of the set and everything we needed but at the same time I did mise en scene and camera. In the preparations for the shoot I found myself mainly dressing the set and collecting the props needed. On the shoot day itself I did quite a lot of camera work, which I mainly shared with one other person in our group. At one point the whole group ended up doing one tracking shot together. This was quite a difficult shot since we had to move the camera along at the sam time as pull the focus and keeping it steady. Here I pulled the focus and I made this easier for myself by sticking little pieces of sticky tape on the camera lens to mark where I had to adjust the lens to each time to get the right focus. 

I think as a group we did pretty good team work as we thought about everything rationally and worked everything out well. We made constructive suggestions and all worked really hard to get a good result at the end of the day. The fact that we all did different roles and swopped around helped us understand and learn more and enabled us to work together well and constructively.

I am quite happy with the overall material we gathered but I think that we should have improved some of the mise en scene as most of our images are earth colours, creating quite a dull mood. I think some of the shots which we got worked really well such as the fruit bowl shot. Mainly we stuck to the storyboard and altogether everything looked like it imagined it to look except for one shot where we planned to have a water drop running down the side of a glass obscurring a computer mouse as it passed turning it into a real one. This did not work out as the lens we used needed a greater focal length than we were planning to use. Overall I am happy with the material we gathered over the day although I think we would have made it easier for ourselves if we had used a different mise en scene. This would have stylized our title sequence a little more and would have made our sequence more sleek.