POST PRODUCTION EDITING

After filming all of our footage, the most important element of our coursework came into play. Using the Final Cut Pro X (FCPX) software on the Macs, we edited both visual and audio effects, and finalised our film opening over a long period of weeks.

These are the main areas and tools of FCPX:

Of course, the first thing we had to do was choose our final clips and put them in order  across the editing time line. Soon after this, I added the film production company logo (Hammer) at the start of the clips, as it is best to add this before extra editing such as text and sound overlays, as the positioning in relation to the clips could be shifted after adding extra footage at the start.

The next thing we focused on was sound. As our film opening features no dialogue, sound is a highly important element for our final opening and we needed to work our way through various tracks which would be genre-appropriate as a generally overlay. We decided on these main sound clips, which we accompanied by sounds which would act as an effective jump scare sound, as we felt it was parallel to the urban drama aspects of the film opening, as well as building suspense as the opening draws out:

We also began to gather other sound effects such as footsteps and panicked breathing as the original audio from the footage was not as high quality as we had hoped it to be (-on the main day of filming, the atmosphere was quite windy so there was an excess of extra disruptive sound & white noise.)

I added sound clips at their relevant points, using the correction tool to speed up and slow down footage and/or sound so that they fitted realistically. Additionally, extra sounds and small music clips were placed in order to create extra suspense where necessary:

We then added transitions between various video clips to differentiate the separate time framed within the film opening. Instead of having ordinary jump cuts like the central sections of the opening, we used a fade-to-black transition, allowing the audience to infer that the time between the first section with the killer takes place before the sequence featuring the first victim.

WORK LOG- FILMING

Once we were sure that all of our planning was in order, we set a filming date and eventually began filming our coursework.

Day one
We all met at Imogen's house as this was the first filming location. Here we did the makeup for both actresses, one being the sfx of the cut face and the other being the character make-up (eye shadow,lipstick etc)[see special effects makeup post]. We filmed the receiving of the text and the gathering of the possessions in the bedroom, which included close ups of the eyes, phone, and the items that the first victim gathers. We encountered problems with the lighting as it was somewhat a yellowish hue, in contrast to the darkness outside (thus we were unable to use natural lighting), however we resolved this by using extra artificial lighting. 

The montage of the character getting ready took many shots to film at first in order to get the match on action just right. Then we filmed the shots of her tying her shoelace and exiting the house to complete the 'getting ready' process. After completing the match on action shot with the front door, we left my house and walked across the road to the starting point of our next location.

Next, we filmed the walking shots of Katya as her character walks towards where she suspects she is receiving drugs. We had to use artificial lighting as it was very dark outside, and the street lights wouldn't provide enough lighting to make the character visible. Once this was filmed, we carried on to the overpass bridge which we would film the capturing scene. Luckily, the bridge remained unoccupied throughout filming, so we were able to complete filming the sequence quite quickly, although we were rather anxious regarding members of the public's reactions towards our mise en scene mask and camera equipment out on show.

By placing the camera behind a tree, we were able to film a POV shot of the killer looking across the road at the first victim. 

Additional filming
After we had reviewed all of our footage from the first filming session, we decided that we need additional footage to tie to the opening together. We felt that we needed more clips of the killer to cue the audience in to his motive, as it wasn't particularly clear as to what he wanted. To create the ideal atmosphere for the killer to be in- we filmed the additional scene in our school's dark room which contains red lights that we believe successfully convey the feeling of danger as well as adding to the whole 'blood and gore' aesthetic.

We made plans/blueprints of he mask that the killer would use as guidelines and we put them on the wall and put our killer in front of them. We filmed our killer holding the piece of flesh up to the plans, him putting on his mask, drawing lines on his victims face and finally washing his hands. The footage filmed here is (what we consider) as better quality than the other footage as the lens used was different and specifically for video in comparison to the previously used lens.

TYPOGRAPHY RESEARCH

To work out the most appropriate movie typography I looked at movie typography that I consider relate to our genre and premise.

Saw
The film saw is notorious for it's graphic body horror and immense amount of violence. The typography for the majority of the films (with the exception of saw 5) have the same font with something next to it which makes it have its own identity. The colour of the typography is dark and messily done, which reflects the gory and disgusting nature of the films and suitable for the content within the movie. This film relates to our opening as it shares similarities with the body horror violence.

Friday the 13th

The famous slasher film "Friday the 13th" has font that looks like it has been carved out of something which is suitable and Mrs Vorhees and her son Jason (in the later films) carve up humans with many weapons - most notably Jason's famous machete. The blood splattered 13th successfully shows the audience what kind of film it's going to be as there is a lot of blood within the movie. If we were to take an aspect from this typography and implement it into our typography we would use the blood as several shots of our opening contain blood.

Nightmare on Elm Street

The typography for "Nightmare on elm street" is blood red, which is suitable as the movie contains quite a lot of it. Unlike Friday the 13th the entire title of the film is in red so it stands out. The nightmare is in a different font to the rest of the title and it arguably heightens the appeal of the film as viewers will want to know what is so nightmarish about this film to have a title like that. We would, as I said in the Friday the 13th part, use the red of the title.

House of the dead

The house of the dead typography is of particular interest because it looks like it has been written with blood with it splattered along the bottom of the title. Just like the others it is suitable for the film. We would definitely take inspiration from this typography as I feel it would be suitable for our film opening.