- To consider the audience feedback and implement any changes necessary.
After reading the comments regarding improvements needed, there were significant consistencies such as the too repetitive nature of having a shot of a waterfall as a break between the main narrative. With this in mind I decided to remove the beginning waterfall as in the space of three clips there are two waterfall shots, making one unnecessary. Hence, below, I deleted one of them.
After this, we gained feedback on the length of the typography appearing being too short, therefore I had to change this, I started by deleting the original transition between the typography and the first scene as seen below.
After this I attempted to extend the length of the clip further to fill the time necessary, however this did not work.
Therefore, I had to re-import the text into final cut and select the 8 seconds of footage needed. Using CMD + I to import I then highlighted the text and dragged and dropped it into the correct position.
After this I re-applied a different effect that shakes the screen slightly with a blur as the original radial blur was seen as unconventional.
After this I addressed the improvement necessary of adding sound over the title, as seen below i created a fade out and fade in from the highlighted green audio clip of a stream running to the start of the film.
After publishing our first draft onto YouTube, we showed it to an audience where they gave us feedback on things that they liked and constructive criticism.
What Went Well
One of the most common 'good/effective' comments that were made was for the match on action for the stab scene. A lot of people said that it looked very realistic and professionally done. As well as this, they like the use of the blood on the knife, stab wound and in the water.
A lot of people also liked the use of sound, especially the distorted music and ringtone and they also liked when the music was cut off when the headphones fell out. I believe that we were very effective with our sound.
Another positive comment was on the location. This was seen to be suitable for the genre and concept and seemed to work well.
Improvements
One of the most commented criticisms was that there was too many waterfall shots. To improve this, our audience suggested that we remove one or two of the shots.
Another comment was that the title screen was too short and needed to be much longer in order for audiences to be able to read it. This will be easy to fix.
Another criticism made was that the lighting was too bright and needed to be 'dimmed' and also that the blood on the jumper was too pink. This can easily be fixed by experimenting with the exposure and saturation.
Some members of the audience also commented that the Blumhouse production company was not suitable for our genre and that the logo that we used was out of date. To solve this problem we decided to look at Chloe's production company research blog and also to do some extra research.
The final comments made was to remove a 'wind' sound to make our opening scene seem more professional and also to add in a sinister sound when we see the killer to make it clear to the audience that something will happen and also to make it seem more dramatic. It was also suggested to include a sound effect when the killer is scraping the knife on the fence.
As a group, we split up the constrictive comments to help us improve our final piece. My job was to dim the lighting throughout the opening scene and to also adjust the colour of the blood on the jumper where the fake blood looked pink on camera.
Improving the Opening Scene
Firs of all, I decided to change the exposure an saturation of all of the shots. I needed to make the lighting darker and seem more mysterious and scary as originally it was quite light and did not look scary enough.
To do this, I reduced the saturation down by -32% and also decreased the exposure down by -19%. As you can see from the screen shots down below, the lighting is much dimmer and the colour is much more washed out, giving a sinister and dusk effect. I applies these settings for most of the shots.
The only shots that I did not apply the exposure to was the stream shot at the end and the blood dripping on the leaves. First of all, I edited the blood on the leaves. To do this, I reduced the global exposure down by -2%. Then I reduced the global saturation down by -32%. However, when I completed exiting this shot, it did not lo right so I then changed the global exposure to -19% and the highlight exposure to -10%. This looked much better.
The other shot that I did not apply the -32% saturation and the -19% exposure to was the end shot of the blood in the stream (the second shot).This was because it was quite dark anyway. For this shot I reduced the saturation down by -10% and the exposure down by -10% as well.
When I looked back on the shot of the fake blood that looked pink, after I had changed the saturation and exposure to -32% and -19%, it looked more realistic.
Here is the final draft of our opening scene:
Tuesday, 21 February 2017
Audience Feedback
What went well:
One of the things that went well in our audience feedback is that most people really liked the blood in our clips. They thought that it was really realistic and looked really effective.
People also liked our use of sound manipulation
They also liked that you could still hear the sound of the music playing through the headphones really quietly, when the phone was dropped onto the floor.
Improvements:
Make the title screen longer
Another improvement that our group needs to make based on our feedback is that we need to cut out some of the waterfalls at the beginning of our opening scene as they are not needed. However, we are going to keep the ones that build up tension before the victim is stabbed.
Some of the feedback that we were given is that our professional production company logo, Blumhouse, is used more for psychological horrors rather than slasher horror films.
People also said that the Professional production company logo was the out of date version, therefore our group decided that we would change it to Lionsgate's horror version of their professional production company logo.
Another thing that our group needs to improve is the brightness. In the feedback that we got they think our film opening will look more effective if it was darker and it will also make it creepier.
Some of the blood colouring in some of our shots is quite bright red therefore we are going to adjust the lighting and saturation to try and make it look more realistic.
As the killer walks up the steps following the victim, he scrapes a knife against a chai link fence. In the feedback that we got the audience think that it would sound more effective if we added a scarping sound of a knife to the clip.
There was also some background noise of wind in our clip, which we need to cut out.
We divided up these improvements within our group so that we all could improve our film opening. I changed the production company logo to the Lionsgate horror professional company logo. I also deleted the wind background sound in one of our shots of the victim in the alley. Below our screenshots of me completing these improvements.
In my sound effects research of the old radio days, I understand that to create heartbeats, they placed the arm of a record player on a towel or other kind of soft fabric – with the needle actually touching the cloth. Light taps on the fabric translated as low-end thumps when amplified through the record player. The “heartbeats” could then be performed as needed. I don’t know how “good” they sounded, but it’s certainly one method.
– Steve Lee
A buddy of mine created a very nice heartbeat using a large plastic trash can. The plastic popping in and out was very controllable and created two distinct in/out “pumping” sounds.
– Bob Kessler
Take a piece of fabric and hold it with a loose grip. Then quickly stretch the fabric for a pounding, heart-like sound.
– David Filskov
Bare your chest (!), position a microphone pointing at your shoulder region and then make a quick inward pull with your arms and hands and stop abruptly. Keeps you warm as well :)
– David Filskov
Any kind of thump run through a lowpass filter sequenced in a reasonably rhythmic sequence will give you the effect. It might be fun to throw in some “flushing blood” kind of liquid.
– Jamey Scott
Anyone try contact mics on a pulse point? This might work well if you also employ a BP cuff (don’t try it on the one in your neck :)
– David Steinwedel
I double the heartbeat with a kick drum. Filter anything below 60Hz, add an insane amount of mid frequency.
– Jerome Boiteau
Due to my lack of equipment, the availability to much of the methods previously discussed is limited. Therefore, I decided to use one of the methods, being making the noise with my mouth.
After doing the experiment the sound created are linked below:
-
Evaluation Percussion Noise (made with my mouth)
Pros;
- The right sound levels
- The right volume
- The sound was a deep sound that didn't need any distorting or manipulating
Cons;
- Slightly unrealistic
- The quality of the sound was not up to standard
- No increase in the rate, making it harder to use
Further evaluation:
In my opinion the sound created was useful in portraying a rested heart rate, however to a lesser extent. I feel it would be more useful to have an external professional sound effect as it would make the noise, one more realistic and two, more conventional as it would create a more suspenseful effect as that is the purpose behind the professional sound effects.
Thursday, 9 February 2017
Shooting script 21/12/2016
Date of Filming:
Wednesday 21st December 2016
Meeting Place:
Loose Valley at 8 am
Who is attending:
Eve Grundy- Bringing camera and spare batteries, un-smashed phone, cushion.
Josh Kamara- Bringing acting clothes, blood pouches, real blood.
Location 1:
Loose Valley Stream
Shots to do:
Establishing shot x1
Long shot x5
Close-Up shot x2
Extreme Close-Up shot x2
High-angle x1
Low-angle x1
Over-The-Shoulder shot x1
Point-Of-View shot x3
Medium shot x3
Tracking shot x2
Tilt x1
Location 2:
Loose Valley Alleyway
Shots to do:
Long shot x1
Close-Up shot x2
Extreme Close-Up shot x1
High-angle x1
Over-The-Shoulder shot x1
Medium shot x1
Tracking shot x1
Wednesday, 8 February 2017
Editing Sound- Practical
In this task I added the twig snap sound effect that I created with celery. I downloaded my sound effect off of YouTube and dragged the sound effect into the appropriate place in our film opening. We decided to add it just before the extreme close up of Lucy's eyes looking around, and at the end of the clip where the killer is scrapping his knife against the chain link fence as he walks up the stairs. I then cut the beginning of the clip where there was no sound, and the end of the clip so that you could just hear the twig snap sound. As shown in the screenshot below.
In the screenshot below it shows that I moved the twig snap sound to the appropriate place in our film opening. The sound effect has also been cut.
I then turned down the sound slightly so that it sounded more realistic. We decided to add the twig snap at the end of the clip where the killer is walking up the stairs, as it would sound and look as though he had made that sound as he was walking up the stairs. This therefore meant that Lucy turned around.
Editing Task- Practical
In this task I added and edited our newly filmed clips into our film opening. I used dropbox to add the clips from my phone as we decided to use my Iphone 7 as it was better quality than our camera that we alternatively used. I transferred the clips onto dropbox and downloaded them onto the desktop so that I could simply drag the clips into the right places in our film opening.
The screenshot below shows the new clips, saved into our coursework folder in our desktop.
In the screenshot below it shows that I have added in our new clip of blood dripping down Lucy's hand. I cut the beginning and ending of the clip as at the beginning it showed Eve pouring the food colouring onto Lucy's hand. I also cut the ending as the blood slowed down and began to stop dripping. I made sure that I overlapped this with the stream sound effect as the blood was dripping into the stream so would therefore sound more effective and realistic.
I then added in the clip where Lucy is lying dead by the side of the stream. We changed this clip from our other one by including a tilt upwards to show 'The killer' walking away from the body. I decided to film it in this way as I thought it would look more effective and creepy. I cut the beginning of this clip as it showed a pause before Josh started walking away from Lucy's dead body.
Next, I cut the clip where the animal blood drips onto the wet autumn leaves. I cut the end of this clip so that the clip only showed to points where the blood was dripping the fastest onto the leaves, to show that the stab had caused a lot of blood.
In the screenshot below it shows that I added the stabbing clip where Josh removed the bloody knife from Lucy's body. We didn't have to cut this clip because it was perfectly timed. However, we did decide to speed up the clip slightly to make the scene more intense.
I then added in the clip where it shows a extreme close up of Lucy's hand and hair being dragged away, down to the stream. This was a new clip that we decided to film so that our film opening would flow better.
