Evaluation: Main Task: The Evaluation

PowToon : AS Media Horror Opening Evaluation

Editing: Main Task: Colour Correcting

 To help create a frightening and thrilling mood, we incorporated the use of colour to symbolise various things within our opening, I added a red tint, for example, whenever the killer's doings is on screen to help justify their characteristics through the film. Giving the audience a heads up as to who the protagonists and the antagonists are.

We also colour corrected segments of the opening that we wanted dark and gloomy to contrast with the red and the light from outside the car window. We did this to the very last shot as it gives a sense of isolation and mystery to the scene.

Constructing: Editing

To edit our horror movie introduction we used Sony Vegas Pro. We assembled our clips all together and decided what our strongest clips were to be implemented into our film. A total of 3 scenes that we shot on the day were not used in the opening of our film. While editing the opening, we found that fading each clip individually into one another creates a sense of peace and frailty that contrast nicely with the disturbing imagery of the clips. Sound effects of a woman screaming were added to make it clearer to the audience what the short is about, yet still unclear about the premise, or even the two killers intentions.

To create the dramatic violin sounds for the sound of our opening,  I used a free Vsti program  called 'DSK Strings', opened with Reaper to compose the music piece.

Construction: How the filming went

As we filmed our opening to our film, we, as a group, found that our storyboard plan and the sets/props we needed to create our idea were simply out of reach. Therefore improvisation became an important but beneficial factor on the day of shooting. We changed the shot of one long establishing shot of the road and the car pulling in the driveway, to a much more simple way of filming the scene (yet keeping the same idea) with the majority of the opening being clips of disturbing imagery and inside the killers' house. We also changed the victims car driving in with an extreme close up shot of a smoky window panning downwards to reveal the car already parked. Therefore making this more of a surprise to the audience, creating suspense.

     We kept our plan of action to go with the idea of two completely different contrasting moods. Though the creepy dark atmosphere was more of an element within the actual filming, while the bright and positive mood became clearer within the editing of our film.

Planning: Treatment: Re-think

We were unable to stick with our finalised ideas because we were unable to get the shots we wanted, we still managed to get some good footage however.

There is no obvious story with our opening, it shows various clips from round the killers house/garden, such as chains and an abandoned looking play area, we filmed clips of a rattling garage door, this is to suggest someone is trapped, to add to this feeling of being trapped there are clips of keys being put way and hand marks smudged down windows, our opening shows briefly the new neighbours having their hands shook by the suspected serial killers, but the audience are not yet fully aware who they should be suspicious of, this is the element of deception, which is emphasised by calming music being played over the top.

We got our ides from the opening to se7en which we watched, it included various clips merged together to create an outline to a story, we decided to do this so our film looked more like an opening rather than a trailer.

Planning: Action Plan

Tom Bates - Director

Nicole Stephenson - Camera

Me - Mise en scene, Casting

- We plan to start filming this weekend (2nd Feb) This is the main thing that we need to get out of the way so that we can focus on the editing process. 
   Before we do this however we need to decide on our actors, this is fairly simply as we do not have any speech or a full view of someones face 
- The filming will take place at Nicoles' house, this is because its the out suitable destination, also she will be using her own camera so we can access it at all times
- The props we will need are: Something for blood and a knife

Planning: Casting

In our opening titles we decided that we were only going to be using hands, revealing no faces so it remains a mystery

Hand model starting engine: Tom Bates

Hand model washing blood off of hand: Michelle Wiliamson

Hand model cutting strands of hair: Nicole Stephenson