Final Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

There were many things that I learned when researching other film trailers which I wanted to apply to my own. The first thing that I realised was the variety of styles you could use such as taking a whole scenes from the movie but editing it down slightly, using the reactions from an audience watching the whole film or a classic trailer with lots of smaller clips edited together. I chose to do the smaller clips together as I felt that these trailers tended to be more successful in giving the atmosphere of horror as well as it not being as restricting as two long clips.

I then used the structure of this styled trailer to help develop the structure of my own. I found that that with these kinds of trailers, they all had roughly the same pattern. It would start off quite calm, with longer shots, possibly commentary and calmer music and gradually the shots would be cut shorter with the music would become much more intense and upbeat.

I did the same with my own piece. I had two main music tracks of completely different moods. The first being a very calm track although still gave a sense of horror to my genre although subtle. The second track was louder, stronger and had more of an action feel to it. The edits in the second half matched the beat to the music which therefore made the cuts very quick.

Another thing I took from my research is the things you will nearly always see in a trailer. This is the titles and dates. I decided to add them in the same order as most f the trailers I researched in (this being after the first complicated action). I also decided to add an extra title for additional information to the story itself to give it a realistic sense to it (this being the ‘Dorset England 2009’ title). As well as these, I added the image at the very start explaining the certificate of that trailer.

One thing that I avoided doing that I found to be in the majority of the trailers I looked at is including clips that revealed too much of the main horrific parts I would expect to be in my film. I felt that most of the trailers I researched into gave far too much away and I wanted mine to have a bit more mystery to the ghost.

For magazine cover, I made sure that it looked as professional as possible and added everything that my chosen magazine cover had on it. Empire Magazine was the one I chose so I therefore coped the same structure so had a small circle with an article title, faint grey lines to separate some titles and a plus sign. Other things that I added are the usual stuff you would see on a magazine so the price, bar code etc.

I made sure that mine consisted of four main colour like nearly every magazine would do with these colours reflecting the genre of my film as well as blending well with my main image. The only thing that I think I did not do well when comparing to the products I researched into was how dominant the picture was over the texts. Normally you would have the picture overlapping the Empire title however; my picture was not big enough to do this.

For my poster, I had researched into three different types. I looked at one that had been photoshopped and looked very complicated, a simpler poster with only a small image and one with an image that had been taken from the film. I used aspects of each by taking a very simple picture, Photoshopping it slightly to blur the image as well as making the lighting much brighter and taking this image from a clip in my film.

I then added the usual things you would see on a poster such as a release date, title, additional lines and information about directors, editors etc. After adding all these aspects it looked much more professional.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

When planning all of my pieces, I wanted to make sure that all three had the same dark look to it as well as having the ghost as the main focus. When looking at the complete pieces, I feel like I have fulfilled that aim. Each piece has a dark look to it, whether this is through lighting (for the film), the image being black and white (for the magazine) or the background being black with a very focused light on the main image (for the poster). Although I wanted the main focus being the ghost, none of the images are the same. The lighting, colour and shot size varies in each of my pieces so they still look unique.

However, although getting the images and colour right seemed to be successful, when It came to the fonts, this did mess up this combination slightly. As the title on my trailer varies from the one on the magazine cover and poster, this mixture doesn’t quite blend as well as id hoped.

But although the fonts may have altered from piece to piece, the magazine cover and poster still went well with my trailer. They reflected the same genre of my trailer as well as giving the same dark atmosphere of the setting in Captured. The thing that made these pieces blend so well with the trailers is the fact that they are screen shots of the film itself, although they have been Photoshopped slightly. I think this is the main reason why I feel my pieces, as a group, work well together.

How have you created a brand?

This also helped me create my brand. When researching hand held camera films, one of the most common advertising methods seemed to be screen shots. This seemed to be the same as mine although mine had some small edits using Photoshop to alter the colours or sharpness. Another aspect of my images that helped create a brand was the use of the ghost. As the ghost comes right up to the camera in the trailer, I felt that I could use this in my other pieces therefore using the ghosts face as a brand.

The font, although not the same in the trailer, helped create a brand on the poster and the magazine cover. I tried to make them as similar as possible, although some parts of it appear different such as the width of the edges or the colour. I would have much preferred all three fonts to have been the same on all of my texts as this has interfered with the brand I was trying to get.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

One point that was made on the audience feedback was something that I was continuously worried about during my filming. This was the lighting issues. Because I filmed at night, torches were the only option I had of lighting. In one comment, it mentions that it is sometimes difficult to see what is going on, although it helps create the feeling on unknown. I was hoping that the lack of lighting available would give something similar to this feeling so have learned that this has been successful. However, I am disappointed that the lack of lighting had become a problem for my audience.

Another thing that I set out to do has also been brought up in the comments. As I wanted to second half to be more intense, I added a more upbeat music track which one commenter said gave a ‘sudden adrenaline rush’ so I know that this has worked.

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

There were many media technologies that I used throughout my work. The first and most important was blogger. This site allowed me to upload everything I did towards my pieces such as research, planning or my final pieces which helped me get a sense of what I should be doing next and what I have already done as well as being able to upload regular updates of the progress that I had made. Google documents allowed me to be able to upload files onto this blog by using hyperlinks in my updates so was able to scan drafts of scripts or story plans and upload them onto my blogger.

For my filming, I used a hand held camera with one or two shots with the tripod to keep it steady. This camera was fairly straight forward and needed no adjusting to suit what I was filming as the story in my film needed a shaky, amateur look to it. Having a hand held camera helped me to move around quickly with my actors to get the shots I needed.

When editing, I used Adobe Premiere Pro CS4. Using this editing software rather than windows movie maker allowed me to cut much more precisely using the razor tool as well as being able to cut from a preview bar into the main timeline which was a huge time saver.

One problem I found using this technology rather than the simpler one was the transition effects were much more difficult to add on. Although Premiere Pro allowed this effect to be much more precise in its length, it took some time to adjust to how much fiddling around you had to do. The main thing about Premiere Pro that made all this fiddling worth it was how I had three visual time lines and three audio timelines. This allowed me to mute some areas where I only wanted music or just the shot and also allowed me to include voice overs.

I then uploaded my final piece onto YouTube. Not only was this website good for uploading my film onto but it also allowed me to get the audience feedback through the comments below. I could also then link it into my blog using the embedding tool so that the video can play on blogger.

Copyright Information

Any use of music in this trailer complies with 'Fair Dealing' under the 1988 Copyright Designs and Patents Act (UK), Sections 6(i) and 6(ii); Fair dealing is a term used to describe some limited activities that are allowed without infringing copyright. Briefly these are as follows: Section 6i: Research and private study. Copying parts of a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work or of a typographical arrangement of a published edition for the purpose of research or private study is allowed under the following conditions: The copy is made for the purposes of research or private study; The copy is made for non-commercial purposes; The source of the material is acknowledged; The person making the copy does not make copies of the material available for a number of people.

Captured

Editing Print Screens

Magazine Cover

Final Magazone Cover

Update - Magazine Cover: Analysis

I used publisher and Photoshop express as well to make my magazine cover. I changed very little of the magazine poster when making it from my original plan. The only thing that I changed was the font of the film title. I felt that the thinner font suited the magazine cover much more as the bolder font seemed to clash slightly with the image and the title of the magazine.

The magazine cover seemed to work very well with how I planned it, although I would have liked to have had the image less blurred. However, when i print screened, the image came out quite blurred. I tried to sharpen the image to cover this up but found this didn’t work. I therefore had to unsharpen it to make it less noticeable.

The image was also cut quite low. I would have rather had the image longer in order for it to blend in with the magazine title. Although the gap is quite large at the top end, I do feel that this has not ruined the structure. I though that the black background would have made this more noticeable but it seems to give it a more creepy look in my opinion.

I didn’t come across many other problems making this magazine cover. There were some areas where I found it difficult to copy and paste some images to publisher such as the main image where I had to colour the background in black in order for the whole background to be the same, however, this was the only major problem I came across and found it easy to overcome.

I added some faint grey lines in-between the information titles as it seemed more professional and this sort of structure is in many of the magazine covers than I researched into. I think it gave it a much better look and helped give better structure to my own.

When adding other article names to my poster, I wanted it to look as close to other magazines as possible. As a result of this, I put a small circle in the top right corner with the words ‘Top 10 Films Of 2010’ in the centre as when researching into Empire magazines I found that this was on nearly every one. I made sure the colours matched the four chosen colours I had picked to the entire cover which are yellow, black, white and red.

Another part of the magazine consisted of an article declaring that the magazine contained an interview with Tarantino’s new film Kill Bill Volume 3. I chose this film as it allowed me to use the colour yellow, which is also the main colour for the Kill Bill series. It also allowed me to add the number 3 in a font which looks like blood is dripping off of it which connects to the genre of my film.

The other article was advertising the stereotypical stuff you would see in an Empire magazine. I listed off some upcoming films. I made sure that they were a separate genre to my own film and on most covers; the films they mention vary in genre

I think that, over all, my magazine cover looks quite professional, especially with the addition of the other articles. I’m very pleased with how it turned out and, although there were some problems with the picture which made it alter from what I originally planned it to look like, I think it still blends in well and reflects my genre well.

Print Screens

Update - Magazine Cover: Planning

I want to keep the theme of taking the screen shots for my magazine cover although I want to Photoshop it slightly more to give a different look to it. Using Photoshop, I will try to get the same black ground so the main image stands out. I will also make the image fairly black and white and blacken the eye to give a creepy feel to it.

The title will be the original Empire logo as I feel the colour already suits the genre of the film, as well as keeping the other line that are usually on this magazine the same such as the date, price, website.

The titles on the page for my film will have three colours. These will be red (for the main title), yellow) for the line at the top (special preview) and white the more detailed line) behind the scenes of this years scariest film. These colours will give the creepy feel to the magazine cover. The font for the main title will be the same as the font on the film poster unless this looks messy. I possibly will need a thinner font. The other two lines will have the same font as the extra line on my film poster, a typewriter font, to give that similarity between the two advertisement pieces.

Update - Magazine Cover: Planning

Brainstorming ideas - page 2
Panning chosen idea - page 1
Font ideas - page 7
Main line ideas - page 5

Film Poster

Final Film poster

Poster Print Screens

Update - Film poster: Analysis

I used publisher and Photoshop express to for my film poster. I think that my poster turned out well although it changed slightly from how I originally planned it. I didn’t alter it considerably, only in the areas where I would move some images around to stop it from looking messy.

I moved the line ‘There’s no way out’ from below the title as I felt that there was to much space above the main image. I felt that evening out the titles and images would make the poster more appealing rather than have a large amount or titles in one area. Plus this line also looks more eye catching when it’s separated.

Although I chose a different image, I chose a similar screen shot and used it the way I first planned. The image I chose for this poster works well for my film genre. It’s simple yet eye catching. Although it’s Photoshopped slightly, it doesn’t look unrealistic and does seem to give the impression that it is a screen shot from the movie. I used Photoshop to get rid of the background of the image completely as well as making the light from the torch of her face seems brighter and more focused.

I decided on the bolder font for my title as it suited the image and film genre the most. It also seemed the most eye-catching when I tried out all my fonts that I planned. The font for the line ‘There’s no way out however’ was going to be the same as the main title, however, after trying this out I decided a much simpler font would be better. I went for one like the font I used for the trailer that says ‘DORSET ENGLAND’ as I still wanted it to have close relevance to my film. I still chose the same colour for the line and the title although I did change to colour for the date 11.11.11. I though having it white didn’t allow it to stand out very well. I chose yellow as I though it gave an eerie feel as well and being similar to the colour of a torch light.

Overall I am happy with how the poster turned out. Although there were some parts I changed, I made sure to stick to my original plan as much as I could. I think that the things I changed improved the look of my poster making it look as eye-catching and scary as I could.

Update - Editing: Day 4

I have now completed my editing and am pleased with my final piece. There were many problems that I face; however, I feel I managed to successfully overcome them. Music and sound effects was the main problem that I faced.

The pieces of music that I originally chose for my trailer didn’t blend well with the previous tracks and didn’t quite match what was going on on the screen. Once I had found the right piece of music, I then needed a sound effect to help the transition between the two. This took the longest time as I needed it to be the right length and right sound. Sound effects were so difficult for me to find that on some parts of my script, I had to leave out some of them such as the glitching noises, girls laughter and a loud metal bang. However, I managed to work around this and use a fast paced music track instead.

Once I had put all the clips into order, I then started putting the narration over the top. There weren’t any major problems in this area other than the quality of the sound itself. Although the length of the narration suited to length and order of my clips, there was a faint buzzing sound mixed in with the voices. It wasn’t to noticeable but it made it clear when the clip cuts out. I tried to space them out a bit and hide it under the music but it was one problem I couldn’t completely avoid.

As far as following my script is concerned, it was very much different to what I had originally planned my trailer to be like. I did use the basic order though, and some sequences were very precise to what I had it my script. The reason I changed it was based on the way it was filmed, whether it blended well with the music and just generally the appearance of it. I wanted a rhythm to the way the shots were cut, so it changed drastically to suit the music. The way I had filmed it affected it as some shots were to dark, some were filmed different because of problems on the filming day. So although I didn’t quite follow my script, I made sure this was all for the right reasons and that I did follow the basic outline I planned.

There were no other major problems I face finishing my piece. Overall, it went quite smoothly and very pleased with my final piece.

Update - Poster: Planning

I decided on using screen shots for my film poster would be the best way to do this. I think it worked well in the poster Quarantine so feel it will be just as effective for my own. Although I am using a screen shot, I still want a similar image to that from [REC] so have chosen the screen shot where the ghost is standing alone in the tunnel. I am going to use Photoshop to get rid of the background completely, so the focus will be entirely on her face. I made sure I got the s creen shot when the torch is shining in her face to add to that focus. I don’t want to use Photoshop too much on my poster as I want to give that impression that the image has been taken from the movie itself. I may use it to brighten the face slightly and remove that background but will do nothing else to alter the image. I think the font that I chose will look good with my poster although I will try out the others I created in case one looks more appropriate with the colour and image I chose. I am also pleased with my chosen quote line and will probably go for a simpler font or the font of my title depending on whether this will look too messy

Film Poster - Planning

Planning poster ideas - Page 3
Planning chosen poster idea - Page 4
Planning font - Page 7
Planning quote line - Page 5

Film Poster - Quarantine analysis

Quarantine is the American remake of [REC]. It has a very similar story line and in some ways, a very similar poster. However, quarantine gives a lot more away about the story. In fact, the audience is left very little to work out as there are 7 lines explaining what to expect in the film. However, there is still some mystery into why there are no details, witnesses or evidence so still has a way of drawing the audience in with these questions.

Although, I do think that these lines on the poster are effective, I thought that the level of information given away in [REC] was much better. Having more questions about the film to answer seems a much better way of advertising as people may keep researching into themselves, for instance finding he film trailer. Because of this I think I won’t use this method in my poster.

The genre, again, is given away in similar ways to [REC], the colours are very dark except for the title to make this stand out to people looking at the poster, as well as the title appearing to be a font you could associate with a quarantine. However, one big change is the main colour of green. This adds to the idea of quarantine. The picture is also a huge give away to the genre because of the expression on the woman’s face. An obviously horrific, terrified look creating that questions of why?

The colour also helps with showing the audience the sub genre which is the same as [REC], a hand held camera horror. The colour is this way as the camera is on night vision. Adding to the horror as well as this would meant that she is in darkness but also gives a big clue to how the whole film is filmed with one character holding the only camera. This sub genre is also presented to us with the more subtly shown [REC] sign in the corner. This is where this sign would normally be when playing tapes back. As I want to show the sub genre, I may choose to use this in my piece.

I think comparing this to the previous poster; I don’t think it gives as much of a creepy mysterious feel to it which is what I would like my poster to be like. However, I will take on the dark colours use throughout and may decide to use the [REC] icon or something similar depending on what main image I choose. I also like the idea of just using one persons face on my poster.

Film Poster - Diary Of The Dead analysis

Diary of the dead is a film about a film student recording everything that goes on around him as the dead start coming back to like. The poster does nothing to keep any mystery like in the first two posters. In fact, it’s pretty self explanatory to what you would expect in the film. Instead of the genres given away a bit more subtly, everything we need to know is shown straight in front of you.

For instance, in the other two posters, the sub genre is given away with lighting, titles and recording symbols, where this poster shows the camera in the middle and seems to try to make in the main focus. I particularly like the way the camera shows the man’s head on the screen showing more obviously that it will be that point of view you will be seeing. However, I think this is effective in the same way as it still lets the audience know that the film is using a hand held camera so would attract their target audience. Zombies are the main horror focus in all posters films; however, this is the only one that actually shows this. I think this is for the same reason as the camera being on the poster as it allows the target audience to see straight away what the film is about.

We also see a small line given to us on this poster, much like the one on [REC] which is ‘shoot the dead’. It very obvious and to the point as well as being quite a clever play on words as it could mean using a gun or a camera to shoot. I prefer this line much more as it’s much more likely to stay in someone’s head long after they’ve seen the poster so will try to use this technique in my own piece.

The font used for the title, is a very bold one. This makes is stand out well on the page as well as appearing quite dirty because of the browned edges on some letters. It gives it quite a scary look. Ive also noticed that the font seem quite similar to the one used in ‘Dawn Of The Dead’ maybe to attract the same audience who liked this film.

I think that the only thing that lets this poster down is the colour, in my opinion. Being such a light, ‘pretty’ blue, it seems far too of a delicate colour to be associated with this type of horror film. I suppose it could be associated with night time but I thought that the darker colours in [REC] and Quarantine seemed much more effective in giving a creepy feel to it.

Film Poster - [REC] Analysis

[REC] is a Spanish film based on a reporter who films the events of a house filled with infected people whilst trapped inside. The film poster gives very little of this away. We don’t see anything that could give away the storyline. All that is presented to us is a picture, the title and ‘experimenta al miedo’ meaning ‘experience the fear’. The simplicity to this poster is something that I feel I am seeing quite a lot with film posters. Not giving much of the film itself gives a sense of mystery to the story. It makes you wonder why the woman in this picture looks like this and makes you use your own imagination to do this.

In my own poster, I hope to do the same to make my film seem very mysterious with its story. This would mean that people would have to watch a trailer to get a bigger picture of the story so would inevitably gain me more advertisement.

But although little of the story is given away, what is presented to us is enough to grab the attention of the target audience. The genre of horror is certainly shown in the poster. The colours used are very dark with the majority of it being completely black. The only part where there is lighter colour is the title and the small line above. This makes it much more noticeable and draws your attention straight to this. The picture also shows its genre through the shadows of the girls face. Because of this shadow, we see little of the girl’s face which as a result, could lead the target audience to make this up on their own. It doesn’t give away whether this character is good or bad so adds more mystery to the film especially because you cannot see her eyes at all as they are such a huge give away to our expression. Finally, the line ‘experience the fear’ is another sign of the genre. It also makes the films look more appealing to horror fans as I think its implying that because of the use of the hand held camera, you would feel closer to what is happening and feel that you are experiencing it yourself.

Not only does the poster give away the genre of horror, it also allows us to see it sub genre of hand held camera horror. The obvious give away is the title [REC] with the big red circle in front, known to most people as the icon that shows whilst the camera is recording. However, the lighting seems to be another clue as the light on the girl appears very much like its coming from one source in front of her. Personally, I think that this looks like a camera spotlight.

I think showing my audience the same sub genre would be very effective for my advertisement as these films are becoming very popular. However, because my title is much more subtle than [REC] I will have to use another technique to make this more obvious in my own poster. Another thing that I shall consider using in my own piece is something similar to the line that is used in the poster, ‘experience the fear’. I think that this is very effective for getting the audience’s attention. The small line is almost a teaser to the story.

Update - Editing: Day 3

Editing, this week, has been the most successful I think. I am now much more comfortable with using Adobe Premiere Pro and can use all the tools I need very well. There were no problems with the software at all and the only issues that came up were more to do with music, however, I feel I have overcome this problem.

So far I have edited about a minute into my trailer and have also included some music into it. The first track worked very well with my video. I may need to figure out how to play around with the volume so you can hear the narration over the top. The only problem that came with this track is the transitioning into the next one. As it’s not the end of the track I will need to find a way to transition them together so it flows smoothly. I have tried to add the transition affect where the track decreases volume until its silent and then starting the next one but feel a loud noise in between may help with the atmosphere I want to give. The choice I had originally chosen to my next track will probably change. I don't feel it worked too well with the video. Although it does have a creepy feel, I think it may be to over the top.

I have decided that I will begin to follow the script more precisely in the second half of my trailer. I felt that, will all the extra shots I did, I could edit something much better than my script. As my second half is more diagetic dialogue, following my script would be better.

To overcome the problem of adding in the narration at the end of editing my video, I made sure that most of the shots within the first half of my trailer are able to get longer or shorter to suit to length of the audio clip. This would mean that I don’t have to worry too much about the timing as I’m editing and just get the order I think works best.

Update - Editing: day 2

So far, in editing, I have learned the basics of Adobe Premiere Pro cs4. Although I worked with this software for my last project for AS, I needed to know more about the effects available on there and how to cut small sections from a large clip in the preview area because of the lengths of the clips I captured.

I came across many problems when editing the second time. When opening my film that I had previously started, nothing was playing. Once I had closed the programme down and restarted it, it managed to fix itself.

I then had problems with the video and audio link. When I pulled a clip down from the preview area, only the video would show up on the timeline and not the audio. This is probably due to how I was putting in my narration. I would use the drag audio only button in order to do this and it seemed there was no way to reverse it. I therefore had to start my whole piece again. This time I decided it would be better not to adjust any of the audio until I had all my shots in order. Although it may stop this problem occurring again, I am going to find it much more difficult to figure out how long the shots should be when there should be a voice over on top. I am hoping that when adjusting this towards the end, it will not effect my film very much.

When I started putting all my shots in order, I then wanted to add effects to them in order for one shot to blend into the next one. It took me a while to understand how this worked as I kept dragging the effect bar to far on the next shot causing three images to be blended together. It took me a while to get my head around how to use this effect, however, I do understand now. When previewing what I had done, the image seemed to glitch a lot. I had done the effect correctly so am thinking it’s to do with the shot itself. I’m hoping that it’s just with these two shots that I blended together as I would like to repeat this effect throughout my film.

Because of the way I have filmed, I am not following my script so strictly when editing it. Although, it has proved much more difficult when choosing where some clips should go, I can be much more creative. It has allowed me to experiment with effects and when something goes wrong with my script, I have many other clips I can replace it with.

As time is going to be a potential problem due to problems booking the editing computers, I wanted to make sure I understood ways in which I could edit more quickly. As well as cutting from the preview area, I am adjusting to using the keyboard to do most of the work such as ‘I’ and ‘o’ for selecting what I wanted to cut and then the comma to drag that down to my time line.

For the moment, as well as concentrating on the editing, I am trying to understand Adobe After Effects so that I am able to add the glitched shots I wanted. So far, I am finding it quite difficult and complicated and am hoping there are tutorials on YouTube for this effect rather than using the help bar which I thought was far too complicated. I didn’t find many useful effects on Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 which is why I am going to be using After Effects. Although I am still learning how to use this software, I am well aware of how to add the clips I have made on there, easily to the Premiere Pro timeline.

Overall, although I didn’t get much of my film done, I still think this day was successful. I learned more about the software, such as effects and cutting, as well as learning time saving ways of editing. I think that if so many problems hadn’t occurred, I would have got much further with my editing, however, I now know how to overcome these problems if they ever happen again. It has made me aware of how long I am going to need to complete my film. I don’t think that the time I will be able to book in the college computers will be enough so am hoping to use a friends computer who has this software to help me finish it on time.

Update - Editing: Day 1

Capturing the film onto the hard drive proved to be fairly simple. There were no major problems other than occasionally pausing without reason or having problems with audio. However, within about half an hour all of it was uploaded onto premiere pro and each clip worked perfeclty fine. Most of the clips are in big chunks with no real order so I may decide to cut each scene out to make editing less complicated. However, as ive had a chance to get some clips in order on the timeline already, ive felt the process of cutting it out of the 1st preivew screen just as easy so feel this will waste time.

So far I am just reminding myself of the features on premiere pro such as learning how to just drag the audio into the timeline or mute or cut vision out of one of the levels of the timeline. Im making sure that everything that I want to put into my final piece is available ont his software such as the glithing affect.

I haven't faced any problems so far in editing. I am slightly worried about adding the music into my piece. I have already chosen all the sound affects and songs I want to add but am just worrying about the dialogue which will be added over the top or the transition between one song an another. I will look on the editng software to see what audio transitions there are or research back into other trailers to see how it was done it them.

Overall, I am pleased with how it looks now that it has been uploaded to a bigger screen. None of the shots seem to dark which it the main issue that kept coming up in filming. Although I was hoping to have more takes of the more important shots, so far, when looking back over the foutage, there arent any shots that look as if though they will cause any problems.

Filming: Day 2

My second filming day was on the 5th of February, starting at 2 o’clock and stopping at around 6 o’ clock.

On the first filming day, I followed the script exactly and found that some shots didn’t work or was to dark to do. Because of this, I decided that on my next filming day, I wouldn’t use any script and just shoot things I thought would work.

I started off with me just walking with the camera recording, going in and out the tunnels. As the light from the torches wasn’t enough to do the establishing shot, I did this all in the day. I was disappointed by this as I didn’t think that it would give the creepy feel I wanted however, the weather was very cloudy and fairly dark on the second day which helped. When walking around, if I thought something would look good in my trailer, I would shoot it. As I shot so much, I think that this will be good when editing as I will have a lot of choices there for me. So although, I don’t think I will be able to follow my script very well, I have a lot I can work with.

Being so free with my filming actually allowed me to shoot some great shots. For instance, as it was windy, there was a large metal door that kept banging shut on its own. Not only did it look good, it also gave me a great sound affect.

I thought this day was very successful, not only because I was freer without the script, but I had a lot more time. Not being restricted allowed me to think things through much more thoroughly and discuss with my helper and actor what shots I could do and how I could do them. I was also able to take many of the same shot to make sure that I had choices when it came to editing.

Having someone there that wasn’t an actor helped with lighting, organising and helping me with the camera when I needed to be in the shot.

The biggest problem I faced when I was there was that I only had one actor available. I originally wanted to retake some shots where the whole group was there but these might have to be replaced. Although having one actor was difficult, it did help with time issues, organising and noise. I found it so much easier to work with just the one actor and as a result, I thought it helped getting shots I wouldn’t normally have come up with.

The only major problem I had was that I wanted more shots with the ghost and the only character I had was the main investigator. As I had the same sort of hair, I tried doing these shots myself. The cameras screen was able to twist round so I could get a general idea of what it would look like before it was recorded. These shots took the longest as I had to go over and over them but I think that it was quite a success. I don’t think that the character will look noticeably different when I edit it together but it may mean that some previous shots may have to be cut out.

I decided to record the voices separately. I did this for many reasons. Firstly, it will allow me to be freer when editing it. I won’t have to put some unwanted shots in just because of the dialogue. Secondly, the recordings on the camera when the people are further away was poor, so having it separate meant that I could put the camera closer so hopefully, the quality will be better. I am unsure to how well I did these recordings though, however, if these seem to be a problem they are easy to redo.

Lighting was hardly an issue on this filming day. I decided to go up earlier when it was light so I could get all the establishing shots I needed. Some of the shots in the tunnels that were originally to dark were helped with the light coming from the end of the tunnel. I only had 2 torches to work with in this one but this wasn’t a problem at all.

Overall, I thought that this filming day was very successful. I don’t think that there was any major problems but if there are some shots from my script that didn’t quite work, I know that I have plenty of other shots I can change this for.

Location

Location Rek - page 14 to 17
Location Details

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