Our Opening title animation

This is the  final design for our title, we have added in animation so that it doesn't slow down the pace of our horror trailer. However the design is still the same as our initial created title.

Our Production Company

This title will come up at the very beginning of our trailer, this logo will indicate to the audience which company has produced the film. Boris Films is the type of company that would come together to produce this sort of British horror film and after production never produce a film again. The title is very similar to other production titles, very plan and bold so its clear who has produced the film.

Inspiration

When was looking at ideas for our British horror/thriller film trailer, one film immediately come to mind and this was Shane Meadows Dead Man shoes, there are a number of techniques we will be taking away from this trailer.

1. Voice over: When we watched the Dead Man Shoes trailer we all believed that the voice over from Andy's Brother (The killer) was very effective, this was because it set the scene and gave us a subtle idea of what will occur throughout the film. In our trailer we will use a voice over from the killer explaining why he commits such crimes.

2. Snappy Transitions: In this trailer snappy transitions are used to create tension and build up speed, this is stereotypical to films of this genre. We are planning to use this in our trailer to give clear indication to the audience that it is a horror film.  It will also build up pace which is similar to how Dead Man Shoes created tension.

3. Sounds: In Dead Man Shoes the sounds used are noticable loud and sudden, this again is to build up tension and leave the audience anticipating the next jumpy moment, this is the exactly how we want our audience to feel when watching our teaser trailer.

Week 1 (Editing Timetable)

This is our first week of editing.The group members who will be working in the assigned slot have been put in brackets. The grey boxes indicate the periods when no one will be working in the media suite so we can still work, the black boxes mean when all the media computers are being used by another class, this means we can't go into work.

Editing schedule

We decided that as there is only three weeks till we need the final cut of our film trailer we need to have a structured timetable which displays when each group member needs to come into school and edit. Each displayed time slot will indicate what needs to be achieved inside that hour. This will give us a guideline of how well we are doing and how much we need to do before our film trailer is finally finished.

Re-filming

When we looked back at our footage we decided that maybe some shots needed to be filmed again. We also wanted to get some shots showing the panic of the killers victim. To obtain these shots we went to a private field, we had requested permission to do this we asked in advance so we where not breaking any rules by being there. It was a succesful trip and we got all the shots that we aimed to achieve. Fortunately we did not incounter any problems so we where able to get all the shots and still be in on time for our lessons at school. One of my favorite shots of the day was when we laid the camera on the floor and saw two smoking bullets that clearly had just been fired then the camera panned up and we saw the victim run.

Editing (Preparing for our rough cut)

When we where capturing our footage we occurred a number of problems, we tried on numerous occasions to upload our footage. But the same error appeared over and over the message said Media Offline. To try and resolve this we turned off the computer and restarted it. As this was unsuccessful we asked our teacher what the problem was, we played about with the setting and eventually we where able to fix the problem. However if this problem was to occur again we would not be able to fix it as we are unsure how we fixed it in the first place.

Although this problem happened we where still able to get some good editing done, we where able to create a tense atmosphere, by using snappy transitions which is usually used in horror trailers and we used blackouts and included a variety of shots involving the killer.However I do not feel like we had enough variety of shots that included the victims. Although we had a number of good shots, we had not allocated enough time for editing. Jamie was unable to help edit due to other commitments such as work and other school lessons. So it was up to myself and Lyle to put the shots together and create a respectable film trailer to show to the class. Although we have a rough cut prepared it still needs a lot of work before it is up to the standard that we want it to be at.

Filming day 3

Once we looked at the footage we had from Cold Christmas Church, we where not completely satisfied with the shots that we had and there where a number of problems with these shots. Firstly when we captured our footage to Adobe Premiere some shots where faded with a grainy effect. This was not how we intended these shots to look. However some of the shots where fine so we did not need to film them again.

It was a group decision to go back to the old church to film again. By going to the church we gained a lot more shots from inside the church and shots involving other characters not merely the killer and establishing shots. The time we spent at the church was very helpful to our production. We obtained a number of point of view shots from the killer looking upon his victim; this is a vital shot as our unique selling point is that the film is mainly through the killer eyes. Our group also obtained a number of shot within in the killer’s lair; these shots show how the killer acts within his habitat. One of my personnal favourite shots was a medium shot where you could see the entrance of the church and the killer standing looking through the door, I believe the lighting on this was inspirational as the we made it appear as if the small tea lights where lighting up the killers face when in fact it was a torch shining on the killers face. Unfortunately as we wanted to get some shots in a darker light we only had a limited time and filming was cut short when it became to dark to film anything.

Feedback notes

Jamie, Will, Lyle

To get a rough structure to the shots to create a narrative
Use the strongest shots and get rid of the weakest
Try to find shots that don’t reveal too much information about the subject straight way to keep the audience on the edge of their seats
Good use of fast edits, use more of this within reason
Use the existing music but add some sound effects to add atmosphere to it….. speak to James or AJ for advice.
Get some simple but effective titles

New Location

When we had recorded all the footage on the anamatic and extra shots just so that we had more choice, we decided that we did not have any footage that signalled that our killer hated family life. To correct this we have added a new location. This was one of our group members house, this was ideal because it is located in an isolated area and it has quite a tense, eerie atmosphere to it. As the house is owned by a group member we did not need to obtain any permission or pay to use the house and the surrounding land.

Font

This is the title for our film, it will be revealed at the the end of our trailer. when we show our final cut to our audience we hope to edit the font so it fades in stays for a couple of seconds then fades to black. We created this text using Adobe Photoshop and Macromedia Fireworks. to obtain the font, create the blood dripping effect and change the colour to a bloody red gradient. Then exported it to Fireworks to put the slash through the text.

Inspiration for our killer

The picture above is an image taken from 'Dead Man's Shoes', we watched this film when researching different killers in different films and how effective they are in terrifying there audience. Although our killer doesn’t look like the one in Dead Man’s shoes, it was still the starting point in creating a unique killer.

Filming Day 2

Our group decided that the second day of filming would be used to obtain the shots we needed from the pig farm, this is a short walk from one of the group member’s house. We did not need permission to film on this land as the once privately owned land is now free to use by the public. After some delay the suit that we had ordered was delivered the day before we set out to film, we were uncertain as to whether the costume would arrive in time. This meant we were able to gather all the shots we planned to get from this location including the shots that the killer was in.

We was able to obtain some interesting shots, one of my personal favourites was one of the killer looking towards its victim then turning his head slowly and looking past the camera. I particularly liked this shot as it made our killer look bigger and more powerful and this was what we intended. From this location we achieved several establishing shots, and some long shots of our killer in the location. These shots work well because they give the idea of an eerie atmosphere and surrounding. It was ideal because there were hanging vines and fallen debris around the area, this suggested that this location was isolated from the busy world around.

More Sound FX

To acquire some of the sound FXs we needed permission to use the land (a field on the outskirts of Ware), because the land we wanted to use is privately owned. We have now obtained permission to use the land and now aim to take full advantage of it. We want to use the field so we can tape gunshots. Two of the three members of our group have gun licences therefore we will be able to achieve the sound safely and appropriately.