4 Minutes - Final Draft

Here is the final draft of our two minute film opening, '4 Minutes':

Quick Update Vlog

Here is our very quick vlog from today:

Two Minute Film Opening - Finally Finished!

Today we finally finished our two minute film opening, '4 Minutes'. There were only a few things that we needed to change/refine, for example, we adjusted the volume of certain clips to make it more consistent, so that there were no unintentional sudden loud parts. We had to change the background noise in Starbucks slightly as it began to sound a bit repetitive due to the fact that we had the same audio playing on a loop throughout the scene. We are extremely happy with the final outcome, we feel that it captures the mysterious, slightly eerie atmosphere perfectly as well as telling the story that we wanted to.

The group in the editing process

Here is our celebratory vlog:

Editing and Foley

We continued editing our two minute film opening today, focusing mainly on sound. We needed to adjust the volume of the Starbucks scene as well as the darkroom scene. Due to the fact that we previously detached the audio from the Starbucks shots in order to replace it with a constant background noise that flowed well, we needed to use Foley to add in certain sounds. We had to record to sound of me typing on a keyboard as well as putting the camera on the table. It was very successful and we managed to record clear sound, it was quite difficult to get it in time with the footage, but, after a few tweaks, we managed to do it perfectly. Here is a video of our Foley experience:

Audience Feedback 2

We asked more people to watch our two minute film opening today. We have made some changes since our first audience feedback video, taking on the advice given, for example, we have removed the 'flashes' of Elle, changed the font of the '4 Minutes' title (to American Typewrite), as well as making some minor adjustments to the sound and order of shots. We feel like these changes have drastically improved our film opening, making it look more professional.

First Draft - Audience Feedback

We decided to show a few people the first draft of our film opening, filming their reactions and gaining feedback. We thought that this was important as we can see how our target audience responds to the film. We showed it to people that didn't know what our opening was about in order to see whether they understood the narrative and to obtain unbiased feedback. For the most part, it was positive feedback, we were told that the storyline was clear and that our titles were cleverly incorporated, however, one viewer said that we should change the font of our '4 Minutes' title as it was too plain, another pointed out a section where our voices are audible in the background. This was extremely beneficial as our group hadn't noticed some of the mistakes that the viewer's picked up on. We are now able to make adjustments to our opening to improve it.

4 Minutes - First Draft

Here is our first draft of our film opening '4 Minutes'. We are happy with the title sequence and most of the darkroom scene at the end. The section in Starbucks still needs to be refined, there are a few sudden jumps where the shots haven't been edited properly, we also need to make the background noise quieter. Hopefully after these changes have been made, we will be finished.

Filming Finished!

We have finally finished filming! As I mentioned in my previous post, we needed a couple more shots of our main character in Starbucks in order to make the narrative flow better. Luckily, Starbucks wasn't busy, we managed to get the exact shots that we needed - an over-the-shoulder shot of my character looking out of the window as well as a mid-close up of the same thing. We uploaded our footage and added in one of our shots to our film opening, it immediately made a difference and we are now happy with the scene.

Editing

We have completely finished editing our title sequence, taking up half of the time allowed for our opening. We need to finish editing the Starbucks scene, however, before we can do that, we need to film a few more shots, this is because whilst we watched our footage back, it was quite confusing, we don't think that our audience will be able to follow the storyline. We decided that we only need one or two shots, hopefully this can be completed by the end of the week.

The whole group stayed after school to continue editing, we have almost finished the darkroom scene at the end of our opening. One of our main priorities right now is sound, we need to adjust the volume of certain clips as well as add sound through the use of Foley. We recorded a ticking noise that we want to play throughout the darkroom section, creating an agitated atmosphere, symbolising the character's fragile mind. Unfortunately, Elle had to leave slightly earlier, the rest of the group started to adjust the audio. The background noise in Starbucks is slightly distracting in some of our clips as there is music playing, this is inconsistent throughout the scene as the shots were filmed at different times, thus the music changes between each shot. To fix this problem, we decided to find one of our shots that is quite long and has a good amount of background noise, we then detached the audio and replaced the audio of the clips used in the opening. Below is a vlog showing us in the editing process:

Darkroom - Developing Photos and Filming

Today we were planning to film in Starbucks, however, it was too busy so we decided to finish filming in the darkroom. After developing our film yesterday, we needed to develop individual photographs, in total we have four - three scenic shots taken at Forty Hall and one of the murder victim. We wanted the Forty Hall pictures to look very peaceful and natural to juxtapose the brutality of the crime committed by our main character. We put a lot of thought into the images that we wanted as we needed the props to look authentic so as to not distract the audience and take them out of the moment. Below, on the left shows the enlarging process, on the right is the final photograph.

We also had to film me developing some of the photographs as well as film a few shots around the darkroom to create a mysterious atmosphere, to introduce the audience to the location. Our two minute opening is split into three distinct sections, the first is the title sequence which takes place in the darkroom, the second is in Starbucks and the third is in the darkroom again, developing photographs. It proved to be quite difficult whilst we were editing to make the transition between each location seamless, to make the opening flow better. We needed to make the transition between Starbucks and the darkroom less jarring. We decided to make the final shot in Starbucks nearly identical to the first shot in the darkroom. Below is the shot in Starbucks:

We had to re-film this shot in the darkroom various times as we wanted the angle of the camera to match perfectly.

Title Sequence - Final Day of Filming

We finished filming our title sequence today. We had to re-film the 'Starring Emily Field' title as our original shot was not of a high enough standard, the lighting was completely different to the rest of the title sequence, making it very distracting. The clear plastic bag that we used to protect the letters in the tray of water was visible throughout the shot, we felt that this was not a reflection of our best work.

Initially, we placed the cut out magazine letters, that spell out the title, on the floor. We then wanted a close up shot of my feet walking past, zooming in on the letters. This was very difficult to do because we could not light the shot correctly, leaving the title illegible.

 Instead, we decided to film the title under the light of the enlarger, a machine used to enlarge and develop photographs. We like this shot more because it shows the audience more of the technical aspects of the darkroom, helping to make our character and opening more believable. We also had to re-film a shot of a timer counting down from 4 minutes, alluding to the title of our film. The original shot was too dark to see the numbers properly, we used more light this time.
 

Our new shot

Filming the timer



We then had to develop our film that contained photographs of the main character's victim. We are hoping to develop individual photographs soon so that we can film me looking through them, creating a more eerie atmosphere as the audience realises that the main character is a murderer and that the photographs are of a dead person. Developing the film was quite difficult, it needed to be in complete darkness so that the film strip didn't react with light whilst we took it out of the camera. We eventually managed to get the film into the developing tank and could continue the easier part of pouring in the chemicals with the light on.

Measuring the chemicals

The developed film

Here is our vlog from the shoot: