Action Plan

We need to put the rest of footage in and make sure the order is right, adding titles to footage of blood and transitions in between each clip. We also need to start to create our soundtrack.

Response to feedback

Editing-
Only very rough idea of whats to come, just order. The photos will be flashed up quicker with transitions making then smoother and faster, and they aren't copyrighted images as stacey took and edited them. Final footage will involve transitions as rough cut has none at all.

Camera work- thank you :) we had to re-shoot the bath scene several times to get it still

Sound- Plan on leaving the sound of the taps dripping like you said, and also will considering the noise of faces being scribbled out. Hopefully we will create our own soundtrack

Mise en scene- we intended the snapshots of blood to build tension and add mystery so thank you!

Narrative- the story would be revealed more in the film as to whether she was raped or killed

Generic convensions- we planned to use all of the ones mentioned =)

Feedback from other members of the class

Editing-
Editing was good but photos need to be smoother and faster. More transitions could be good. Copyrighted images?

Camera work-
Nice bath scene, still camera good

Sound- Will look good with non diagetic sound for bath and scribbling faces bit. Maybe volcanoes would be effective.

Mise en scene-
Spooky scene, snapshots of blood builds tension, darkness effective, view from outside increases sense of being watched.

Narrative-
Fairly obvious whats happening. It is clear but not sure whether he wants to rape or kill her.

Generic conventions-
The "gaze" plus voyarism, stalking, murder, threat, contrasting setting, ordinary setting.

Rough cut

This is our rough cut for our thriller.
We have not yet added our soundtrack so there is lots of noise.
We haven't added any transitions in yet but we hope that once we do we will create a more confusing and disturbing effect.
This is just our basic order and we have more work to do.

Blood

Before we filmed we tested some different ways of creating fake blood however we found that in water they were not very effective. On the day of our shoot we simply used red food colouring in water and found that it spread very effectively and gave the effect we wanted. Hoepfully when we come to edit our sequence the effect of realistic blood will make the audience feel that it is more genuine and make them more uncomfortable.

Soundtrack

We are about to start creating the final soundtrack for our thriller project. When making the animatic we found this very time consuming and didn't quite get the effect we wanted. We will create the soundtrack at the same time as editing the shots to ensure that they fit well together. Although it will take a lot of time we want to create a good soundtrack to accompany our opening sequence as we have put a lot of preperation into the filming and want to create a good effect.
We hope to create a very mysterious soundtrack that enhances the idea of being watched and makes the viewer feel uncomfortable. We will acheive this by using stringed instruments and loud bangs when an unexpected shot comes onto the screen.

Problems during filming

When we were filming we encountered quite a few problems that we didn't expect. We had planned to start filming a lot earlier than we were able to on the night and this meant that it was very dark outside. When we filmed our original shots we found that it was hard to make out what was happening. We solved this by moving the shots closer to windows so that there was a light source nearby.
Filming in the bathroom was also harder than we expected as Helens clothes kept showing through the bubbles which meant we had to refilm the same shot several times. We also found that the shape of Helens bathroom was hard to film in as we needed to pan from the bath to the window whithout shaking the camera to create a smooth shot.
When we started filming our camera didn't have the clip to attatch it to the tripod so we found it extremely difficult to get some of the smooth panning shots that we needed.
Although we encountered a few problems we managed to overcome them and film successfuly.

Filming

The filming of our opening sequence was harder than we expected. We managed to get all the shots we needed and we stuck as closely as possible to the shot list. As we knew exactly what effect we wanted to create and how we would need to do that we put a lot of preperation into our shot list to save us time and make our filming as simple as possible. We didn't add any other scenes or shots into our shot list but if a shot was too hard to film because of the angle or light then we edited it slightly so that it would fit in with the rest of our shots.
We found filming in the bathroom the hardest as rotating the camera from the bath to the window was more complicated than we thought as it was a long rotation and the shots often didn't come out as smooth as we would have liked.
When we filmed outside the wuality of light was an issue as it was very dark so we edited our shot list slightly to make sure that any shots filmed outside wold be filmed near night sources such as windows. Tgis was sucecssful as we managed to create a shot of Helen being watched from outside with James' sillouete in the frame which was very effective.
Overall our shooting went well as we prepared the props and shotlist beforehand and we knew what we needed to do. Because of this we were able to get all the shots we needed in one night.

Teacher Feedback

Your blog looks great. Your animatic is excellent, it very effectively communicates your idea. The mark of a good blog is whether or not it gives the reader a strong idea of what you are trying to achieve with your project, this one definitely does that. Well done.
I really like your idea and I think it makes interesting use of the concept of 'The Gaze' and the different camera shots you are intending to use highlight different perspectives of watching and being watched. It emphasises feelings of paranoia and suspense.
Great work so far.

Our animatic

Soundtrack

We have just finished composing the sketch of our sound track to accompany the animatic. We found that this was harder than we thought it would be as many of the effects we wanted to use did not work well together. We eventually decided to use a guitar as our main instrument, but timing it with the changes of scene in our animatic was hard. We have recently included some different effects to make our animatic sound as if it includes both diagetic and non diagetic sound. The sound effects we used include a dripping tap in the background of the scenes in the bathroom to give the effect that the there is no other sound in the bathroom itself.

fake blood test

I recently followed the recipe we found on the internet on how to make fake blood to make sure that we could get the effect we wanted when we filmed our sequence. I made sure that the blood spread well in water and didn't look too pale. I tried several different methods in order to make sure that we got the best possible effect. Hopefully the method that i have found will give us an effective scene and won't look too tacky.