Opening movie: DRAFT

So here's our first draft, it's not 100% there but we're close!

What we still have to do:

This post is going to summarise what jobs we still have yet to do!

Despite our video being near enough completed, we still have the scrutinising problem of our video reaching 3:27 minutes in total, meaning we still have a heck of a lot of reductions to make, but we just can't seem to delete scenes. We have a disadvantage as the majority of our shots are meant to be long paced to add to the suspense and impact, meaning we can't reduce them down, so our only choice is to cut some shots out completely:(

Our second problem is sound, originally we planned to feature a creepy lullaby tune, (much like tea for three and one) yet all of the melodies we've come across are either way too cheesy, or copyrighted. 

Lastly is our title, beforehand we had originally agreed on 'marionette,' however over time we felt it didn't feel as a suitable or sophisticated name, and the last straw was when me and kelly saw what it looked like actually on our opening credits; extremely shabby. Me and Kelly thought it might be useful to check out the history of our location and near roads etc. Thats when Kelly came across the road running alongside the park; Beggars Hallow. We're not 100% on this new name and it definitely needs to be a topic discussed along with the pervious two. 

Inspiration: Hollow

Added to my list of inspirations is the horrifying 'Hollow,' released to the UK in 2013. It casts a sinister cloud over its viewers. I mean even the trailer leaves me feeling uncomfortable and uneasy. It uses the unsettling mise-en scene of the macabre tree stood on its own to generate fear; much like the tree we have on our location.

Evidence from our filming adventure: Part 2.

Voila! our evidence for the second day of filming.

THE time lapse

As well as reshooting our still shots we were also going to attempt to record a time lapse of the clouds to use in the montage for our opening credits. Much like the time lapse used in The Haunting of Radcliffe house, we were aiming to capture movement of clouds through branches and above the treetops, however the weather didn't agree with us as the movement of cloud was sparse and didn't give us the time lapse we wanted.
Whilst strolling past a fast flowing river, we decided it might work filming the river flow over some large rocks. (which formed a mini waterfall - kind of) From this we brainstormed ideas and thought doing a time lapse of the river flowing would compensate for the cloud time lapse, and it wasn't till we were editing and playing around we found that doing the river flowing in reverse actually worked like a treat! It also reminded us of a opening clip we saw in class of the movie 'Remember me' as it used the same reverse technique to reverse the tide coming in, this created a creepy yet eerie ambience.



(For some reason the youtube clip is extremely blurry)

The 'flicker'

I mentioned previously in a blog about creating a 'flickering' effect whilst Keeley walks towards the forest to compensate for the time lapse. I managed to extract this clip from our project and upload it onto my blog!

Stills

Here are the still shots we've decided to use for our opening credits. (We've also bugsied who's name goes on what shot)

Film day: PART 2

So on Friday we wrapped up warm and headed out in the minus conditions to capture our much needed still shots. We needed to re-capture some stills of Hillys as when we shot them beforehand they suffered from shaky hand! We also needed many more shots to complete our opening credits. We used Kelly's amazing Canon again and was amazed by the quality of shots.
We also relived Janadhi's adventure of hell!

Editing vlog

Vlog on editing! We've just began the long and frustrating journey regarding the editing process so just a little catchup of everything we've done so far and any alternations up to date.

Insidious: Chapter 3.

Insidious: chapter 3.
2015.
Kelly get you're unlimited card at the ready.
 (This specific scene in the movie literally made my insides scream- It look terrifyingly amazing!)

Snap of editing process

Here's a quick clip from our two minute opening. I think the contrast of colours work really well; the green grass compared to her crisp white dress creates a really creepy and ghostly atmosphere; especially when she stops and pauses.

Editing must commence!

Editing has began! It has become apparent this is going to take a hell of a lot longer than we ever anticipated. What i've attempted to do today, is change the exposure, saturation and brightness on the 'empty' shots to give the impression that Keeley has 'disappeared,' we found that when leaving the 'empty' shots at the same colouring it did not achieve a professional look, and more like something edited on a smart-phone rather than iMovie. using the contrasted colours on a quick pace lead to a more super 8/black and white style of film, adding to the suspense that a horror movie should hold.

Major inspiration- Woman in black,

The opening scene for 'For the woman in black' stands as our main platform for inspiration. The three little girls in dresses playing with their dolls; we even fell in love with the song (tea for three plus one by Marco Beltrami)
It's so creepy! and the shrieking of the mother at the end just makes my insides curdle- absolutely brilliant.

Annabelle. [Retch]

One major recent film inspiration for our group is the movie Annabelle, it's plot; based on a possessed doll poses many features we would want to convey in our opening. Something i picked up on whilst watching was the excessive amounts of close up shots of the doll, this produced an uncertain and uncomfortable sensation for the audience as there was anticipation whether the doll would 'blink' or as such, because of this we've tried to include as many close up shots of our doll in order to cause a similar effect.

Vlog

So in this Vlog I speak about the difficulties we went through and the changes we made in consequence of these obstacles.

Filming process

In this Vlog I speak about the filming process; what i thought went well and what I would do differently.

Filming adventure

As promised here is the evidence of our filming! I found some cool features on iMovie such as stabilising video shakiness as well as some already recorded sound effects that ranges from a rocket taking off to a duck quaking. We have been looking for months for the perfect soundtrack and I believe to have found a contender! (Drone darkness suspense 2) I have added the audio in the background to get a feel of the menacing atmosphere we want.

Location snap

Just a quick snap of our location. We were amazed to find such a flawless spot. After walking for 20 minutes through Hilly's we came across an empty field with one of the most sinister yet beautiful looking oak tree; it also had the perfect branch to attach our swing too! The field was surrounded by forest and right before us was the perfect arch we needed to essentially be the 'door of doom'

Editing on home mac

During filming on Sunday, we thought we would put the panasonic given to us by the school to use and record ourselves throughout the day as evidence. Tonight i have began editing together the many videos at home! It also lets me have a little play around with iMovie on my macbook (as i have a different version from the macs at school) the video should be up if not tonight, tomorrow.

Inspiration: Haunting of Radcliffe house.

 The opening credits for the Haunting of Radcliffe house uses still shots of foliage, trees etc for its opening credits. We've taken major inspiration from this as we were planning on using shots of the landscape we took to create a similar title sequence. However, we made need to re-film certain shots using a tripod to ensure there is no camera shake involved. We felt using these shots as our opening credits would create a simple yet eerie tone to our movie opening.

Below is the entire movie but we've just focused on the credits (00:00 - 01:05)

Beautiful still shots.

I LOVE these still shots of Keeley we took today. Her 'possession ' over the doll captured in the second picture really creeps me out to be frank, also a massive thank you to Nicole for letting us 'trash' her china doll, i don't think we could have found one quite as terrifying and spine-chilling as this one.  

Film day!

With our hot chocolate at the ready, today our group went out and finally filmed. Due to our 2 minute opening all being set at the same location, we were able to shoot the entire movie opening in one day.(However we are ready for criticism.) We adjusted many things today, for example we found trouble panning at a smooth pace due to our tripod, because of this we decided it would be best to use an old disregarded idea, this new idea consists of a lot more editing regarding making the girl disappear then reappear in a jittery composition. Despite this we found as a group it worked well so we scrapped the pan. Also due to the lack of movements from the clouds, we were unable to complete the time lapse, also we had a limited amount of memory from Kelly's cannon; we thought the time lapse took away from the 'sinister' atmosphere that we are attempting to set.

Here are some pictures of the day;

Costume!

So today me and Kelly took to the shops to purchase our 'little girl' costume.
We bought :
A really beautiful ivory dress from Monsoon that really captures the innocence yet sinister look we wanted it to.
We also bought a cute pair of black Mary-jane pumps from Next.
As well as some burgundy ribbon to be placed in with her hair, also a matching thinner ribbon to attach to the dolls hair.

Storyboards

Here is our first drafted story board! (Some changes will need to be made, such as the changes to the bear as well as the pan.)

Woman in black: Angel of death!?

             I went to see the new Woman in black: Angel of death last night. I found it's plot of involving children rather similar to our context. The overuse of prolonged silences and long paced shots created the sinister and daunting atmosphere i hope will be portrayed in our opening 2 minutes. Despite holding the audiences interest with it's compelling storyline, i couldn't help but cover my eyes and ears throughout the more 'active' scenes. One of my favourite things played out in both films, is the connotation aroused with certain rooms\objects. almost instantly after entering the nursery you become aware of the tragedy and simply the dismaying scenes that occur within that setting. so much so, you know something disheartening is going to happen just with a shot of the door of the nursery.