Editing footage for third parties

Upon return from a family holiday I was asked to edit down footage from a range of clips into a short video, below are the results of this.

Rough cut of second year film

About Me

Preliminary task at start of first year

Film Study/Analysis

Individual Film Study

Genre: psychological horror

Similar Films To Our Own..

Shutter Island

U.S. marshal Teddy Daniels is assigned to investigate the disappearance of a patient from Boston's Shutter Island Mental Hospital/Prison. He's been pushing for an assignment on the island for personal reasons, but before long, he begins to wonder whether he hasn't been brought there as part of a twisted plot by hospital doctors whose radical treatments range from unethical and illegal to downright sinister. Teddy's forward investigating skills soon provide a promising lead, but the hospital refuses him access to records he suspects would break the case wide open. As a hurricane cuts off communication with the mainland, more dangerous criminals "escape" in the confusion, and the puzzling, improbable clues multiply, Teddy begins to doubt everything - his memory, his partner, even his own sanity.

This film is similar to ours in the sense that an individual is drove insane by self torment and question his own sanity, the film also reaches a peak of realization at the end just as our own film does.

Things the film does to display its genre:
the films color scheme stays mainly grey and black colors making sure the lighting is dull and also using reds to highlight important information or key points, the film also uses flashbacks to great effect but showing them not as the audience remembers them, this is used to make the audience question their own minds and make them feel uneasy about not remembering what just happened

Case 39:

Social Worker Emily Jenkins is assigned to investigate the family of ten year-old Lilith Sullivan as her grades have declined and an emotional rift with her parents has emerged. Emily suspects that the parents have been mistreating Lilith. Emily's fears are confirmed when Lilith’s parents try to kill her by roasting her in the oven at home. Emily saves Lilith with the help of Detective Mike Barron. Lilith is originally sent to a children's home, but she begs Emily to look after her instead. With the agreement of the board, Emily is assigned to take care of Lilith until a suitable foster family comes along. In the meantime, Lilith’s parents, Edward and Margaret are placed in a mental institution.

Not too long after Lilith moves in, strange things begin to happen around Emily. Two weeks later, another of Emily's cases, a boy named Diego suddenly murders his parents, and Barron informs Emily that somebody phoned Diego from her house the night before the crime. As she is suspected of involvement in the incident, Lilith undergoes a psychiatric evaluation by Emily's best friend, Douglas J. Ames. During the session, however, Lilith turns the evaluation around, asking Douglas what his fears are and subtly threatening him. That night, Douglas receives a strange phone call and is panicked by a mass of hornets coming out of his body; in hysteria, he kills himself in his bathroom. The film continues with the torment of each character until once again as typical with this genre a climax is reached.

  

Reasearch into age ratings

The age rating will attempt to achieve for our film will be a 15, this is due to the fact we will want a wide an audience as possible to view our film whilst still sticking to the guidelines of the BBFC.

The major difference between a 12 and a 15 are as follows

strong violence

frequent strong language (eg 'f***').

portrayals of sexual activity

strong verbal references to sex

sexual nudity

brief scenes of sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence

discriminatory language or behavior

drug taking

Depending on the amount of strong language and violence we decide to add into our final film the rating could possibly come down due to the fact our film has no scripted sexual content, however, our film is going to be based heavily on drugs and the use of drugs. The BBFC allows the use of drugs in 15 films as long as “drug taking does not promote or encourage drug misuse” and as well as this “The misuse of easily accessible and highly dangerous substances like aerosols or solvents is unlikely to be acceptable at 15”. I believe that the film will stick to these guidelines as the film has no solvent abuse as well as it shows drugs in an extremely negative light.

The aspect of “insanity” in our film is also in my opinion to an acceptable level for a 15 and the BBFC say that “Many horror films are rated 15 and at 15 there can be strong threats and menace” this means our film as far as is so far scripted will be acceptable in this category. 

Charecter Profiles

Name: Alex
Age: 16
Occupation: Student
Character attributes: Long, dark brown hair with middle parting and green eyes. Dresses relatively casually. Has a friendly and fun personality but quite shy. She is easily peer pressured. An average stereotypical teenager.
Role in the film: Best friend of Jess. At the party, she reluctantly takes cocaine under Jess' influence and subsequently dies. She begins to haunt Jess following her death and appears in her dreams and flashbacks.


Name: Jess
Age: 16
Occupation: Student
Character attributes: Long, dark hair with a full fringe and brown eyes. Also dresses relatively casually. Has a rebellious personality and wilfully gets involved in dangerous behaviour such as drugs and drinking.
Role in the film: Best friend of Alex. She convinces Alex to take cocaine which leads to her death. She feels incredibly guilty about her involvement and has night terrors about the night. She begins to see Alex's ghost in her day-to-day life.

First Year Film - Storyboards

First Year Film - Vodka and Coke

Evaluation of early film work

Cameron Farrell

Preliminary Exercise Evaluation

Brief: to film a short conversation between two people that demonstrates

            180-degree line

            Shot reverse shot

            Match on action

180-degree line

The 180 degree line is the metaphorical line that should not be crossed when filming a conversation, this is done to make the placement of each person consistent and the audience isn’t confused.

Shot reverse shot

Shot reverse shot is when a shot is taken from over the shoulder of a character, this is used to show a first person point of view but whilst still showing the subject speaking, the shot is then switched over when the other person starts to speak.

Match on action

A match on action is when a shot is cut as a piece of action takes place, for example, when someone is walking towards a door the shot would cut just as their hand touches the handle, it would then cut to the inside of the room and keep continuity.

Planning

When planning our short film we had to consider a script, storyboards, locations, research, a shot list and a risk assessment.

To create a script we used a program called ‘Celtx’, this allowed us to create a short script for our work that everyone could have a copy of.

We drew out a storyboard for our work to ensure the whole cast was clear on how the filming would take place and come together as a whole.

We had to book out a room for our film location and ensured our lighting levels where suitable for filming.

Before we started filming we had to compose a shot list, this was to make sure no important shots where missed out from our production and we didn’t have to go back to film our work again.

To ensure we worked safely we had to create a risk assessment that insured everyone on set remained safe throughout filming.

Filming

When filming we had a cameraman, a director and two actors on set. The director decided the shot angles and worked with the cameraman to make sure the shots followed our shot list and nothing was missed out during filming. A Difficulty we had when filming was the small space we had to use the camera on the tripod.

Editing

To edit our film we used final cut express, this allowed us to edit our film to a good standard and do it easily, the film was edited with input from the whole group

How Our Film Met The Briefs Requirements

Our film made use of ‘shot reverse shot’ multiple times and we used it for the entirety of our short conversation, as well as this we used match on action for when our actor walked into our filming room.

During the whole filming process we ensured that we never crossed the 180-degree line.

Weather monitoring for shooting days

Here is the forecast for the week. As the weather is fairly consistent for the week this will be a good week to film in. As a group we have concluded that we will film on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday; the weather can be unpredictable so we have chosen multiple days to film avoid a loss of time and lack of progression.
The similar conditions in the weather mean that we can have continuity with the shots taken on each day, following this post we will have plans on what to do on the individual filming days. Within this picture there is a prediction of rain which is the biggest problem for the filming equipment but we will avoid this to our best capabilities. Weather monitoring

Record of Filming Days

Today we arrived on location at Cameron's house with every member of the group, we had the props required to film the other scenes not involving the little girl. The initial plan was to film all the poster scenes. We did this but were unable to move forward after because all that is left is the little girl scenes. So therefore we need to plan a day at the weekend where everyone is available. Productive day but we are now able to start editing on a later date.

Location used

Cameron's House
Cameron's estate

Issues

Pedestrians coming into shots.
Cars and vans parking ruining continuity.

Actors/Actress

Cameron Farrell

 

Shots Used

Pan
Over the Shoulder
Long Shots
Low angle
Tilt
Close-up

Editing down large ammounts of footage + example of blooper reels

Research into film genre make-up

The make-up of the psychological horror genre can be very varied from film to film. The 'normal' characters in the film, usually the ones who are being tormented, have little to no make up, just as any other character. This allows us to associate more with them as an audience in some cases as we can put ourselves in their shoes easier when they look like an everyday person.

The 'villain' of the film usually has pale facial features and black contacts can also be used in some cases to as a demonic representation. In our film we wont be using make up to this effect but we will still try to make uses of it when applicable.

Scipt Writing

Produced Using Celtx

Prop Lists

Prop List

Empty Beer Boxes

Beer Cans

Empty Bottles

These three props are mainly going to be used to display the characters physical state. for example many films use things like these to portray a alcoholic. We would use the props in the location we choose to show that he is an alcoholic and his mental state isn't very good.

Ash Tray

Ash Tray is also another prop we would use to display a characters state as usually smoking is a sign of depression and the quantity of cigarettes could display this.

Drugs

Drugs will be used in our film when the character commits suicide, so the use of drugs isn't to portray him as an addict but to show he overdoses his prescription.

Keys

The use of keys is when the character opens the door but drops his keys then struggles to pick them up adding to his physical state creating sympathy from the audience.

Childs Drawing 

This will be used near the ending when he enters his daughters room and picks up a happy poster remembering what it used to be like before he kills himself. where the last shot to show he dies is when the picture falls from his hand.

Missing Poster

This is a main prop in the film to show the characters mental state as his daughter is dead but he puts missing posters up showing his mind is going from the guilt and the alcohol.

Back Pack