Before we started making our horror movie opening, I didn’t have any experience of editing, other than the preliminary task, because I didn’t do film studies at GCSE. However, to ensure that the editing will be better in our opening, I have practice and played around at home with the different effects and learnt different ways to join/transition from one scene to another.
I believe that the most important thing when producing a clip is the camera, because if the footage isn’t good quality, it can ruin the affect of the whole clip. For example, when doing a close-up of the necklace, it must be in sharp focus, to make the audiencegenerate their attention towards it, It also implies the importance of the shot and the object in it. Most of the time the camera was on M- manual mode- as we had numerous close-ups/ extreme close-ups; it requiredus having to focus the camera manually, as we didn’t have a lens that was able to focus itself on extreme close-ups. (Throughout the whole process we only used one type of lens.)
The lighting played an important role in out opening, as we tried to set different types of atmosphere by using various types of lighting-This included adjusting the colour and the exposure of the shots.At the very beginning of our opening we used the light from streetlights and no other additional lighting. This is because we thought it looked more natural this way, and the shot wasn't needing any LED lighting due to it being grainy so we decided not to use it. However, we did use the LED light for the scenes inside the house, and the ritual circle scene.In the bathroom scene we wanted to have blue lighting to create a cold atmosphere, although on that day we didn't have the blue filter with us, so we ended up changing the hues of blue on the editing software on the Mac to get the colour we wanted. We came across a slight problem when we had to edit a transition between two scenes, as one of them ended in quite dark lighting , whereas the other clip was a lot brighter. From this, we had to zoom in the shot to crop out the brightness of the sky as well as darkening the clip using Adobe Premiere Pro to adjust the transition between the two scenes. The LED light was simple to use but we had to be aware of the positioning of it, because if it wasn’t in the right place the shadows of the rest of the crew would be visible, or too many shadows would be seen.We also tried to keep the light in the same place for the bedroom scene(when Sarah goes sleep and wakes up) aswe wanted to create the illusion of natural moonlight.Another difficulty we had with the LED light was when filming Sarah going to sleep, and waking up, as the light ran out of battery, and we didn’t have a charger. In order to fix this, we used the flash lights from our phones, which turned better than expected on the final clips.
After the first time we went to film, we realised that it would be really good to get a charger for the camera, and an extra battery, because the battery ran out. We didn’t need to carry extra SD cards, because after every time we finished filming, I’d import the videos on my laptop, and the next day import them on my account at school, and delete it off the SD card. This way there would be room on the SD card the next time we filmed.
In terms of sound, we only used the Rode microphone once, for the recording of the scream at the end, whereas for the other sounds we used the microphone from the camera, as we didn’t think it was necessary to use the Rode microphone as our opening didn't include any speech. Any sound that was included in our opening was enhanced (like the sound of money in the can and the knock on the door), or added in artificially from YouTube, (such as the heavy breathing.)Originally, we wanted to use the Rode microphone to record the knock as well, but when we listened to it before editing, we decided it wasn’t necessary to use the mic, we just edited it to make it seem much louder.
When editing, I used Adobe Premiere Pro, because it was easy to use and it had many tools available, which I wanted to experiment with whilst editing. I have got much better at using tools such as the different colour correction tools; RGB Colour corrector/curve, and Fast Colour Correction. I also used Adobe Premiere Pro to edit our title at the end of the movie, as we wanted the pins to fly into the word “Karma” (the pins are related to the opening, because the gypsy is shown stabbing pins into the voodoo doll, which is affecting Sarah.)
Evaluation- question 7
Looking back at the preliminary task, I believe I learnt a lot. Before the preliminary task, I didn’t know how to use any type of editing software. In order to edit the preliminary task I used Adobe Premiere Pro. While editing, I learnt how to drag the footage in, cut it, make transitions and how to manipulate the lighting of the footage; for example, make it more red, blue, or green. However, while editing the opening I also learnt how to manipulate the sound of the footage, how to use the transitions better, and advanced the skill of changing the light of the footage; for example the bathroom scene. No one in our group had any previous experience or knowledge of editing or filming so we found the preliminary task very useful, because it taught us the basic things, such us what the different camera angles represent, how to use the camera, and how to put the footage together, by cutting them in the right place, so it flows nicely. Francesca, which was a part of our group for preliminary task, was in charge of the camera, as well as molly. They were both taking turns in controlling the camera and Julia and myself were acting. When it came to editing, it was mostly me and Francesca, but Molly and Julia also edited some bits. One of the rules we had to follow when filming the preliminary was the 180 rule, which allows continuity, because if it switch from one scene to another could confuse the audience. In addition, it also helped to follow this rule because the camera crew would not be seen. We didn’t find it difficult to follow the 180 rule; the scenes we had to re-film was the shot-reverse-shot/ over the shoulder shot, because there was some things that were out of place and it looked odd.
The 180 wasn’t used in our opening, because this rule is only followed by TV shows, and not movies.
Over the shoulder shot was another shot we were told to use. This is used in every movie, to either show a reacting shot of another character, or get the feel of looking at a person from another’s point of view.
This is an example of over the shoulder shot. We have used the over the shoulder shot to show both- the gypsy’s and Sarah’s reaction. We have improved when taking over the shoulder shots, as in the preliminary task, the camera wasn’t placed very well, and had a lot of the surrounding shown for no reason, whereas in our opening the empty space was well used by the surrounding, as we wanted to show that the gypsy has been begging all day.
We were also told to use Match on action, which is a shot that involves retaking a scene from different angles. When editing it must be very accurate as this is a shot of continuity and if it is not cut and put together well, it can look very weird. We used Match on action in various scenes in our opening, one of which is showing Sarah walking into her bedroom and closing the door.