Faceless, Centre Number 61721/61740: Kelsey

The Witch Deconstruction

The Witch is a 2015 supernatural horror, written and directed by Robert Eggers for A24 production company and is set in a 1630s England with the idea of witchcraft and curses following a family about.

The scene opens to shrill music, with a fade on to a forest. The non-diegetic string shrill music gives an eerie impression that there is something lurking within the woods and straight away sends the audience into a fearful situation as the music builds tension.

The location in which we can see from this shot is a dark forest, fitting in with the idea of typical horror films being set in isolated locations. The forest looks dark as we can't see much of it only adding to the suspense and mystery as we are hidden from it.

An important part of any opening scene is to establish the location, in the witch, within the second shot we are given an insight into what time period and culture the movie is set by using mis-en-scene such as horses and carriage, dirty clothing, and swords. Whilst this is not linked to the genre of the film it is important for any film to show the audience the setting in which they are in.

The family kneel before the sky praying, diegetically saying 'Kingdom of the god' to the sky. This gives it a religious connotation which is found especially in supernatural films due to spiritual 'antagonists' usually found in them. This is added with the typography of the title, as well as the name 'The witch' which shows what genre it is part of straight away (supernatural horror) but still doesn't reveal to much about the plot. The typography including a serif font which is flickering giving a ghost impression and follows the idea of spiritual antagonists that could be used for possession.

It is often found in supernatural horrors that the victim of the story is the innocent one. In this close up shot we see a baby laughing. The baby symbolizing innocence to life and is unaware of the dangers. In the next shot the baby disappears as if a higher force is causing the baby to disappear. This builds on the mystery but also fits in with the typical conventions of supernatural horrors

I liked the creative use of the production company logo which has been edited to have branches going across it to make it look more darker and creepy to fit in with the plot and genre of the story. In our own opening sequence it would be interesting to explore the idea of using a production company suited to the genre of our film.

Continuity improvement

Continuity Improvement

We received feedback from an audience watching our video and discovered there was a break in continuity in a part of our opening scene.

This took place as the victim escapes through the door and the killer turns around to find our where she's gone. After being made aware of it and re-watching it we could see the Killer turn around to see where the victim has run, the shot then changes to the killer running out of the door and then cuts back to the Killer turning around again. To preserve the importance of continuity we would have to cut it so the killer was already beginning to run after her in the second shot of him.

During editing I used the blade tool and deleted the beginning part of the second clip of the killer and started the second clip where he is already beginning to run after the victim who has escaped. This allowed continuity to flow smoothly and was accurate to real time making it much more realistic.

Wednesday, 24 February 2016

Gone (2012) Lighting deconstruction

Lighting in Gone (2012):

In this scene I thought there was careful consideration of lighting uses to create an effect. As the scene is dark, it sets up the genre of thriller and as an audience, the use of the darkness, symbolizes something bad is going to happen.

The light here is shone onto the wall from the left of the character, creating shadows on the wall. There is also shots where the protagonist's shadow is reflected onto the wall behind her. Is a sinister and scary effect as the audience wonder what is creating the shadows on the wall, making it suspenseful as we wonder if someone is going to appear

As she goes into the house, thee is a high angled shot looking down at her opening the door. We can see the extreme contrast of light here as when she opens the door there is the natural day light compared to the dark eeriness of the house, further suggesting the house is dangerous and abandoned.

Lighting is also used to draw the audience's attention to something. In this screenshot the light coming through the window creates a box lighting effect on the floor, making our eyes go to it, symbolizing that whatever is there is important and we should focus on it.

The lighting used in this scene was done in a creative way in order to cause a spooky and mysterious atmosphere to draw the audience in. We could use this lighting model later on when filming our own opening scene.

Filming Evaluation: Day three, 17th January

Day 3 of filming (Re-filming):

Because of the continuity error of our last session we decided to re-film the whole of the killer's lair scene, set in the garage, in order to refresh our ideas whilst considering peer feedback on how to improve our introduction to the film. Last time we filmed we realised the lighting was too bright for a horror film set in a killer's lair. Whilst we could change the colouring in editing, we thought to help ourselves we could cover up one of two of the lights in the garage. Using only what we could find in the garage, we used plastic bags to cover the light up. However, it didn't make much difference to the room lighting, so we would still have to change the lighting in the editing process.

Another improvement we had to make was to be more consistent as in previous filming days, Lucy, who acted as the dead victim, often appeared and disappeared in and out of shots. This was due to there being three of us on the first filming day as all three of us had to be in the film at the same time. On our re-film day there were four of us present that made it easier to film as all three of us could be in it at once, whilst one of us filmed. The make-up took just as long as our original film day as there was no way to speed it up. This took up most of our morning. However, from our peer review of our previous footage we were told that the cut on the dead victim's arm didn't clearly show her to be dead. In our make-up we wanted to create a wound that made it stand out that this was a dead character. This took even more time as we had to apply extra wounds to Lucy (the dead victim) on her stomach.

We decided to change the narrative of the opening scene slightly. Originally, the main victim was to try and escape, only to hear footsteps and tie them self back up again to deceive the killer into thinking she wasn't awake. We changed this on the re-film and decided to have the victim go hide behind a large object. This gave us the opportunity for a variety of shots and create a tense suspenseful moment that we were lacking from our original filming.

Editing: Improvements on Title

Faceless Editing: Improvements on Title

Upon audience feedback after previewing our first draft of our video, our feedback suggested that the title of our piece whilst had fitting typography that fit with the gene was too dark to view on screen. Previously, when creating the text on Photoshop, I had made it with darker spots intentionally to try and fit in with the idea of a horror film including dark scenes and dark plots. However, I didn't take into account having difficulty seeing it.

We went back to the Faceless opening scene in Final Cut Pro and used the colouring tool to improve this. I moved up the brightness on brightness/contrast and used the brightness tool to make it lighter. This allowed us to see the text clearer. However moving the brightness up made the title loose contrast and the colour of the red blood in the title faded. This resulted in it looking less impactful.

To fix this I moved up the contrast to deepen the colours and darken the shadows of the title. This allowed it to still be bright as I kept the brightness of it as it was. Overall I am happy with how the title came out, as it fits with the genre and thanks to our audience feedback can now be seen clearly.

Sunday, 21 February 2016

Faceless Editing: blinking effect

Faceless Editing: Blinking effect

On one of our shots, the victim of the opening scene is waking up on a POV shot with a hand-held camera and blurry focus. This was intentionally done to show the character's disorientation after being knocked out. To further show this we wanted to include a blinking effect to make it look like the character was only just waking up and to enhance the idea of a POV shot. We did this in the editing process in Final Cut Pro.

I used the blade tool to cut the POV shot in half, where I wanted the blinking effect to appear. I then added in a blank black clip in between the two halved POV shots. The black blank clip would be the blinking. I had to use a cross fade transition and placed it over both sides of the black clip that linked to the POV shot. This made it seem like the victim was fading in and out of consciousness.

Overall, I think it came out well, as the effect's intentions of being a blinking effect is clear. The process of creating the blinking effect was simple and quick. After discovering how to do it I placed two more blinking effects in on the same POV shot. The impact of the effect was successful as it showed the character in a drowsy state and shows her to have been knocked out, this is helped by the diegetic sound of white noise in the background and makes the audience feel how the character is feeling.

Thursday, 4 February 2016

Faceless Editing: Text/Typography

Faceless Editing: Text/Typography:

When deciding what text we were going to use for the titles, we wanted it to suit the horror/slasher genre of our film. We wanted it too look rough and originally wanted a text that looked quickly hand-drawn. We began by looking at text that would have this effect. The first typography that we considered was 'Bradleyhand' typography. Whilst it gave the 'hand-written effect' we wanted it looked too 'teenager' and didn't fit the horror film genre.

The next text we looked at was 'chalkduster'. We considered this as a possible option as it had a rustic look and still looked hand-written. However, we decided to not use this one as whilst it had the effect we wanted, it didn't fit a slasher film

The final text we looked at was Octin Spraypaint at a scale size of 67.0. Whilst this typography didn't have the hand written effect we originally wanted, it was suitable for our genre but also looked like a type writing effect which gave it an aged feel which made it look rustic. We chose for the text to be white, as it stood out on the screen as a lot of our clips were dark. Capital letters were used to make it more dramatic.

To make it look like it was appearing in the scene, as if painted on the wall, we had to rotate the text to line up along the wall. In the picture below you can see the name 'Tom Hiddleston' has been turned to match up with the metal bar. We rotated it 3%.

For a more dramatic effect we wanted to make the text appear as if static was moving the text about on the screen. We looked on the effects options on Final Cut Pro and found a 'bad TV' effect where you can manipulate the text to look static. However, when we added it onto the text it caused the text to disappear. Instead we included a transition effect called 'feature' which made the letters appearing in a canon sequence.

Overall, despite not achieving our original want for the typography I think what we created was a lot better than our beginning idea as it fit with the genre and was easy to read without looking like children's scribbles.

Wednesday, 3 February 2016

Filming Evaluation: Day two, 28th December

2nd day of filming

For our second day of filming we need the outside chase scene between the killer and the victim. Our options for filming was in a forest/woods or a field as it would be appropriate for genre fitting in with the conventions of a horror/slasher of a sense of isolation and distance from anyone else who can help. As Olivia lived near a field we decided to shoot there.

When filming, we had to take into consideration the time of the year as it was in December meaning it became darker quicker. We decided to do it at 2-4pm giving us plenty of time to film and leave before the continuity of the scene was ruined as it could have gone dark in some shots and light in the other which wouldn't have made sense as the scene was meant to last 30 seconds in real time. Luckily we filmed quite quickly as a lot of our shots were fast paced and instead of taking our time getting slow paced shots right we could do small quick ones. Because of the fast pace of the shots we did't need to bring a tripod. This was because we wanted the shots to look more chaotic as the chase proceeded as it lead to the victims death. Using hand-held camera gave us the shaky camera effects we wanted.

Because of the December weather, the ground was muddy. As in the previous garage scene our character had their shoes off, in order to stay continuous the character had to take their shoes off when running. This caused many incidents of slipping over and upon reviewing the shots a lot of them looked as if the actor was struggling to run and would have to be re-filmed on a drier day.

Overall the day was a success, other than slight things that were out of our control (the weather) we did the best we could and managed to finish efficiently with good footage to use.

Filming Evaluation: Day one, 23rd December

1st day of filming

On the 23rd of December we did our first day of filming in the garage where the killer's lair was. This included the scene where the victim is tied up and investigates the room, discovering small information about the killer. When first arriving at the garage we set up the killer's lair first. Originally the garage was quite messy, our first task was to move objects out of the way of the area that we wanted to film in. In the garage already there was a table full of gardening products, we put these to use by putting some of them in the scene as they fit with the them of a rouge killer, this included a spade, knives and an axe. We placed them on the table where the camera would focus on when the killer came in. We then put our mis-en-scene in the room, we already had them prepared. Lucy brought a heart in a jar that was placed on the killer's table and missing posters suggesting that the dead bodies are victims that have gone missing in the past.

Once the room was set up we began with make up. We had originally thought it would be a small task, however it took longer than expected as Lucy was the only one who knew how to do the make-up, she also had to do her own make-up on her arm. We had limited time in the garage and putting on our make-up cut into the time, this meant we had to hurry up with filming which caused us to rush it. It was a cold day as well, and because the actors playing in the opening had to wear non-warming clothing, with bare feet we kept having to stop in order to warm up. Our timing was not well managed.

A problem we encountered that we only realised during the editing process was that Lucy kept moving in and out of shots. As she was one of the dead victim's in the corner she has to stay there during the other shots to show continuity. However, because there was only three of us on filming day and all three of us were in the opening, Lucy mistakenly had to get up in order to film shots between me and Olivia and was no longer there in background shots and we would have to re-film on a later date.

Because of the change in location our storyboard had planned for us to be in a basement and a lot of our plans had been made around the location (ie. in the original plan to be in a basement, the basement had a corner where the Killer would be throughout the scene. However but because of the small scale of the garage, the killer would have to come in half way through the scene rather than be hiding in the corner) This meant on filming day we had to change some of our ideas to suit the size and scale of the garage.

A problem we encountered was the lighting. Because it was a one switch light in the garage, would couldn't dim the lighting. This made some of our shots too bright for a horror film location set in the killer's lair as it didn't suit the horror/slasher convention. We decided that during the editing process that we would have to change the colour on there as there was no way to do it during filming.

Thursday, 21 January 2016

Faceless Editing: Colouring

Faceless Editing: Colouring

After showing the draft of our edited film opening to an audience we received feedback that the colouring in the garage was too bright and didn’t reflect a dark and sinister setting in which the killer’s lair should show. Whilst re-filming some parts, we experimented with lighting in order to create the effect we wanted. We first started off by turning all of the lights off and discovered it was too dark for the camera to see. Then we turned the lights on, there was no dimming them as they were either on or off. In the garage there was too lights, we decided it might be effective if we cover one of the lights up to make it darker. We covered it with black bin bags but despite it covering it up, the room was still too bright on the camera. Instead, it was suggested we manipulate the colouring in the editing process.

I used colour corrector to do this, having to select all the clips at once to colour all the clips all together to make the process quicker

I used a colour balance effect to manipulate the colouring from a yellow colour to more blue, to make it more sinister and dark.

In saturation, I put the saturation down half-way in order to make it look less bright, however I didn’t pull the saturation down all the way as this would have made it black and white instead, which is not the effect we were looking for.

The exposure allowed us to create a more darkening setting. I put this down as well, which pronounced the clip and made areas more blacker and darker, giving a small darkening around the edges, creating an eerie setting.

I had problems with one clip, as due to the lighting in the filming made the colour corrector appear differently on it to the others, making it not look naturalistic and as if we’d filmed it at two different points. In this clip, the image was more saturated than the others. To solve the problem I decreased saturation and increased exposure to make it more darker and fit in with the other clips of the opening.

Overall I’m happy with the colouring we’ve used as it is slightly blue and darker than the original and I achieved my aim of making it look like the garage is has a low lighting to create a scary atmosphere.

Sunday, 3 January 2016

Sound in Student made film opening

Analyzing Sound in a student made film opening

I decided to look on youtube for horror AS media film opening's in order to get an idea at what other students previously have done for their own music and to see how they might have made it themselves

A video I found of a short opening scene was Sleep tight:

This short opening has lots of good examples of what diegetic and non-diegetic music would be good for sound. As the scene begins there is almost instantly slow strings being played as a shot of the house appears, giving the impression of suspense.

The camera cuts to the girl in the house, on her computer, diegetic sound used of the keyboard being used as the girl types away.

The camera once again changes to outside as we see a person approaching the house. There is diegetic gusts of wind to suggest a change of location, outside. Also footsteps have been put in and have been made to 'grunch' against the gravel as the mysterious person walks towards the house. This enhances the sound and brings the audience's attention closer to it. Diegetic sounds such as the keyboard typing and footsteps are used to show realism. it would be made simply by recording the noise pre-filming in order to get the exact sound wanted without background noise and place it in during the editing process.

The non-diegetic sound ends as there is a knock on the door to signify that the 'stranger' has reached the house, creating suspense as the audience is drawn in waiting to see what danger lies ahead. The silent noise after the knock is meant to create sense of isolation for the girl who we presume is home alone with someone dangerous knocking on her door.

As the girl approaches the door there is a jump-scare, which is typical in horror film opening's to remind the audience that it is a scary film. As the 'monster' jumps out at the girl the strings become high pitched to signify danger.

Storyboard adaptations

Storyboard Adaptations

After going through the common conventions of horror/slasher films we thought that there were many ideas that were part of our storyboard that didn't fit the 'common trend' of slasher openings.

Location change and size:
Whilst we kept most of our shots we had to take into consideration the location change from our original idea of the killers lair being in a basement to a garage as we couldn't fine a basement to film in. This would have to be reflected in our storyboard asthe size of the garage is a lot more smaller.

This put a change in our plans as in our early drafts we had the killer always being in the room throughout the duration of the scene, out of site from the victim who woke, not realizing the killer was in the room with her. Due to the size of the garage this wouldn't work and we would have to put in new shots of the killer coming into the garage and the victim having to hide.

Our new shot:

Killer's reveal
as well as this in our original opening we wanted the killer to be revealed at the end of the opening by taking off his mask. After class discussion we were made aware that in slasher opening scene's it is rare that the killer is revealed as it leaves the rest of the film to be a mystery. Despite this, we decided to stick to our original plan of having a low angled shot from the victim's perspective, as the shot makes the killer look powerful above the defenseless victim, but not have the killer take off his mask.

New storyboard addition:

Dead Bodies/actors: We also planned to have a pile of dead bodies in the corner of the killer's lair to display the horrific actions of the killer who show how many people they have killed. However, it was difficult to get extra people to come and film with us as extra's so we decided just to have one dead body in the corner, Lucy from our group. In our original storyboard we had them simply just in the background of the room rather than putting the camera's attention on it. now that there is only one dead body we decided to use more close-up shots of the victim's body.

Wednesday, 16 December 2015

Friday the 13th - opening scene deconstruction

Deconstruction of a film opening in Friday the 13th

For my deconstruction of a film opening, I did Friday the 13th Part IV: Jason Lives. This is a 1986 Horror with a sub genre of Slasher, directed by Tom McLoughin and supernatural is a follow up of the original Friday the 13th movie

The opening shot is a long establishing shot of the night sky, we can see a forest below. Stereotypical 'horror' mist is on screen and the non-diegetic sound is played on shrill strings. Despite the audience not knowing what is happening yet, the music creates an already eerie setting and is fits in with the image being shown. We can already tell from this establishing shot where the film is set, in a forest which is in an isolated location. This fits in the with the genre of horror/slasher as conventionally they are set in locations away from society and away from help. In this movie they use a forest which is purposely set at night with a full moon to create a 'supernatural' feel to it

As the characters drive down the road, we see a mid shot of a dog eating a fox. This grotesque imagery shows it is a slasher through it's blood and gore. We can hear the dog munching on it diegetically as well.

The camera cuts to one of the character's holding the infamous 'Friday the 13th' Mask, used as an iconograpy piece to link the six parts of the movies together and show it is still off the same franchise. This is also to create mystery as we, the audience, begin to wonder why they have possession of this mask and what happened to the killer and where are they taking the mask.

A creative transition is used of a flash. Originally we see a close up shot of a gasoline bottle which then flashes to a new scene with the characters walking through the graveyard to signify a time differences as they have clearly arrived at their destination (The graveyard) We can tell by the diegetic lighting sound that the flash was meant to signify a bolt of lighting, a typical weather conventions in horror's to portray danger. The use of the character being located in a graveyard is to show the 'supernatural' theme as they are now in the place of the dead, clearly with a purpose to bury one of the graves up (as they have a spade in their hand) Graveyards are typically known for being scary at night, used as a way to frighten the audience.

Typography:

At the end of the opening scene, the title flashes up as if it is paint that has been splattered onto the wall. The colour red, of the text, is to show blood (a convention of a slasher film) and portray danger to the audience.

I liked this opening scene as it gave an indepth introduction to the narrative story and introduced the characters and antagonist, which is important for a slasher story. However, from looking at it you can tell it is an out-dated film which is overly dramatic, something we can remove from our own to make it more realistic.

Editing: Re-colouring the killer's lair

Practical Task: Re-colouring the killer's lair in editing

As we are filming at a relative of mine's garage we want the garage to look like it could be in a run down location. The exterior of the garage is painted pink. This is too much of a light, happy colour to feature in a horror/slasher opening. Although we could possibly solve this by not filming outside, if we wanted to film there the colour would have to change. I thought about changing it in the editing process and tried to find tutorials on youtube that would help. I found this one:

This tutorial shows how to change the colour of certain parts of a video clip in Final Cut Pro (the editing software which we'll be using) which could be useful in making the garage (without altering the rest of the image) a different, darker colour.

I opened Final Cut Pro and imported a picture of the garage. Using the blade tool i cut half way through the image to create a 'before and after'

Then using the colour correction (correction 1 tab) and used a colour mask in order to hide the pink colouring on the image. I did this by using the eye drop tool and selecting the area in which I wanted to mask. I tried hard to only select the pink areas, although couldn't quite select the areas of orange around the garage. This would require a second mask that, if I was to do again, in the editing process, I would do. This is as, I didn't quite manage to remove all of the 'light' colours from the garage exterior which wouldn't fit in with the conventions of a typical slasher that is most often featuring dark, gloomy colours.

After selecting the area in which I wanted to change the colour off I had to adjust the colour I wanted instead. Using saturation, colour and exposure. I decided I was going to go for a greyscale look to create a further dark effect

^ As you can see from the above picture, I didn't select the orange parts of the image for masking.

Before & After

I wasn't too happy with the overall look, although I did succeed in making it look darker, however it still didn't look like it would take place in a dark and isolated place, perhaps if I used different positioning and framing and remove the houses in the background and added an effect to it, it would look more suitable for a slasher film. However, this is also just a picture, I'm not too sure what would happen if I did this as a video clip and if it was still look realistic.