Sound Track Edit

Currently the development of our editing of Four Walls is taking place, it is equally as important to concentrate on the sound of the music- so that the outcome of the final version of our Title Sequence will be effective. We are obviously aware that we had to make our own soundtrack- for copyright reasons but additionally, to make sound fully fit in with our title sequence.

We split up to devise a plan to make it more organised and focused- Czarina and Dennetta is in charge of the editing/livetype, Thao had helped giving feedback in both separate editing groups and myself (Kim) had put together the sequence of our soundtrack.

Thao and I at first familiarized with the Soundtrack Pro and selected appropriate 'Suspenseful' music and sounds that could combine to make a effective soundtrack. Our group is inspired by 'Se7en'; the visual effects and the upbeat music which is the effect we wanted to achieve.

Here is the first attempt that I made in making the soundtrack.

This second attempt had aspects from the first but I had adjusted it to make it sound different.

Here is screengrabs of the development of the music- we had to select the sounds we thought sounded effective- and try piece together a piece of music that sounded effective, scary but upbeat to keep up with the idea of our snappy cut shots.

The piece of music only lasted 20 seconds- the rest of the sound bars on the right hand side are sounds we selected that could achieve the effect we want, which may come to use later on.

ORIGINAL FIRST DRAFT:

Here is the first attempt in making the music- obviously it is not the best and there is always room for improvement.

We got back feedback in which most people found it to give off a "Sci-Fi" effect- but our initial idea was to make the music sound somewhat similar to the soundtrack in 'Se7en' in which our group is inspired by that title sequence.

SECOND DEVELOPED VERSION:

This screengrab is the development of the second idea- an improved, different version of the first draft. In addition, this version also paid special attention to the editing of the different shots and film cuts that we did. By watching the edited sequence of the Four Walls, we are able to take different points in the edited shots/film cuts and add sound effects to emphasize the intention we are trying to give out; e.g. The clip where there is a quick cut shots of 3 photographs in a consecutive follow up after another- here we added 3 heart beat sounds to combine with the edited sequence which was in sync.

Here we also had to fairly find a different upbeat kind of music but still took some aspects of the original soundtrack and embedded it into the new one to meet the "eerie" effect we wanted to achieve.

These are some of the compositions and the developments that I have created so far.

My group had found this second version much more better than my first attempt- so in result of that I will carry on improving this with the help of feedback from Thao and gain feedback from other people too.

Group 31's Pitch Presentation

Pitch Part 1

Pitch Part 2

Pitch Part 3

Pitch

As a group, we had to do our pitch presentation in front of the class and our media teachers. This was done so that our teachers and classmates can give us feedback on our presentation and what we need to change and improve it in order to make it work.

We took a long time to decide what our film will be called so individually, we all came up with one title:

• Four Walls


• The Room


• Deranged


• Fragile

During our presentation we told everyone we can't decide which one we'd use so our teachers suggested everyone should vote. In the end, almost everyone liked 'Four Walls' so we chose this as our title for our film.

The story line of our title sequence is about a young woman whose trapped inside this room and it is believe that she suffer a psychology disorder. This continue by her self-harming herself and writing on the paper. She also has a comfort object which is a charm bracelet and it seem very important to her.

The sub-genres of our thriller title sequence is psychological, horror and crime. But because the main character has a psychological disorder, we wanted our main theme to be psychological along side the theme of thriller. Furthermore, it will draw in the audience's attention as it play with their minds.

After we've decided what kind of thriller our film was going to be, we thought of a perfect location which was one of the exhibition room at the Barbican centre but unluckily, we did not get a chance to book it. Our second option was to film it in one of our bedroom but our teachers suggested it wouldn't be a good idea as we'd have to clear out the room in order for the mise en scene to match. In the end, they said we should hire an empty room and added props for it to work well together.

This lead to the mise-en-scene as we wanted it to be dark and empty along with a small amount of lighting. For the sounds, we used Soundtrack Pro to create our own soundtrack. We decided that it should slow paced and squeaky as horror is one of our sub-genres. However, we didn't want the horror genre to overshadowed the main genre as thriller, therefore, we added drum beats and other instrumentals.

Our target for this movie is young adults aged 15-30 years old and targeted at both gender. Male because a lot of boys enjoys horror movies, on the other hand, female because our main character is a young woman therefore the female audience could relate to her easily.

We didn't think much about the institutional detail but we knew what company we did not want, for example, WT2. This is because WT2 is well known for romantic & comedy movies and it is too common for British film production, therefore, it would be very unusual to use it. Also, our film has a dark side to it and it looks very professional and has a high buddget so we chose New Line Cinema because it is a subsidiary of Warner Bros. which is well known for high budgeted and blockbuster movies.

The Production Schedule:

• Filming on the 10th March 2010
• Editing in lessons, Lunchtimes/Workshops, After College.

Pitching: Four Walls

On the 26th of February, we had to present our 'pitch' of our idea for our Title Sequence piece. We had to present it to the rest of the class and the 'invigilators' who were the teachers acting as real producers. We was under extreme pressure as out of the rest of the other groups our pitch was one of the least developed compared to the rest.

Discussing our Pitch

When discussing about our pitch before hand, we thought it was useful for our different choice of names for our 'movie' such as

• Deranged


• Fragile


• Four Walls


• The Room

We was also thinking that the plot should be about this 'mentally insane' girl who is disturbed greatly. We thought that she should be trapped inside some sort of hospital or a mental institution. Comparing to other films such as The Grudge or The Ring, they had bad childhood experiences or their past had been really sad, which in result of that made them a evil person later on. We thought the main character should be broken-hearted or something traumatic happened to her in the past- which will show in the movie and the title sequence.
Because she is mentally disturbed- we thought that she should write letters that consisted of 'traumatizing words' such as death, blood, heart, broken etc. We wanted extreme close ups so we thought that she should have some sort of 'childhood attachment' in her bracelet as it is meaningful to her.

The Genre we was going for was a mixture of Horror/Thriller type as our group found this the most appealing as we are inspired by Japanese type horror films as well as the opening title sequence of 'Se7en.' We also like the idea of mystery and psychological thriller type as it will appeal to the audience more.

The audience would be aged around 15- 30 as we believe that teenagers will be most attracted and we think a equal amount of females and males will want to watch it- however males in general prefer horror type films rather than females.
The rating of our movie will be aged over 15+ obviously because it will not be suitable to younger children.

We thought our production company would be New Line Cinema- mainly because we like Se7en and we did not want to make a Working Title type of movie.
Additionally, we wanted to be a discrete title sequence- as we find that much more appealing and the audience can follow the action of the order of events.


For our setting and location, we originally wanted to film it at the Barbican Centre- where they did a real life setting exhibition which represented the war environment indoors. We really wanted to film here because the setting looked perfect for the type of atmosphere we wanted to achieve- mise en scene is important for directing a good film.
However, we could not get permission to film there unfortunately- and we couldn't find any better place. However, we thought to use a bedroom and hopefully change it with the use of lighting and props to try make the effect that it is scary and daunting.

(Later on, the teachers suggested we use Safe Storage Store which could give the effect we wanted to achieve.)

The props was sorted- we was thinking of getting the dress and spoiling it and using fake blood to give that disturbia effect. We are only planning to use a few props, such as a table, chair, pen, paper and a bracelet so that we can use it to have some objects in the sequences.

The kind of music we want is to give off a suspenseful, mysterious feeling- we like a upbeat music rather than the typical slow suspenseful music. It would consist of drumbeats and drones and perhaps whispering to give that suspenseful sound but as well as being upbeat and fast paced.

From our Pitch, we had lots of valuable feedback. We gained a better insight but generally they liked the idea- however the teacher was quite unsure on how this may turn out.

The health and safety is that we will learn where the fire exits are in the safe storage store, and handling the camera with care. We will also have to behaviour accordingly, and not do anything that can harm out safety.

Ideally, we want our end product to look somewhat similar to 'Se7en'.

• The 10th of March 2010- is the date where we are scheduled to film at Safe Storage. Before that, we are going to thoroughly plan out what we are going to bring along so that we are ultimately prepared on the day. We plan to meet up regularly and use Facebook to discuss our plans of what we should do and how, and where we should meet etc. We plan to edit our 'Four Walls' in lunch times, after college and in media lessons.
  

Initial idea for the Story Board

During our Pitching, we came up with ideas of what our Title Sequence should be about. Since we was inspired by Se7en, we like the idea of close ups and extreme close up camera shots. The story plot for our Title Sequence is about a girl- who is suffering from a mental disorder who wants to seek revengence. The idea of her being enclosed in 'Four Walls' made us base the the following shots in a small room; where she is displaying extreme emotions and paranoia.
Because our idea does not have a set sequence that follows up, we can film any kind of shots or ideas and embed it into our final Title Sequence.


Here is ideas of what kind of shots to carry out:

As you can see, we have a mixture of different shots- from establishing shot (which we scrapped as well because the room would be small) to various mid-shots, close ups to extreme close ups.

(After our pitching, we had feedback of our whole idea. The teachers thought that doing our filming in someones room would not look as effective- so some of the sequence shots in this storyboard would have to be scrapped.)

Because of our idea, it is quite easy to do this anywhere else- all we needed was basic equipment such as a table and a chair. In this storyboard, we could carry this out without the bedroom setting. The idea we wanted to portray was quick edit shots that would last a minimum of 5 seconds to 30.

The first two storyboard was our first ideas- these other two had later developed as we visited the 'Safe Storage' place and we discussed what kind of props we should bring in.

In this storyboard, we wanted to achieve the 'paranoia' effect, in addition we wanted to give it a queasy, disorientating feeling as well. We wanted to give off the effect of a 'Chiller' (a horror/thriller)
















(In this storyboard, quite a few ideas was scrapped when we started filming. In the 'Safe Storage' there is numerous amount of doors that all look the same- we had a idea that we should track all the doors to give a ever lasting effect- but we decided to scrap that idea because the doors were bright yellow which had the 'Safe Storage' logo on it. We thought that we could edit that and make it a negative effect, such as the film title sequence of 'Arlington Road', which had a lot of disorientating camera edits, but we did not really like that idea much. Other ideas that we discussed we did not carry out in the real filming as we found it unnecessary to do so.)

All of these ideas of shots we mainly carried out in the real filming process- but when editing the actual Title Sequence of ours we did not use most of it. Some of the shots either wouldn't have followed up that well or we felt we did not need to use the other numerous shots we did.

IN addition, we also made a different storyboard for the actual sequence for our final product- but unfortunately we lost it.

Four Walls Behind The Scenes

Intro to Cameras & Health and Safety Tutorial

At the beginning, before we start our filming our teacher gave us a tutorial of how to use the camera correctly and safely. We were given a JVC GY-HM100E Camcorder, two 16GB memory cards, battery for the camcorder which allow us about 2 hours recording time and a tripod.

The camera has many functions which include a built in Mic therefore it doesn't need the external microphone unless necessary. On the side of the camera, there is an on/off button and it is very clever as the camera will switch off automatically if not used for 5 minutes. The lens is operated by the lever next to the focus ring. Our teacher told us that we must not touch the lens as when we editing because there will be finger prints on the clips. The viewfinder on the side tells us how much time recording time we have remaining and how much battery power is left. We can also focused on certain subject as well as zoom in and out. When recording, we are able to press 'Q.Review' to constantly play back the last few seconds of our shots.

The memory cards allow us to film up to 1 hour and 40 minutes and it has a switch on the side which protect our clips in case anyone used it, it will be locked.

The tripod were given to us for preventing the camera movement while filming, it reduce the camera from shaking. Also, it offers stability within a shot as well as certain desired heights. Furthermore, it allows free movement which you can track or pan as well as tilt up and down.

Final Location

After our Pitch presentation, both of our teachers from media suggested a perfect location which is 'SafeStorage.'
So after this discussion with our teachers, we went on the internet to research informations about it. We wrote down the contact number and informed our teacher about our updates. The college talked to the incharge person from 'Safestorage' about the dates that we are going to use one of their storage room to film. After this conversation, our teacher had informed us about the schedule.

Last week, friday morning, we made a phonecall to the safestorage company if we could visit the rooms to check out the size and also to visualise where we are going to place the camera and the props. And luckily, they gave us a permission to visit it. As we arrived in the safestorage building, we had to sign in for safety reasons, the incharge person guided us to the storage room that they have given us, and it looked perfectly fine. Here are the photos:

Left corner

Outside view, but when you go in it's much more wider

Right corner

Later updates on Searching for Locations

So after we got turned down from Barbican Centre, we had a group discussion on that same day on what other options we have left.

The second option we had was to make a phonecall to one of our secondary school if we could book a room. The reason for this was most of our secondary schools had an antique old room that matches with our film. So one of our group members made a phonecall to her secondary school, and yet again, we wasn't allowed to film to that secondary school as the policies have changed and also the person who is incharge of the property of the school.

The third option that we had was to either use one of our rooms. We tried taking a photo of each of our room, but all of our rooms needed a lot of fixing up if ever we are going to use it, and we haven't got that much time to fix a room. Then, we've decided to use someone else's room but not from our group. However, our teachers suggested that it wouldn't work because of the whole composition of the room. There were too many things and bright colours which will not match with our sub-genre of thriller.

After all of these trials that we went through, our teachers suggested some locations that they can help us to hire.

Set Location: Barbican Centre (The Curve)

This is 'THE CURVE' a current exhibition in Barbican Centre. This shows the room of the soldiers back then. This was the first location that we thought of for our film. Our group went to the Barbican Centre to visit the exhibition and also to ask a permission. We asked the reception to who we could ask about hiring this place. They gave a number to contact and we immediately called the person who was incharged. After this phonecall, it was so unfortunate that we didn't get the response that we were hoping for. This was because it was an exhibition room and the Centre said that we have to 'respect' their belongings and it would be too hard for us to film as they will be a lot of people who will be visiting this place. We were so gutted afterwards because this location perfectly match with our film.

Group 31's PItch

We have managed to do our Pitch Presentation infront of two of our media teachers and to the rest of the class. They were our judges during that day who gave us comments on how to improved our thriller title sequence film.

As a group, we came up of four title for our movie. We came up with;

-Derranged
-Fragile
-Four Walls
-The Room.

These titles came from each one of us in our group, we gave one title each. However, as we started our Pitch, the judges (teachers and our classmates) had voted on which Title has more appeal, and the majority had voted on Four Walls, as it is simple yet meaningful.

Our title sequence film will involve a young woman who is trap in a room which has a pyschological illness. She is traumatized from an incident that happened from her past. This lead her on plotting something on the paper, however it is unclear as she has a difficulty in writing and reading stuff. She has a comfort object that she always plays with and is significant to her.

The sub-genre of our thriller film is a mixture of Horror, Crime and Pyschological. But it is more on psychological sub genre because it plays on the audience's mind.

As soon as we conclude on what kind of thriller movie we were going to do, we already thought of one phenomenal location where we could film our movie. It was one of the exhibition room in the Barbican Centre. However, at the end, we didn't get the chance to book this location. So we thought that we could do it in someone else's room for the fact that our setting will only be indoors. But our teachers suggested that we should hire an empty room rather than in someone else's bedroom. Atleast, we can fix it up with any props that we have.

For our props and costumes, we are going to use a large baggy white top. We are going to make it look messy by using different materials such as; ketchup mixing it with soy sauce to get the feel and colour of the blood, pen and paper for the character to write on, one table and one chair, comfort object which is a charm bracelet which signifies her past, the character will have a dark smudgy make up and messy hair to show her psychotic identity.

The mise-en-scene will be dark with a small amount of lighting and empty. Four the sounds, we wanted it to make it squeaky, slow pace and eerie. So we are going to use the Soundtrack Pro. Maybe choose the violin, drum beats and instrumentals.

Production Schedule:

10th of March 2010 - Do our first day of filming
During college (lunchbreaks or any 3 hours gap) - we can do our editing and combining all the clips.

For the institutional detail, we have chosen New Line Cinema. We didn't choose WT2 as it too british culture whereas our one has more heavy thriller.

Our targert audience would be for young adults and above, men because of the crime but mostly women because they could relate to the main character.

First filming practice task

As a group, we were given a task to do a scene to make it 'suspenseful.' We had three options, but our group have chosen A thrilling game of cards. The brief was:

"Your brief is to film a game of cards in a thrilling and exciting way. The game in itself isn't particularly thrilling; therefore you must create an atmosphere of suspense and mystery through the choice of shot distance, choice of camera angle and movement of the camera."

We had a minimum of 12 shots to create this sense of tension. Our props was a pack of cards, 2 players which are members from our group and table and chairs.

We started off by using a close up with panning shot of each of the cards separately to show each of the characters' cards. This was followed by a use of an over the shoulder shot of each of the character to show their facial expression towards each other. A handheld shot was used to go round the table to bring some tension of the atmosphere, however, we didn't successfully managed to film this accurately because we did not have the right equipment which is the trolley to go around the characters. Instead, we edited the time speed of the clip, we made it faster to avoid the inaccurate use of camera. Towards the end of the clip, we have used a close up again of one of the character holding the cards, then we took another clip of this character smashing the cards on the table. Lastly, a close up of the eyes of the other character to show her reaction.