
Friday, 30 April 2010
GROUP 31!!

Thursday, 29 April 2010
Evaluation - Q8



We had lots of good feedback from teachers, family, friends and even acquaintances. They generally found it really good altogether as a product and said it almost looked like a real cinematic release opening sequence!
Our group is overall very satisfied from our hard work and the overall outcome had made us extremely proud, which all the months leading to this coursework to the final product had paid off!!! :)
Wednesday, 28 April 2010
Group Evaluation - Question 7
Here are some shots from our Preliminary task and a match cut task. However it then shows the improvement of mise-en-scene, camerawork and edits from our first time filimg to our thriller title sequence.
Evaluation - Question 6
For evaluation question 6, we had to get together as a group and think about our journey of progression with the use of technologies; to form the end product.
Tuesday, 27 April 2010
Evaluation - Q6&Q7

In this shot, it was extremely out of focused- we did not concentrate on focusing the camera when we was using it at first from our lack of experience. As you can see, it looks extremely unprofessional and we learned that in future we should always keep it in focused- either manually but auto focusing proved to be much more useful especially in dark surroundings- the 'red lines' helped us see whether or not it was in focus or not.
In this clip, (which the whole scene is shown on the 'Match Cut Prelim' post) we can see the poor 'match cut' we used. The scene where Czarina opens the door and a match cut of her closing the door straight after does not look effective. Later on in the Four Walls production, we used a much better match cut where she bangs on the walls with her fist which then jumps into a close up shot of her fist- which you can view on the 'Final Edit' post.
We therefore learned how to make better shots and our knowledge of use of cameras, shots, and ideas had been developed increasingly to the final product. We learned from our mistakes that we made in the beginning, but even after that, we can still easily make mistakes such as being loss of focus or the lack of light in our final production.
- From before our knowledge of the JVC camcorders was very limited- we was newbies using it. From practice, we developed ideas and new knowledge, our insight to how a camera looks on camera and the focusing helped us greatly- we thought about the 180 degree rules, the 1/3 rule and the space above the persons head we all thought about.
Editing on Final Cut Pro, Live Type and Sound Track Pro had been also developed from our developed knowledge and practicing using it helped us to the final product. In the Prelim and the Card Game sequence we did not use Sound Track Pro- Using that software is pretty much straight forward and I believe it requires more creativity rather than knowledge of the software.
However, I believe our Live Type titles could be improved as we spent the least time on that, however overall my knowledge of technologies and knowledge had been developed greatly from the result of experience.
Monday, 26 April 2010
Evaluation - Q5
Images= hand drawn by myself/ a home made video! :D
Friday, 23 April 2010
Evaluation - Q3&4
(Four Walls = horror/psychological type of thriller?)
It could be argued that it could have a main stream type of audience- but it may not appeal to everyone. But as the genre thriller is broad, it could have many overlapping sub-genres. The type of emotions we want the audience to arouse to are:
- emotions of fear
- suspense
- mysteriousness
- evokes excitement and apprehension in the audience
These can therefore appeal to a wide range of audiences.
Our audiences could be aimed at those who are 'TECH SAVVY.'
Newline had distributed and produced many films.It has been a filmography of many big titles including :
- A Nightmare on Elm Street
- Final Destination I & II
- Blade II
- Rush Hour 2
- Thirteen Days
- Se7en
However, another 'ideal' production company that could promote our film is the Vertigo-Entertainment they produced film such as
- The Grudge I, II & III
- Shutter
- The Eye
- The Uninvited
They suit our type of genre- horror with a mixture of thriller. They greatly specialise in producing these type of movies.
Images taken from Google images/Four Walls video clip
Background music= Uematsu Nobou - Sign.
Evaluation - Q2
Images taken from Google/Four Walls video clip/hand-drawn
Background music= Uematsu Nobou - Kita no Daikuudou.
Thursday, 22 April 2010
Evaluation - Q1
- Introduction of a main character- either a protagonist or the villain- building up mystery and questions what may happen later on in the plot
- The music suiting the sequence of camera shots or edits, which could either be slow paced and creepy to build suspense or be upbeat to build up the tension of what may happen next
- Making the audience question what may happen later on in the movie
- The use of lighting would be important to emphasize what kind of themes would relate to the movie- for example, the use of low dark lightening can suggest that it can give a creepy, scary, suspenseful source of action.
Our thriller Opening Title Sequence is inspired by Se7en.

- As you can see, it has extreme close ups and it establishes a setting that gives off a obsessive feeling. There are extreme closeups of a man's finger tips, which is doing disturbing things such as slicing off his skin. We also see him write letters and opening pages of books, and quick images of disturbing photos- which in comparison to our title sequence we additionally used disturbing images as well as having close ups of her writing.
- We see the man cut out certain words like 'God' or writes obsessively- and even doing weird 'abnormal' things that gives off a creepy feeling- the audience knows that this person must be the villain. Compared to our Four Walls, we additionally made our actress Thao do eerie actions- for example when she is looking directly at the camera and jilting her head from side to side. We can assume as a audience that she would be the antagonist in the film.
- There is a scene where the persons looks like he is giving a paper cut to himself- which uses screeches and you see a quick edit of blood, which in my opinion gives me shivers because of that action. On the other hand, Thao is seen 'cutting' herself with scissors which made the audience in the cinema feel queasy when watching that.
- The music at first is quite slow paced but then it gradually builds up- in the meantime there are occasional screeches and sci-fi sounds that build up the tension and suspense in the sequence. In Four Walls we have music that is quite steadily paced out too, with additional sound over lays being heard in the music as it progresses on.
- In 'Se7en', there are quick cut edits that are jumpy- in addition to that there are lots of 'slugs' and overlays of titles and other effects on top of the original sequence- which in Four Walls we also have these aspects.
Wednesday, 21 April 2010
Rough Cut - Changes
The video transitions already look good- the fades go well- but we need to extend it longer in order for the titles to fit nicely between the shots and on the shots.
Sunday, 18 April 2010
Rough Cut Edit
Friday, 16 April 2010
Skills Audit: Editing and Creation of Titles
However, even though I was in charge of the soundtrack, I still observed Czarina and Dennetta when they were editing. I learnt how to 'slug' sequences- which is overlays of two different videos. I also learnt that it is extremely important to render the files- as you cannot watch the film properly as a pop up will show. Rendering files will make the sequence smoother.
I learned how to import files from LiveType onto Final Cut Pro, by saving it onto a folder from clicking on 'Render Movie' which then creates the titles which can be imported onto Final Cut Pro.
Here is the title sequences of the different names that we created.To import the titles we then click on 'Import' to get the files that we just exported out of LiveType so that we can use it.

Overall, I learned that Final Cut Pro is the main software- it links Soundtrack Pro and Livetype- to make the overall sequence of a film.
Saturday, 10 April 2010
Soundtrack Edit pt2.




I had improved on it greatly by adding even more layers of sounds that are subtly heard in the sequence- such as more heartbeats and sounds that add to the tension. Towards the end of the soundtrack- where the consecutive consistent overlay footage where it builds up to the final scene where our title 'Four Walls appear, I made the sound loud and snappy to build up the tension which then ends in a explosion which finishes the whole title sequence.
I also added in screeches and different drones in the background- whilst the original upbeat music carries on throughout.
Thao's 'scream' in our Final Edit version was not actually hers- her real scream did not sound effective so instead, I found a suitable replacement which I lowered the audio volume because I did not want it to be overpowering.
However, I think the first one was better- because the sequence lasted roughly 1 minute 50 seconds I had to distribute it out more so- stretching out the sounds. Because of this, I personally think it does not build up the tension gradually, it is rather slow paced throughout until the very end.
Friday, 2 April 2010
The 'Making of the Film'
We planned throughout the weeks after the pitching with ideas what we might do and how we would carry it out. We had planned to follow the storyboard- but as our idea for our film wasn't a series of follow-up events, we can add aspects that is not included in our storyboard as we just wanted to achieve the effects of different images, quick cut shots that does not necessarily need to tell a story.
Days before the filming day, we decided to experiment with makeup so that when it came to the day it would be 'almost perfect'. We also decided what kind of props to bring in- the table, camera equipment was provided by our college. These are the list of the different props we brang in to be included in our filming, such as:
- Fold up chair
- Scissors
- 'Disturbing images'
- Antique styled paper (with handwriting)
- Piece of white cloth
- Fake blood
- Pen
- Torch
- Makeup equipment
- Shirt
- Bracelet
These aspects were important in the making of the film to achieve the mise-en-scene we wanted to achieve. Obviously some of these are self-explanatory in why we brang it- we also had different props but we did not use it in the end as we found it unnecessary to use it.

Photos taken by: Czarina Baticos
Dennetta had printed out the photos- she had edited and altered the photos that she had printed out for copyright reasons. From 'Se7en', there is a series of 'disturbing' images and we wanted to achieve that Horror/Thriller aspect as we find it very appealing.
I myself (Kim) had provided the antique style looking paper- achieving different effects such as spilling tea all over the paper and also putting the paper in the oven- to give the crisp, old looking feel to it. I also had to study different 'gothic' fonts and 'script' looking fonts to achieve a eerie feel to it, as well as devising sentences that has the connotation of death, and associating that whoever wrote the letter was extremely hurt. E.g. "broken", "death", "hurt", "ripping", "tear" etc
With the fake blood, we had many ideas on how to make the fake blood. Originally we thought to mix soy sauce with ketchup- but that did not look as effective- instead we had researched on how to make fake blood, we concluded to buy glucose syrup, red food colouring and blue food colouring (to give it a different type of tint) which gave it a thick feel to it which looked almost real.
Photos taken by: Kim Nguyen
The first t-shirt that we bought had ended as a catastrophe, the first attempt in 'making the t-shirt look slightly dirty and worn out' had been ruined, so we had to throw it away and buy a new one. So on the day, this time me and Czarina was in charge of designing the tshirt to make it look worn-out but not too 'over the top'. Whilst we was doing this, Dennetta was helping Thao do her makeup and they were setting out the camera equipment and setting of the filming. We used a mixture of black eyeshadow, fake blood, scissors to cut and fray the edges of the t-shirt. We also had yellow wax- the effect was to make it seem like it is old and unwashed.
As you can see from the setting and environment of where we was filming, it looks very effective. Even though it is a public place, not many people were around. In the Safe Storage Store, they had automatic lights, so if there was hardly any movement around it will completely turn off- this was very important in making the film to give that dark, eerie feel to it.
In addition, this was very important as the variance of light could have gave different shot takes a different look when coming to watch it.
Thao had to get into the characters shoes, in which obviously her physical appearance but mainly her acting skills to make her seem deranged to fit her image- which she done really well. For the makeup, we decided not to go for a 'white faced' look, for the main part, we did not want our Title Sequence to look more as a horror, although in our personal opinion we thought it would look extremely effective.
From where the Photography Activity with the representations of the word, we felt that we should combine this aspect from what we did and use it. The words we previously used was Claustrophobic and Paranoia, in which we used this to our advantage from our previous knowledge of camera work.Photo taken by: Czarina Baticos
Overall with the day, I think our group had done great, each of us (excluding Thao, for obvious reasons as she is the actress) had a go at being our own 'director' as us as individuals had our own ideas to make it effective.
More other pictures and film clips are shown in the 'Four Walls Behind the Scenes' video clip, made by Czarina Baticos.
Wednesday, 24 March 2010
Sound Track Edit
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.
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.
Friday, 19 March 2010
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Pitching: Four Walls
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
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:
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.




