The 'Making of the Film'

Our scheduled date to film was 10th March 2010, in which our group thoroughly planned the day because we would only have one attempt at it- which is why it is crucial to make it organised and to the best standards as we can.

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.

Editing our Film

There are 4 people in our groups and we have decided to choose two people for each task which are producing our own soundtrack and combining all the clips together.
Dennetta and I (Czarina) are incharged of editing the title sequence. It was hardwork doing this task especially when using a new editing software that we were unfamiliar with. But in the end, we managed to finish editing our title sequence as we have planned it. Also, we have learnt a lot of techniques in editing. The challenges that we have undertaken made us explore different ways and techniques on making our title sequence film better.

Here are some screengrabs photos of some clips that we have edited from our Title sequence film:

While adding the titles on the clips, our teacher advised us with a helpful tip on how to put the titles on the right positions without going through over the limit box.

• We dragged the title on final cut pro and placed it above the clip where we wanted it to appeared.
• We clicked on the title and then went on the right canvas and clicked on the third small button above it, and selected IMAGE WINDOWSFRAME so that we could move the title itself around the frame.
• But in order to not go over the green box, we had to go on the left canvas and clicked on the third small button at the top and select Title safe and two green box will appear on the canvas which is a guide of where to place the title.
  

The Making of our Titles

The making of our titles was quite straightforward. We wanted it to look simple and sharp. For our font colors we have only chosen one color which was white. However, we have adjusted the brightness of the color by adjusting the line in the middle of the title clip, we adjusted it downwards in order to do this. For our font style, we have chosen 'SimSun'.

The font style that we have chosen for the title of our Title sequence is 'Cracked' because it perfectly matches the plot and name of our Title Sequence Film. This is what it looks like:

Lastly for the effect that we have used for the name of our title sequence, we have chosen 'Static'. It works really well as it makes each of the letters fade in and out. It's like a lightbulb running out of energy. It has similarities with the lighting that we have used for our mise-en-scene.

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.