Final Group Edit - my contribution

I have edited our title sequence and opening sequence. I've colour corrected it (all shots), added titles in, put effects over titles (such as gaussian blur) and tidied up the whole blog. I've removed and cut down some shots to get rid of the over-time of 1 minute 20 seconds. I have decided on the font of titles, where the titles should be, what the titles should be and the effects to put over them to make them look professional. The colour correction was needed to make our film seem more professional and more thriller like.

Individual Edit...

I have completed my individual rough cut and have taken some screen shots of making it. I still need to add more shots in the final one which we will be re-shooting soon and also do my title sequence and edit it into my individual edit.

New Storyboard & Shot list.

A high angle shot from the side, mid-close up on the face of a detective who gets a call in the evening, whilst he's relaxing/asleep. Mid-close up of him opening his eyes and answering the call.
"Hello? Another one? I'll be right there" he says.

Black-out with text: "Two hours earlier".

+ A shot of a man staring at the house, extreme close up on his lips taking a drag on a cigarette,extreme close up when cigarette on the floor, trodden on with a black shoe.
+ Cuts to a shot of the dad walking out of his workplace into the car (match-on action).
+ Then cuts right to a close up of shoes walking up the stairs to the house.
+ Next shot of the dad driving the car.
+ Next it cuts to the murderer unlocking the door.
+ Then cuts to a shot of phone calling dad's wife.
+ Quick cut to the murderer unlocking and opening the door from outside (shot inside).
+ Then cuts to the phone ringing.
+ A close up shot of black shoes waking across the foor, slowly.
+ Close up shot of the man pulling out a gun and pointing it at the camera.
+ Cuts to the dad pulling in to the garage - tracking shot + match on action- and walking into the house (midshot/longshot).
+ Extreme close up of the murderer slowly sliding the back door open (match-on action), and close up of him hiding the gun inside his jacket.
+ Cuts to the shot of dad walking into the room only to find dead family on the floor -flashing shots, extreme close ups of faces before seeing dad's shocked and crying face as he walks up to his son, holds him in his arms and we cut to a close up on both.

Re-shoot.

After first film-shooting, and first editing we have established that we have to re-shoot some scenes regarding our use of lighting and we need to make some changes in terms of our idea and shots we are going to use. We need to do another weather check and shot schedule and we need to add some shots in to improve our film idea. We need to re-shoot following scenes:
- first dialogue scene (when mother talks to the son, change lighting and shot types)
- scene outdoors with the murder staring at the house, smoking a cigarette (lighting/shot types)
- establishing shot - night/day (sunset, sunrise)
- re-shoot the scene where the murderer is escaping (change props (gun), closeups/match on action)
- re shoot "finding the dead family scene" with different lighting (low key lighting) and close ups on faces of the dead family (flashing close ups on faces)
- shot of dad's shocked face (close up)
- high angle shot when he falls to his knees and another close up of him holding his son (extreme closeup)
- snap shot:  add a scene when there is a wake up phone to the detective, detective is called in to come back on duties. (dialogue scene, on the phone)

We need to re-think our choice of lighting - make it low-key lighting and use of shadows etc.
We need to set a new shooting date and plan our shots.

My contribution to the project so far...

I have decided to post a small self-evaluation of what I have done for the group production blog.
I have contributed to the group research and planning work quite well. I have done over 16 posts on Research and Planning - including research on conventions of a thriller, technical issues and the aspects of thriller genre. I have also contributed into planning of the production of the film with taking care of the moodboard, storyboard animatics and other that are clearly labelled on the group blog. I have done a lot of work and tried to present it in the most creative way I could access in a short periods of time in order to meet deadlines. I am proud of my work and I think I have contributed individually a lot into the group. To improve my work in the near future, I could find out about more creative ways in which I could present my work and also I could go into more detail in order to get more marks for indepth research with the right terminology. However, I think that the terminology I used is fairly professional and correct at the current stage of progress in Media Studies.

Group Discussion - December 12th.

This is a video footage of my group discussing the storyboard and the shots to arrange it in the way the story would run. We have discussed and agreed what shots should come in at certain times and why. We got rid of the stills that were less useful or badly taken and we put together a storyboard that we are going to use later on as our guide at the shoot.

Group's Individual Contribution to Planning.

This is the list of some of group tasks that we have been set recently to complete as part of our research and planning. I have divided the tasks equally, regarding that I have done a lot of work before doing helpful research into thriller genre and conventions of thriller, as well as other tasks too. I think that individually I have put a lot of work and effort into the group and individual blog and I am proud of my work. Since the shoot will be at one of the group member's house (Kieran's), I got him to take photos, get permissions, test lighting and get recce's and test shots. Then I got Adam, another group member to do Shoot and Edit Schedule, Asset List, Call Sheet, Risk Assessment and Weather check and other quite simple but very important bits of needed work in terms of planning. I've done personally a moodboard, animatic of the storyboard, wrote down the discussed brainstorm before and the scene walkthrough map. I have taken on the urgent tasks that we must have done otherwise we could not should over the Christmas break, which is our goal. Since I have good time-management skills and self-organisation skills, I decided I would manage the tasks quite well.

Scene Walkthrough Timeline.

 I've done Scene Walkthrough Timeline. It is a timeline showing how long will each shot take and how long will the scene in the shot take. I also described every shot to help us along with filming when it comes to it.



Moodboard.

I have created a moodboard using pictures found on internet and the website called Wordle.net. It was really hard to find appropriate pictures for the scene but I found all I could, that seemed appropriate enough. The moodboard helped me and the group see what our thriller must include, what mood it is set in and what kind of costumes/props/actors we will need as well as equipment in order to "tell the story in pictures".

Costume Design

Whilst Kieran is putting together actors for our thriller opening, I have taken over the costume design, thinking of each character and trying to represent it in its way by the costume they are wearing.

I came up with the costume ideas for our actors, which Kieran will choose as the casting crew. The criminal will have to wear black costume to symbolise the dark and mysterious character. Also, black gloves for symbolising his carefulness and clever mind. The husband will wear just a suit, with a shirt -a simple business wear - symbolising the simplicity and calm lifestyle and a suitcase - symbolising the hardwork of a businessman he does. His wife's costume is symbolising the stereotype of a housewife lifestyle with a girl by her side, suggesting she is a fulltime mum, looking after the child and waiting for his husband to come home and serve him dinner.

However, these are just pictures from the internet for the purpose of getting the ideas of the costumes. We might develop or modify those ideas.