Sound

I would like to make a few comments on the sound that is already finished by my partner, Anna. She did an amazing job!

In detail, what she did was find a sad and dramatic instrumental song which would add to the mise-en-scene and affect the audience. But she also added a piano sound right when the guy comes shows up on the screen which is creates suspicion and by changing something in the sound it also keeps them interested and engaged, makes them follow what is happening on the screen. When there is a close up of the girl's face and the disturbing POV shot, she added a heartbeat. It keeps the tension and as closer the guy gets to the girl, the faster the heartbeat gets. I really like one thing that she did, when the guy is very close to her, the heartbeat disappears and the action is in slow motion. We see a close up on he girl's face, holding on to the wall and it seems like she is about to die because the heartbeat is gone and it's like her heart just stopped and then in the slow motion we have time to see how the guy grabs the girl.
After watching both parts of the filming, we realised that at the end when the girl takes out the drugs something is wrong and it doesn't bring the attention to what she is doing, it looks as it is almost normal to take drugs and be excited about it. So, what we decided to do is when there is a close up shot of the girl's hand taking out the drugs fromt the draw, it is slowed down and there is a bit of the piano sound which is also in the beginning of the film. That would link both parts and make the audience realise that after taking the drugs, technically what they just saw in the beginning is what is going to happen.
Overall, I think the sound goes perfectly with the piece.

Titles 2

Hi everyone.

I want to share with you today how hard it is to come up with a suitable and original type of titles.

We experimented with all kinds of fonts and colours but they all seemed too exaggerated for our genre. It was either action or thriller but not drama. Then we realised that the writing can be simple but the way it comes up on the screen could be different. For example, here: 

The font goes bigger and bigger and dissolves into each one. I quite like because it seems like it is coming from the water.

The next one is our names which we thought could be like a shadow in the water:

This screen shot doesn't clearly show what I mean but imagine when the leg is out of the picture It will be only the writing in the water.

One more thing that I decided to do for two main reasons is to do this shot in slow motion. First, it is a close up shot and it show detail and second by slowing it down it shocks the audience more and makes them pay attention to the fact that she is actually not wearing any shoes.

And the other reason is so it gives the audience time to read the titles.

Editing 4

Hello guys.

I have been doing a lot of editing again because this is my main job in this production. It was much easier for me to montage the shots. I had a better view of how things should look like because I have been doing a lot of practice. By having a variety of different shots I had the opportunity to choose the best ones and create a great continuity throughout the whole piece.

To create a good mise-en-scene in this part we needed darker shots to give the feeling that it is in the morning just until the sun comes up. Unfortunately, we waited a bit too long in the morning and the shots were too bright. So, when editing afterwards we experimented with colours, brightness and contrast. We thought that making the shots a bit more blue which makes the weather looks bad and adds to the atmosphere we are aiming for. Here is an example:

It is not very clear in this picture but I hope you can see the difference in both.

Also, before even filming we had the idea of adding blurry point of view shots which could symbolise a hallucination which we know from previous research that is a sign of taking ecstasy. I think we achieved that very well by doing this:

I made the shot blurry and Anna really liked how good the continuity is when adding this shot but she had an idea of how to make it even better. She changed the colours, making them brighter and more colourful and I think her improvements really made it better.

Titles - finished

From my previous post you can see the idea we came up with for our opening titles, Unique productions. We had another idea and we decided to add to what we already created and it looks like this:

First we have the unique productions comping up and the universe spinning, and after the picture appears. We thought that it adds to the sense of it being unique and that's why we added it. The colours go well together as well, the picture and the colour of the writing.

Titles

Me and my partner have been thinking about the titles of our production and how we can make them original. In a previous post we have showed you how we thought we could do the title "UNIQUE PRODUCTIONS", but we realised that there is nothing original about it and when we actually did it in the program Premiere Pro, together with the other shots we came up with another idea. We experimented with titles on a background, a different ways of coming up and we created something which was much better. Here is a comparison of the two:

In this screen shot I've also tried to show the transition. The background is spinning and the titles appear. I believe this is much more unique and it also looks like a real professional company.

Filming 2

HELLO GUYS!

I am very excited to share our experience from yesterday's filming.

We had a fun night in my friends house and it got pretty late so we decided not to go to sleep and wait until the daylight started to come. Around 7 o'clock we went out to the chosen place where we were supposed to film. It was kind of easy for me to act in a way because I was very tired plus I was put in the character's clothes like a jacket falling down, ripped tights, messed up make up and hair and walking in bare feet! It helped me to develop the character that is needed for our production.

Anna was filming very well considering the weather, it was very cold and it just stopped raining before we went out. We followed our storyboard but we changed a few shots because when we were at the place we saw potential from different angles and I gave Anna ideas for different shots.
It was easier to film this time in terms of space. We didn't have the same problem as in the first part of our filming. Anna successfully took still shots without shaking the camera. After our previous filming and experience, we are becoming much better at it. We didn't struggle with the tripod at all, it was easy to adjust it to whatever position we needed it.
We had a problem in the past when we took only one shot of an action and when we actually saw it on a computer it wasn't good enough so we couldn't use it and we couldn't go back to filming because the lighting and the mice-en-scene would be different. And missing one shot could affect the whole continuity of the piece. So this time we got about 70 shots from different angles so we can choose the best ones when we do the montage. We followed a chronological order of the character's actions using different angles and shot types in order to get a good continuity when putting the clips together.

Props - Preparation for Filming 2

Hello.
Today we are getting ready for filming tomorrow. The plan is to go to my partner - Anna's house in Camden and wait until the morning light comes. Our second filming is going to be the scene where the girl comes back from the club and that will be early in the morning. We wanted it to be realistic and that's why we've decided to film it in the morning.
We are taking our storyboard and equipment, the main character's accessories and clothes. Anna is going to be the camera person and I am the actress as you already know. It will be quite a challenge because it has been raining and the ground is wet and I have to walk without shoes but I am willing to do it. It is also quite cold so we need to have everything planned before hand so we can do it quickly but successfully. We are also gonna need a person to hold an umbrella over the camera in case it rains again so we will have our friend with us.
I think we are much more prepared now, learnt from previous mistakes, we have a better storyboard to help us and I hope everything goes well.