Director's Commentary

Anthony and I decided to record a Directors' commentary of the film as we were the ones who physically thought of the idea. We recorded it using a Skype conversation but for some reason the video completely vanished so only the audio was left. However we still decided to post it up here as it still gives a clear view of how we conceived the idea for certain shots and ideas and we also explain the hidden meanings behind certain things we did.

Audience Feedback

A pretty tough part of evaluating ourselves comes from asking others the hard questions; " What could we have done better?" Although it may seem a little difficult for us to sit and listen to what's wrong with our final film, we all understand it has to be done in order to complete a full evaluation as well as realise where it was we may have let ourselves down. We decided to gather a few of our peers and ask the difficult questions but also ask what it is they liked about it, so here it is the roses and thorns of our final production;

Planning Diary 3

Week 10
Jack and I decided to continue with filming and so proceeded with our third day of it, thankfully the snow had returned and so the entire day consisted of the pair of us patching up the snow shots that had issues, for example a tripod was seen within frame, and so we completely re filmed this shot. As well as this Jack and I dove into poster research where Jack would find some posters which we are looking to imitate and I would analyse then to find a deeper meaning and help us when creating our own poster. I decided to write an initial script for what we have been discussing in making the movie, I took into prospect most of the shots we are going to use as well as the dialogue. Whilst Jack posted about the numerous decisions on props and costume.

Week 11
We began the process of narrowing down the music choice to ensure it would be perfect, taking into account of a few different songs I posted one which we were very impressed with and contemplated using. Jack and I then found Skype, whilst talking over it we thought to ourselves why not textually analyse the movie Signs, this adds an interesting edge to a textual analysis and provided us with the opportunity to work together giving off our own opinions on why the director used the shorts.The filming then began to get a lot more serious, as the snow had melted and there was no way of getting it back, we scrapped everything and started over. Thankfully as we had already done it before, Jack and I were experienced and knew exactly what we were doing so were able to get through the first 3 minutes of the film itself with no hassle and once Harvey and Michael arrived we were able to finish the film nicely. Jack and I then edited the entire film during and after school to a standard we were all very pleased with. I then decided on the music choice of the film which fitted perfectly thankfully.

Now the film has been finished I proceeded to decide what magazine between Sight and Sound and Total Film I would structure the article in, I posted a video as well as wrote a few lines describing why I decided on total film, and then proceeded to write the entire article the next day. During this process Jack created a poster for the film, which we drew influence from, shown previously within a blog post. Now that the group has uploaded the video onto the blog, we individually took up the evaluations and completed them alone.

Methods of marketing our short film

 For people to see our short film, we need to get it out there, we need to market. With the ever growth of th e internet, marketing your product has changted dramatically from 10 years ago. We will have to market and look into New Media Technologies, like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and blogger. However we will still stick to the old fashioned roots of posters, reviews in magazines and word of mouth.

We could create our own Facebook page which gives details about the films and allows viewers to discuss on a forum what they thought of the film. It also allows us the team behind the film to get in contact with the viewers gaining vital audience feedback.

Twitter could be extremely usefull aswell as obtaining vital audience feedback, we could keep fans in the know of what we are up to regarding other productions and ideas.

To market our product we could create a 30 second teaser of our short film or unseen footage. This could be shown in cinemas, so that millions of people around the country would see. WE would display information such as where our short film is showing or what channel on TV.

Also, at the London short film festival we could air our short film, this will attract huge attention and create hysteria around our short film. We could also show our preivous film, Deceit, this would create an interest around us as a team and maybe even create a fan base.

Our target audience

Before we even thought of initial ideas for the horror, we decided as a group that our target audience would be 15-30. We wanted our BBFC rating to be 15. We never wanted our film to be graphic and contain blood, this steered us away from the rating of 18, however our mild offensive language moved us into the 15 rating, what we always aimed for. We definitely didn't want a rating of 12 because then our target audience of 15-30 would be put off as they could get the impression, before they see it, that our short film is for children and pre teens. Our target audience of 15-30 are most likely to enjoy our short film, as it can be stated as a horror, it makes you think and suspicion different things, however questions are still left open at the end of the film something which we worked hard on as we really wanted to leave the audience's imaginiation wide open of what could happen next and what is happening to our protaginist, played by Anthony.

Pinaccle - Our editing software

To edit our media film, we use Pinaccle. This software is provided on our school computers, it is very user friendly and we all know how to use it, saying that however, Jack took a particular interest in the editing stage, he has more knowledge and understanding of the programme than any of us, therefore he was elected as the dedicated editor. With Pinaccle, Jack could cut down shots, dim lighting, create fades, transitions, edit sound, create titles, credits and much much more with a wide range of choice.

Pinaccle also allowed us to burn our short film straight to DVD. All we needed to do was buy a DVD and put it into the drive, commence the burning process and there we go our product is on a DVD which can be viewed on a computer aswell as any DVD player.

Finishing the film - Editing

After filming today, Anthony and I headed to the editing suite to try and finish the editing in one day. Unfortunately Harvey and Michael were not present because they had lessons to attend to so Anthony and I had to edit it ourselves. The program we used to edit was Pinnacle Studio which I believe is fantastic for editing  as it is extremely user friendly and allows people to use quite complex effects with a click of a button. I physically did the editing because I have had much more experience editing then Anthony, however Anthony was extremely helpful with editing and without him I doubt the film would be nearly as good as what we created. Because I've had to edit so many different versions of the film I knew exactly what to do and this made the editing process extremely quick and easy. Because both Anthony and I were present and only one person can physically edit, I would edit numerous clips to form a sequence and would then ask Anthony to give me his honest impressions on what he liked and didn't liked. This worked out very well as we could both voice our opinions and we could try out different techniques that we may have not of used if only Anthony or I was editing.

We managed to edit the film in about two and a half hours as we would watch the footage numerous times to look out for clips or sounds that may have looked out of place. Within this time we also received feedback from many of our peers telling us what they liked and disliked and this helped us very much in making our final tweaks to the film. Overall we received really good feedback from our peers and many of them were especially impressed with the "Cloning shot" which was essentially a shot of Anthony looking at his own body. After we editing the film we had to put the music in and balance it. Anthony supplied the music by bringing in his USB memory stick and together we tweaked the settings to get the perfect balance. We managed to create many musical stings at crucial parts of the story that I believe are extremely effective.

Overall the editing process went extremely well and we managed turn footage that we filmed on the same day into a film that we are all proud of.

Final Music Choice

When researching alone for a song which would fit best within our film I found one track which struck me. I came across a track called Resentment. Similar to Paregoric the track doesn't sound typically like a song. The track contains what appears to be demonic voices whispering rapidly why a deep bass line is playing throughout, gradually getting louder and louder. Something that can only be described as a slit occasionally cuts through the track giving a sense of someone cutting something, instantly creating an enigma within the song itself. The haunting track I feel could go perfectly with the films conclusion, when he sees his dead body the main protagonist could perhaps break down and hear the track in the background (non-diegetically) as if this place he is in has a deeper darker meaning, and that many have suffered here before. The constant whispers finally finish with a large bang, this gives an opportunity for the credits to role in complete silence.

Another song I found which I felt would go perfectly within our film is a track called In the Mist. One of the main reasons I was drawn to this song was due to its title, as the protagonist appears alone in a misty environment, so after typing in specific words like suspenseful and tension building this was the song I was most drawn too. The song was perfect in every possible way, containing an elongated bass line throughout to support the protagonists walking, but also a huge bang towards to end to end the song. Although the song is only around a minute long, we had to loop it within the editing process, thankfully this turned out very well as we were extremely lucky for the occasional bangs to appear on moments which are able to adapt to certain shots. Another advantage of using this song was the fact that we were able to use the bang for the films final shot, to create that jumpy, startling moment that the horror genre is best known for.

Final Credits

Much deliberation has occurred over the filming process of what the name of the film should be. Many different suggestions have been said but there was always something not quite right about them. We decided to keep it simple, stick the films controlling idea and name it "Limbo". Despite the fact the title somewhat gives some of the story away, we felt that the best idea was to make the title appear at the end of the film.

Now the film is complete and we can view it over, we feel this is an outstanding way to portray the credits, as it somewhat clears some unclear air that the audience may have as to what the film itself was about. The decision to do this came from one of our main influences "Inception". Similar to Inception we have undergone a somewhat startling conclusion which asks questions, as the title appears dramatically with a bang in sound. Once the title appears we were then able to place the actual credits in, we felt that it's best to keep them simple, as not to take away interest from the films conclusion, so like Inception, a simple black screen was used with the font white as to stand out in a rather subtle tone. Making the credits short was something that the group felt important, so the audience can immediately react and compare ideas of what happened, so to keep it simple we placed the actors names, the directors and the producers. The image above shows an example of how Inception credited their actors, we feel this effective and attempted to imitate this with our own twist.

Todays final filming - it rained

Today we filmed, it went extremely well, we got everything we wanted. Tomorrow, when we edit hard and non stop, if we need to fill some space we have a few rough ideas for scenes at Anthony's house. Our filming today only took two hours as we were extremely organised on what we needed to do and didn't mess about.

However, we came across one surprise which was that it began to rain really heavily. Luckily, it all started coming down before we started filming. It would have been a huge problem if it started raining mid way through filming as the continuity editing would have been completely ruined. Also, the camera lense started to become wet, a problem we came across last year. With our product deceit, we did not realise there was water on the lense untill uploaded the footage onto the school computers, and there were massive sploges on every single shot, this completely ruined all of the footage, so to overcome this and to allow this not to happen to us this time round, we constantly wiped the lense and I went home and got an umbrella so the person who was filming could hold it up to sheild the camera from the rain.

Below is a photo of Jack demonstrating how we used the umbrella to shield the camera:

Final costumes

This is a picture of Anthony and I in the final product. As you can see I am wearing a hoody and am smoking. This is very important as when you first see me, you don't know why I am concealing myself with a hood, I look very suspicious and it leaves questions open to the audience as to why I am so secretive. We have created a very omninous and dark profile around my character.

As you can see, Anthony is wearing normal clothes like a normal person. We wanted Anthony to come across as a normal average male. Anthony's acting was extremely strong as in the footage his facial expressions come across as very scared and confused.

Filming finished

Today, we finally completed filming. We kept the locations the same however through trial and error from Tuesdays filming which we scrapped, we got our best ideas and best shots together. The deadline was looming and is coming round quick, however as a group we all stuck together and put our heads down to work. Listening to eachothers ideas and doing the best possible job we could. We realise that our current situation is not ideal, however we are determined to edit our short film to the best of our ability. Like our product last year, Deceit, editing will be conducted whilst all of us are together in the editing room, so we can all have our input into the final product, regarding complications such as: shots to cut, effects, credits and sound. These factors all have a huge impact. There are four key points to cinematic production which are; Mise en Scene, Sound, Camera and Editing.

We will record a video diary tomorrow whilst editing.

Final Script

Here is the final script as it appears in our completed film.

Please click on the images to enlarge them

Ancillary Task - Magazine Review - Choosing the Magazine

When deciding what magazine our film review should appear in I feel it extremely important to compare magazines to ensure that the perfect one is chosen. As part of my own research into this, I went out and purchased two of the leading film magazines, Total Film and Sight and Sound. In doing this research I am able to measure the advantages and disadvantages of using either magazine, and hopefully come to a conclusion in which one will feature our movie review. Within the video below I will be taking note of my initial impressions of both magazines, from their covers, to their actual reviews.



I decided to look into each article with much more detail, to ensure that the decsion made in the video, is the correct one.






















Firstly, Total Film (Left). At first glance its clear to see that this article does in fact stand out. Likewise to the other reviews that appear within the magazine. The use of the large image draws the reader in and somewhat entices them to read deeper into the review. The use of the image I feel is an extremely effective way in making sure people actually read the article, rather than skim through and miss it out. This is dissimilar to Sight and Sound which takes a completely different approach and completely scraps the idea of an image and goes directly to the text. This may somewhat put off the reader as the text could seem rather intimidating, notwithstanding the fact that many reviews from the magazine Sight and Sound appear to come across this way, meaning people may not notice our review if they are just skimming through.

When deciding which magazine to choose I feel it most important to ensure that the magazine will relate to our chosen target audience, in our case that is ages 15-21. Despite the fact that Total Film's review does seem to be a much more engaging article than Sight and Sound, it is worth mentioning that the film we are creating is aimed at those who have an extremely big interest in film, whether they're studying film or even film makers. It would seem that Sight and Sound would appear to that type of audience, giving off the more professional feel with the article itself.

Taking into account these two examples, I feel it best to select the magazine Total Film. Simply due to the fact that I feel their articles are filled with much more content than Sight and Sound, what with the appealing visuals and overall verdict, these will appeal more to our targeted audience and hopefully draw the attention from those we wouldn't necessarily place into this category, but rather would be drawn in by the article itself.

Since I am certain Total Film is the perfect choice for our review, I decided to create a layout which I felt suitable for the review. After studying many different Total Film review articles I felt that this was the most effective type of layout. With a medium amount of writing length our audience will not feel intimidated by the text and thus will tend not to just skip to the end for the final verdict. Also, The use of the large image plays a key role in grabbing the attention of the reader, and thus make them read the article, after being intrigued by the image.

I felt it necessary to create multiple layouts to ensure the best one is chosen, despite the fact that this second one is more in depth when I finally write the review I will decide which out of the two images will fit best for it.

Failed costumes - as to why we didnt use them

This is what we wore on Tuesday, the day of filming of which we scrapped. We thought the suits were a very good idea as they make us look professional. However, we thought it looked to over the top and greatly lacked explanation in our story. So for our final product we have decided to ditch the suits.

Filming - finished?

Yesterday, we supposidily finish filming. We added all of our great ideas together, along with new ones we thought of on the spot. For example, Harvey and I wore suits, this emphasised our characters professionalism and defines their persona. However, after watching our footage as a group, we are not entirely happy. So we are currently deciding whether to re-film everything and edit by Saturday. This would be a very tight deadline, however, we want our short film to be perfect and to the best of our abilities, therefore whatever we can do to make it better, no matter how time consuming, we will do.

Script- Second Draft

As a group we are highly influenced by our surroundings, we are extremely keen on going with the flow as it comes to dialogue and small changes to the actually story line. Here is another draft of a script with some changes we made as a group.

Textual Analysis: Signs

Anthony and I decided to record ourselves Textual Analysing our favourite scene from the film 'Signs.' We recorded ourselves using a program called Skype. We did this by having Anthony invite me to a video conversation and I would simply record the footage and our dialogue. We have talked about this film many times throughout our blog and feel it is a huge influence on our own film. In the commentary we talk about the music, lighting, camera angles etc... I believe this was very successful and no other groups have analysed  in this way. Below is the video:

Narrowing Down The Music Choice

Jack and I decided it would be best to finally decide on the music that will be used in our film. After viewing many different songs together on the website we gave off our own opinions saying the pros and cons on using the certain songs. Around half hour into the search we felt it best to simply brainstorm a few key words and insert them into the "Key Words" search box on the website. The lexical choice Jack and I were going for were what type of tone we are trying to create with our film. An example would be the word "Dark", this word links directly to our chosen genre (horror) and also relates to the fact that our film is in fact a morally dark film. Alongside this the word "Slow" was chosen to suit the type of tempo we are going for, so the music continues slowly alongside the slow walking protagonist to create that link between image and sound.

Straight away we noticed the first available song ticked all the right boxes, its name, "Paregoric". Upon listening to the song together we were very unsure what to make of it, it was unlike anything we had ever heard before, containing not so much a rhythm but more of an eerie bass line which continues to pulse throughout the entire 4:52 of the song. The song then breaks the bass with the chiming of bells creating an extremely creepy feel to it. After listening to the song twice we knew it was perfect for the film, as not only does it give off the dark, mysterious and eerie feel we are going for, but it also will fit perfectly in the background for those scenes with dialogue also. We will certainly be considering this song for our film.

Music uploaded by Jack Windsor:

Fourth Day of Shooting

Once again, Anthony and I decided to go and film the remainder of our scenes. We arrived at our location at around 2:15 PM and instantly began to brainstorm and film shots. We believe today was semi-successful as Anthony and I thought of and filmed lot of great shots such as a POV shot from my character's perspective. However we also filmed and entire sequence of dialogue that at the time seemed right however after we both viewed it we both agreed that it was pretty horrible due to bad camera angles and also bad acting.

We also had to stop filming quite abruptly as the camera ran out of charge. We were aware that the camera was low on battery but decided to film anyway as we are not in possession of a charger at the moment so we had to film whatever we could. This was annoying at first but gave me and Anthony more time to discuss how we are going to make the dialogue section of our film successful.

The Inspiration of the Game "Limbo"

The fundamentals of our film mainly consist of character that gives off a sense of loneliness. As our story continues the audience can see exactly how alone the main character actually is and how in a way even the infrastructure of everything he sees is created by his own mind. We hope that this will achieve a haunting effect as well as a comforting feeling as the main character hasn't realised it yet but he has created his perfect shelter and sanctuary from his reality of being in a possible drug induced coma.

A specific inspiration that sparked not so much the story line but totally the concept of a lone wanderer as well as the Idea of being trapped in your own self conscious was the Xbox Arcade game "Limbo"

As you can see by the front cover of the game it matches almost everything I have described above. Bellow are a few screen shots of the game play and it will become clear as to why we see this game as such an inspiration for creating a haunting ominous effect by playing with the Idea of loneliness.

As you can see from the various screen shots this kind setting would obviously be difficult to capture in real life on film however we want to really be able to duplicate or even enhance the sense of loneliness the protagonist will have to tackle in our final film.

Shooting Diary #5

Bellow Is a video of our 5th Shooting Diary, we were supposed to film however due to a problem with the charger of the camera we were unable to do so. Me and Anthony retreated back to the editing suite and decided to just discuss our footage we had already shot and decide what we really liked and what we wanted to change.

Audio Podcast #4

Bellow is another Audio Podcast between myself and Anthony Wilson as we discuss various issues that occurred and how we intend to tackle them.

Props/Costume

Anthony and I decided to discuss what props and costumes we are going to use in our short film. The first prop we needed was a mobile phone which Anthony kindly provided. We wanted to establish that the character was sophisticated and middle/higher class and therefore Anthony's phone was perfect as it is a blackberry. We needed the phone as it shows that the character cannot get in contact with anyone as there is no signal available on his phone.

Update: During editing we all agreed that the phone looked very out of place and odd in our film as it is shown once and is never shown again. Because of this we decided to edit the phone out of our film completely.



Another prop we used was a fake syringe as we needed  a shot of the main protagonist injecting himself with heroine. I found one lying around the house which made things easy as we didn't need to purchase one. The syringe itself looks very realistic which will help make our film seem more professional.



We needed a watch for the professor character as he needs to alert the protagonist that time was is standing still and not moving. Again I found this prop lying around the house and therefore we did not need to purchase one.

Update After discussion we decided to get rid of the professor character and therefore no longer need the watch to be present in our film.




For the main protagonist we wanted him to seem sophisticated and therefore chose him to have him wearing a  leather jacket and scarf combo. We believe this worked very well as it makes the character look smart and sophisticated but also gives off an adventurous vibe e.g. Indiana Jones

Script- Draft