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

Ancillary Task - Analysis of Horror Posters

In order to come up with a final poster, we must ensure that we take into account posters that fit into our chosen genre, I have chosen three posters which stand out to me and fit the typical codes and conventions of a horror poster.

Firstly, The Ring. Directed by Gore Verbinski in 2001, the ring tells the story of a journalist investigating a video tape which seems to cause the death of anyone who watches it within a week. At first glance of the poster, the title stands out the most being in the perfect position to draw the focus of the audience. "The Ring" is a rather vague title creating many enigmas as it could in fact have many different meanings giving off a horror vibe. This is enhanced by the apparent handwriting the title is written in, almost as if it is written by a child, and also making the audience wonder why it is written this way. This is further reinforced by the fact it is written in white giving off the innocence of the child.

The picture of the circular ring itself is clearly connoting what the film is about, and as is it is somewhat faded and distorted it represents the horror genre. The films tag line "Before you die you see" gives off enigmas to the audience, making them wonder what in fact they will see, thus drawing them into the film to answer them un-answered questions that the tag line is so subtly posing.

Through the colour coding that the poster is showing it is very clear that the film itself is a horror. Black being the main backdrop of the poster represents death and darkness, whilst the white gives off a contrast that makes the poster stand out and entice the audience. This is also supported by the distorted handwriting and fade image giving an omnibus feel to the poster, as at first glance, the audience is unsure of what the film is about as the poster is only offering subtle clues which are hard to follow.


Secondly, The Eye. In the film a woman receives and eye transplant that allows her to see in to the supernatural world. At first glance of the poster the main focus is in fact the image of an eye. One thing i like about this poster is that it is unlike many others from the genre horror, as the lighting itself is at an extremely high key but around the eye the shading is of an extremely low key. This lighting shift could perhaps give the audience the impression that the person who's eye this is may appear as normal through the high key lighting, but could in fact hold a very dark secret which links to the persons eye, and in turn showing the film is within the horror genre.

In terms of the text, the title of the film links to the image being shown, "The Eye" appears directly bellow the image and the fact the the word "Eye" is written in bold block capitals suggest that the film revolves around this and connotes that the film is based around an eye. Its also noticeable that the poster shows the name of an extremely well known actress, this marketing technique could some what convince people to see the film just to see the main actress "Jessica Alba", also the fact that it appears just in the middle of the text and the image suggests that her eye is the focus and with her name being written in a red font suggests anger, danger and blood linking it back to the chosen genre of the film and letting the audience subtly know what they are getting themselves into.

Lastly, Gothika tells the story of a woman who wakes up as a patient in an asylum with no memory of why she is there or what she has done. When fist viewing the poster it is clear to see if follows the typical codes and conventions of a horror movie poster with its low key lighting, however, it has its own stamp on it with the blue colour used, connoting evil and a cold feeling. The cold feeling is supported by the apparent rain which appears perhaps suggesting that a main theme in the film is the weather or maybe even the film itself takes place within a storm.

The point made previous about the storm can be linked directly to the font used on the title "Gothika", the colour appears to have a somewhat, electric blue feel to it, as if it were the same colour of lightning. Likewise to "The Ring" and its font the font used on the title appears to have been written by a child, with its oddly placed capitals and strange font itself giving off a haunting feel to the poster and suggesting that perhaps a child plays a huge role in the film. The picture itself is of what appears to be the protagonist Halle Berry, its clear to the audience that the person being shown is Halle Berry is due to the text stating the name of the main character, something that many posters seem to do as another marketing technique. However, this is not a standard picture of the actress it shows her face looking dazed and confused, directly at the person looking at the poster, enticing the audience to look at the poster and notice on her left arm are the words "Not alone". It appears that the writing on her arm matches that of the title perhaps suggesting that what we can only assume of a child wrote this on her and is perhaps haunting her, which is shown by her facial expression.  

Poster Influences

Below are posters that Anthony are hugely influenced by and we want to achieve something similar to this for our own poster. Because are movie is based on a lone wanderer character we want to have a poster that shows this character from behind looking at something in the distance. This will help make our film seems quite mysterious and hopefully people who see our poster will be attracted by it and come see the movie.

Third Day of Filming

As Usual, Anthony and I decided to film on the 20th of December as the weather conditions matched with our other shots. After reviewing the footage in the editing suite Anthony and I noticed a lot of mistakes that we decided to try and patch up today. For example, in one shot we noticed the tripod bag was in shot, and the more we viewed the shot the more it became apparent to the point where we had to get rid of it. As a pair, we loved the shot and felt it fit perfectly as it was, so tried to recreate it exactly as it was. We did the shot 3 times, changing small details each time in the hope that one of them will fit. After we finished some missing shots we then decided to move on to some new shots which Anthony and I discussed thoroughly.

An example of a shot Jack and I discussed used the editing technique of cloning. In order to pull this off, I was made to walk down a very narrow alleyway with the camera stationary in a mid shot. When my entire body has past the camera we were keen on leaven the camera running and sending me behind my initial walking spot so I would appear behind myself after my body had walked past. This in turn would create a haunting effect which is almost spiritual where I would appear in a spot watching myself from afar. After much deliberation Jack decided it would be best if he took the role of the person watch me, so we would not confuse the audience. I agreed so we continued to repeat the process but put Jack in the background. After checking up on the footage a number of times we were finally left with the effect we were pleased with and are eager to see what it turns out like in the editing room.

Day three of filming basically consisted of patching up the shots in the snow, as it seems the snow has stopped for quite a while. It gave us time to prepare for the transition of snow to sun, so we stopped filming in the middle of a pan, and once the pan has finished, I will appear with no snow surrounding. These noticeable shifts in weather are key to our story line and play an important role in the protagonist finding out where he is. Jack and I were extremely pleased with today's filming and feel we achieved everything we set out to do and are excited to film the remainder of our film in the near future.

Music Influences - Silent Hill

Jack and I are working closely together in searching for the perfect music for our film, we are highly influenced by many different types of new media technologies, one being video games as mentioned previously. One game which is very well known for it's use of music is Silent Hill 2 and the very memorable song I think we should bare in mind when choosing our music is entitled "Promise". Where the music is in many ways mysterious, dark and eerie, 3 very key words Jack and I often refer to when discussing what type of music we are looking for. By using the website Free Play Music we are able to type key words into the search bar and browse through the website using this, narrowing down all songs and finally deciding what one we will go with. Jack and I have planned to meet up on the 18th December, where we will decide there and then what songs to choose. As the other members of our group are unable to attend we are going to show them the song we have decided to choose and hope they enjoy it as much as we do.

Planning Diary 2

Week 5
Similar to week 4 we continued with the Limbo blogs, Jack created a questionaire to help us aim the film at a partcular intended audience. As a group we then proceeded to take responsibility and discuss certain ideas with eachother to help create a story we all agree with. We did this by using Harvey's iPhone to record a conversation with eachother and too also exploit another piece of new media technology to give a more interesting feel to the post. Harvey then blogged about what type of genre our film would be, and came to the conclusion that it will be a 'Horror', based around the influences we have had.

Week 6

Jack and I decided to go location hunting and after narrowing down a few we decided on a field located a few minutes away from the school. Considering we are all local to the area we always knew this was a good place to film a creepy film and transport is not a problem. I took my phone in order to take multiple pictures to show members of the group who were absent some of the ideas Jack and I came up with for a few shots, as well as to look back on for inspiration for both the story board and the film itself. I proceeded to upload the pictures to the blog along with some writing. Jack meanwhile was busy searching for the perfect music for our film, after narrowing a few down he showed me his favourites, all seemed to fit perfectly so we will need more opinions from other members of our group.

Week 7

After supporting Jack with the search for the perfect music I decided to do some research into the importance of music. Whether it is Diegetic or Non-Diegetic, music is the key to a successful horror film these days, creating tension and delivering incredible notes on those scares. I decided to post an example of this with a film created on youtube called Scary Mary, where creepy music is placed in rather than the more, chirpy music that is used in the film, proving that music is what can make a film scary, or not scary.

As a group we then decided to visit the location with a camera and test out a few shots that we have planned on using in the film. Within this I would be the actor and Michael and Harvey would tell me how I could complete certain movements and in a way be the directors for this short shot as Jack filmed and also gave his input. When we completed the filming itself, Jack and I decided to take the footage back to the editing room and put it together in a sequence that we were proud with. After watching over the footage analysing the pros and cons of it we decided it was perfect for the film and I began to organise and initial shooting schedule. Taking into account of the weather we noticed it was going to snow, after much discussion we decided to not let this effect us and instead adapt to it and continue filming within the snow.

Week 8

This week was rather successful as we finally decided who our protagonist would be, Jack suggested I take the role and the others agreed simply due to the experience I had in GCSE Drama. Within this week, Harvey uploaded his Audio podcasts so we were able to take note of what was said on them and incorporate them into our final idea. As a group we decided creating audio podcasts would be an outstanding idea so we could look back on what we have said previously, thus meaning we wont forget any good ideas we had. We nominated Harvey to record them as his iPhone 4 had the best sound quality and was able to pick up our dialogue without a problem. Also, as Michael, Jack and I were filming Harvey would film around us commentating on what we were doing and the process we are using in order to make the film its best, and using his HD camera on his iPhone 4 he was a perfect candidate for this role. The shooting diary's have proved a success as we often look back to see if there's anything else we could be doing to make the film better.

Jack and I also decided within this week it would be best to begin filming our final film. However, Harvey and Michael were unable to come with us due to school work, and told us they will meet us at the location later. We arrived to at the location and began to shoot around 1:30 of the film (fully edited). We achieved our goal and felt we could have gone on for longer, however, due to the camera running out of charge we had to return back to school and tell Harvey and Michael how the filming went as they joined us in the editing room. We are all extremely pleased with how it turned out and are looking forward to continuing with the filming.

Week 9
The group decided on what editing software we felt would be best to use, we settled with pinnacle as it was extremely accessible  for the entire group and all desired effects could be achieved on it. After this the group decided to film, in the snowy weather, Jack and I went out and began filming the first few minutes of the film, but were devastated as the camera ran out of charge, once the footage had been edited by us, we decided to return some day soon to finally finish. Upon arrival the next we were greeted with a problem, that the snow had melted. We attempted to film without the snow, but looking over the footage within the editing room Jack and I were not pleased with the outcome and so we called of filming till Thursday (as it was going to snow that day). Whilst not filming, we decided to take the initiative and research into title ideas, we came up with many suggestions but then decided to wait until the film was completed until we decided the name itself. Notwithstanding the fact that I decided to dive deeper into music research, drawing influence from scenes within the film Silent Hill which in some ways is similar to ours.

Choice of Editing Software

As a group we feel it extremely important to ensure that our short film is edited perfectly with the input of all of us. We've decided to use the editing software Pinnacle Studio Plus.

When editing our film our group must ensure that the film itself is always constructed with professionalism, as we are trying to steer away our film from looking like a typical student film. We must ensure that the film is at the highest quality we can get it with outstanding editing techniques to help create the effect of professionalism. With this editing software we are able to add all relevant effects to a film, such as slow motion where it is best fitting, credits to appear where we feel best, fades and much more.

We would love the editing to reflect how hard we worked on this film, and don't want it to be the let down. This is turn will allow the audience to enjoy the film with the editing placed perfectly. Which is why we are using Pinnacle Studio Plus. -Anthony Wilson

Why we Chose to use Pinnacle Studio

At first our group was against using Pinnacle Studio as we wanted to use an editing program that nobody else was using. Harvey suggested we use his £500 Adobe After Effects and as a group we thought this was a good idea. However after seeing the program in action we decided against it as it is more for putting in special effects then editing. Also it is really quite complex and our group only had limited experience with this program. After thinking about some other programs we decided to just use Pinnacle.

We chose Pinnacle because it is extremely user friendly but you can also add in some flashy special effects. It is also very similar to Windows Movie Maker which almost everyone has experience using. I have personally had a lot of experience with editing software and I find Pinnacle to be great for editing. It is so easy to cut clips and add in special effects which isn't the case in most editing software. - Jack Windsor