Opening titles - The Conjuring, Rosie's Post

The conjuring is a recent horror film released in 2013:

Straight away the opening begins with a crescendo in the music which is very foreboding and implies that something bad is probably going to follow as it is leading to something. 
A fade from black is used to enter the title sequence which reveals the eerie atmosphere of this film. 
Mise en scene is incorporated into the opening; the images are presented in a way that leads us to believe that the film is set in the past:

• the saturation of colour in the photos (sepia/black and white)
• few scratches and marks on the images to suggest they've been worn
• the newspaper article layout appear old fashioned 

The text used throughout The Conjuring title sequence is very clean and could appear to be from some sort of document, which suggests a sense or formality or seriousness to the film.

where the text appears as the page turns

Some of the type appears with no special transition, it just appears along with the background image however many of them appear on the screen through what looks like somebody is turning the pages of the book which are point of view shots which also builds tension to the titles as somebody is looking through. With both dissolve and focus pulls used on transitions, it gives more variety and a sense of action.

The way that the text appears on this picture is very gradual. As the pages are turned, a new layer goes ontop. The positioning of these layers could suggest that something happened to these children as the type is positioned to fall right over their faces.

The coloured filter used on the opening also helps us to recognise the genre of the film as it is very dark and does not give a lot away. The text is either black on white or vice versa which allows the text to be seen clearly - as it is placed into clean and blank space - and is also different from the rest of the handwritten style font used in the background. 

The high pitched sounds in the music are also accompanied by low tones as well which contributes to the atmosphere of the film; mysterious and eerie. The crescendos and diminuendos add suspense to the opening. 

                   SOUND and EDITING     - Stephen
I have been appointed the role of being in charge of the sound and some aspects of editing. 
Sound is a one of the key elements when making a film. Professional film makers exclaim that in modern day filming sound is 50% of films as it help to intensify films and make them seem better. (Providing that the sounds are realistic.

We are going to have to use a variety of different sound techniques such as Foleys, Diegetic sound, non-Diegetic sound.

                                Definitions of the types of sound that we will be using.

Foley: A Foley is the reproduction of everyday sound effects that are added to film, video, and other mediums in post-production to enhance audio quality.

Diegetic: Any sound, voice or piece of music that comes from within the world of the narrative.


Non-Diegetic: Sounds, such as music or a narrator’s voices that come from outside the space of the narrative.


            
                  SOUND EQUIPMENT
 

This is the sound recorder we will be using to record our

 folleys. The reason that we will be using this instead of the 

camera microphone is because it is far higher quality.

Music and sound choices - Rosie's Post

The music website that we chose our music from was 'Incompetech' which has royalty free music that we can easily download to put onto our opening. 

By ticking the boxes 'eerie' and 'horror' (although we are doing thriller, this was the most relatable) the website narrowed it down to music that was appropriate. There were a lot of soundtracks that we liked however a lot of them were too short for what we wanted or the pace wasn't quick enough.

• The final track that we chose was called Redletter which included quite a lot of crescendos which quickly cut out, which creates more tension. It also included high pitched notes which I thought worked well on top of the low droning sound that plays in the background for an eerie atmosphere. 

• The timing of the tonal changes in the music also worked well with our footage; at times where it didn't, I decided to fade either the soundtrack or the sound from our footage. 

To change the volume on certain parts of your footage or soundtrack:

select the little 'pen tool' icon at the bottom of the tool list 

then at the bottom left hand corner, select the the icon that looks like little mountains pinky\red horizontal lines should appear on your track

wherever you want to make the sound increase or decrease, click on the line with the pen tool to create points that look like diamonds

Then just simply drag the points you have made to change it 

e.g. moving your second point higher than the first will cause an increase in the sound level - and the further away your tow points, the slower the increase will come in. 

FINAL PIECE - STEPHEN, ROSIE, HARRY AND JAMES

So this is our final edited piece.

AAAAHHHHH.

Risk assessment for location - Rosie's post

When we visited our location, there were quite a lot of problems involving health and safety that we would need to work around.
The majority of them were quite simple; we just needed to make sure that we didn't go near certain parts of the area which were dangerous i.e. broken glass and materials that had fallen down. 

Most of the buildings are made of corrugated iron so when filming we will have to be careful of where we are moving around. 
Farm machinery is also kept on our location so we will make sure we place any filming equipment a safe distance away. Due to the ground being uneven in most places, we will take time to find suitable places to place the tripod. 

Health & Safety of fuel can - Rosie's Post

For our fire scene we will be using a fuel can as one of our props. To make sure that it's safe before we use it, we will empty any liquid or fuel that is already in it and then thoroughly wash it with water. When we use it for filming, we will fill the container with water to give the illusion of the antagonist pouring petrol onto the fire. 



We then have an adult (Rosie's dad) to help us with starting the fire to make sure that it is all being done safely. 
We all kept a suitable distance away from the fire incase any of the material was to spit out from the fire and and also to keep away from the heat. 

• Whilst researching thriller film openings our ideas similarly relate, in terms of setting/location, to the beginning of the film 'Silence Of The Lambs'.
• The dark and isolated area creates an eerie atmosphere and objectifies the characters as some sort of prey or victim which is what we want to portray in our opening. 
• The vast open space and the density of just very tall and overwhelming trees also builds the protagonists sense of vulnerability. 
• We have story boarded some high angle shots - similar to the one shown in the photo - to create a mysterious and curious mood. 

Antagonist's Box - Rosie' Post

From analysing existing thriller films, we thought that the book aspect from the film "The Lovely Bones" was something that would fit into our thriller as it has a similar plot to it and also portrays our antagonist to have some sort of problem/evilness to him.


In the existing film, the antagonist records plans and sketches of his plans and keeps photos and information of his victims. 

For ours, we have decided to use a slightly different object, of an old safe type box. 
We started by trying to make the box appear quite worn by using several processes as our antagonist has been out from the mental institution for a while now:

• threw the box on the floor (outside) to give it scratches as if he would've dropped it
• stepped on it to give it slight dent marks
• rubbed gravel and mud on it to give it a worn appearance

We then filled the inside of the box with pictures of several people with red crosses through or dates to imply their deaths, and also desaturated the images slightly to give an older look to them. 

Update - Stephen

Filming complete.

As of Wednesday  6th march we have completed all filming before the given deadline. We are now moving on to the editing part of the coursework.