Tuesday, 25 March 2014

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. 




Friday, 21 March 2014

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. 

Tuesday, 18 March 2014


  • 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. 


Thursday, 6 March 2014

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.