AS Media Horror film - Cold Case

Preliminary Task

Editing

Following the completion of our filming we used Abode premier pro to edit it into our main brief  which allows us to add different sounds and change the lighting on the video. Moreover we can pick out of all the clips we shot to put into the mini brief which gives us the best possible finish.

Below is a print screen image that Lily took that displays the sound and clip inputs into our mini brief. 

Here you can see that the audio clips are in green. We chose to overlap some audio to make it realistic and so that the non-digetic sound mixes well with the digetic making the audience believe that the music is part of the scene.

Included in our Main brief are some sounds like dog barking which add to the scary setting. As well as this we later include a scream jump scare from the dead girl which will frighten the audience.

During the editing process there were a few issues raised with filming for example; as mentioned before with group criticisms - Liv was sitting then standing as we merged two scenes with editing. To counter this problem we re-filmed the scene later that week to have smoother transitions which makes the whole scene flow smoothly.

We are yet to complete our second stage of filming where we include Lucy as the dead missing girl standing behind Lily and Liv where we can add digetic sound to enhance the scare.

Due to re filming the lightening can be different during certain transitions because of the editing. We tried to hide this by lowering the brightness and changing the filter which fits with the horror genre as it becomes far darker and has connotations of death and sadness. 

Mini Brief and evaluation of Mini Brief

Evaluation of Mini Brief:

The location used in our Mini brief was a good choice as it fitted in well with the horror genre due to the isolation that we would normally expect from a horror film. Although this was a good area to shoot it did come with issues, for example to maintain a spooky setting we had to wait until it was dark, but this also meant that lighting was limited which resulted in us using our phones as torches, this created a very artificial and fake look towards a film. On the other hand, this could be seen as a positive as the black background could give the audience a sense of abandonment or danger as we are unaware of what is behind. Also we used fake blood to put on the tree which strengthened as it is key iconography in the horror genre and was very realistic.

Our mini brief is accurate to that of our storyboard as we managed to maintain most of the scenes and cuts we had planned. However it was deemed that we couldn't have many of our props that we had first thought to use; for example we were unable to start a fire which our characters would sit around as we were in a park that was private property. This affected our script which meant we had some minor changes to the conversation between the characters. 

An issue was raised with sound during our mini brief because we didn't have a microphone, only a camera which means the digetic sound in the mini brief often changes depending on the different locations of the park we are in which can alter the flow of the film. Also the dialogue was affected by the loudness of background noise which makes it difficult to hear what me and Liv are saying which means it will be hard for the audience to know what is going on in terms of the plot. Although we have found an issue here with sound we countered this by adding our own sound effects, these work well as they have been put in places that do not have dialogue, and when the character Morgan walks up to the tree the music builds tension and mystery as there is a long wait to see what he is looking at. The non-diegetic sound works well as it includes the noise of a dog. 

Another issue raised from our mini brief is that our camera angles were sometimes wrong, one of which was our 180 degree shot of me and Liv talking where we filmed over the line which took the shot out of place and this meant we were unable to use a valuable shot. In future we can counter issues like this by filming more of the angles needed before we move onto our next shot. Its vital that we use relevant camera angles that fit the horror genre and the 180 degree rule is important for horror as we can see both parts of a conversation between the two characters and keep the flow of the scene which is vital to maintain momentum for the horror film.