Audience Feedback/Re-Filming

In the weeks running up to our deadline we had a viewing of the First Official Draft of our 2 minute film opening. This gave us an invaluable opportunity to receive feedback from our target audience and teachers on how to improve the film. The most popular piece of constructive criticism was that the fight scene looks slow and unnatural. We were able to improve this slightly with the addition of our score but we found that the only foolproof solution was to film addition shots that we could interject into the scene to speed it up and make it more manic and chaotic. 

This was a relatively simple task, which just required the lead actor to partake in a secondary filming session. We were able to film some very interesting and unique shots which, when we added them to the film opening, greatly increased the speed of the fight scene and how exciting it was to watch.

Music and Non-Diegetic Sound

The style of music is a very important choice we had to make in the post-production of our 2 minute film opening, which required us to look into the inner workings of the Sci-Fi genre. We took great inspiration from the scores of Prometheus and Alien which are iconic Sci-Fi films.

Both these films have classical style, swelling scores which add to the viewer's experience magnificently. While furthering our research, we discovered the quote from roundhouse.cc which was that 'Alien features a menacingly beautiful orchestral score with an eclectic use of ambient noise.' This quotation was very important to us as a group because we plan to use lots of diegetic and ambient noise to create a real and gritty environment. 

We are aware that strings are often used in Sci-Fi scores and so we endeavoured, when deciding upon the type of music we wanted in the film opening, to base it mostly upon the use of strings. We were lucky enough to have two A Level music students compose our score exactly to the footage so it fit perfectly from the beginning.

We plan for our film opening to begin with a black screen and non-diegetic voices reading news reports seemingly from a zombie apocalypse catastrophe. In order to give the impression that this was a widespread issue, we recorded some fake reports ourselves in English accents which were specific to our storyline - alluding to the lizard-style zombies that feature in the film opening, and we took extracts from free sound websites that were American fake reports. 

Font Style Choice

This film opening requires a very specific style of font for the title and the credits at the beginning detailing the actors and post-production distribution. When researching different font styles that are iconic for the Sci-Fi/Thriller genre, we evaluated the promotional poster for the film '28 Days Later', and even, to some extent, 'Shaun of the Dead':

The capital letters in a harsh sans-serif font create a threatening atmosphere and the seemingly scratched-out detailing on the letters is very important in both of these posters as they immediately allude to animalistic characteristics and violence. We used the free font website dafont.com to find a similar style of lettering that we could use for our title 'Cold Blood' and the credits which run throughout our film opening. Eventually, we decided on this font style:

This has a very similar feel to the two fonts above, with the scratched-out details creating a sense of danger and suspense which is very in keeping with our chosen genre. In the film opening itself, we decided to change the colour of the font to white, similar to the text above. We made this decision because as a result of the filters on the film opening, the colour scheme is very dark. This means that were we to use a black font, parts of the lettering could be illegible. We also chose to place the title in white on a black screen at the end of the film opening so that it really stands out and looks very threatening.

Editing

Once we had filmed what we thought was every shot we needed for our film opening, it was now time to begin editing. Originally, we began editing on the inbuilt iMovie software on the Apple Mac computers in our Media Suite.

We soon discovered, due to the genre of our film being Sci-Fi, that the filters on iMovie were insufficient.  The only choice we had was to choose new editing facilities and as a result of this we purchased the programme Final Cut Pro, which is a much more advanced editing software that included many more filters and sounds that could help enhance our piece. 

This allowed us to create a much more professional-looking film opening and to really put finer detail into the editing. Here is a time lapse of the film being edited on Final Cut Pro:

Because our film is Sci-Fi, we have had to put an immense amount of time into editing it in the most effective and appropriate way. This has included very fast jump cuts and unsettling filters to really give it an unnatural feel. So far we are very pleased with the way our film opening is looking but we are unsure as of yet as to whether we did in fact get all the footage we need to complete the opening.

Trip to the University of Kent

On January 14th 2015, the two AS Media classes had the privilege of spending a day at the University of Kent attending seminars and taking part in workshops. We travelled to the university in the morning and were split into two groups. We then took part in the first of many activities - a worship on in-camera editing. In small groups, we were given a camera with film in it as opposed to a memory card, which meant that we were unable to edit takes that we did not want and had around 20 minutes to create a very short film involving as many of the 5 given stimuli as we could. These films were then shown to the rest of the team and voted upon for things such as originality and technical skill. This workshop provided a very useful insight into just how important it is to plan shots and content before you film it.

We then moved on to a screenplay workshop, lead by a lecturer who had previously been a screenwriter, where we watched iconic scenes from films and examined how they were taken from the page to the screen. After this we began to roughly adapt well-known fairytales into a new setting and create a short screenplay for one scene. This was a very useful experience as we were able to further our understanding of just how much work goes into getting an idea from someone's mind into reality.

After lunch we had a tour of the campus and viewed a film that had been made by one of the students acting as a chaperone on the day, then attended a seminar held by two of the lecturers at the university. The seminar was about the Horror genre of film which was appropriate to our film opening as Sci-Fi Horror is a well-established sub genre. Finally, we attended a closing lecture about film and studying film at a higher level which was very informative and gave us a real sense of how Film and Media Studies can be useful in the adult world.

Filming

On January 10th 2015 we carried out a day of filming on location in Tunbridge Wells. For our film, we need a large cast, mostly consisting of extras. This meant that we had to film all of the shots of the dead bodies on the floor on one day, to avoid continuity issues with some people being unable to attend the filming on multiple days. We arrived at the location in the morning and set up the filming area. The potential for different angled shots was restricted significantly due to modern technology and appliances in the room such as a television and gym equipment.   

Before:

After:

The only major issues we encountered were time constraints - as we had around 15 people to make up realistically, it took us longer than anticipated to prepare for and shoot the scenes. Another issue was making sure that we shot every scene we needed due to the relative inability to re-film shots with the same actors at a later date. We made a conscious effort to film all the footage and more than we needed of the extras as we were aware that it would be easier to re-film with a couple of actors as opposed to a large cast.

Shooting Schedule

It was important when planning our day of filming to secure a detailed shooting schedule. This gave the day structure and forced us to work harder and faster in order to film every necessary shot one the day.

Time	Actors	Scene
9.00 – 10.00	Seb, Tilda and Tom	Make up and costume and run through teaching them the fight scene
10.00 – 11.00	Seb, Tilda and Tom	Chasing scenes down stairs and into the room
11.00 – 12.00	Extras Arrive	Make up and costume
12.00 – 1.00	Lunch	-
1.00 – 2.00	All	Positioning and pans without Seb
2.00 – 3.00	All	Fight scene
3.00 – 4.00	All	Pans with Seb
4.00 – 5.00	-	Extra shots with blood splatters etc
5.00 – 6.00	-	Clean up

Script

One of the major features of our script is that it involves no speech. This meant that we did not really script our film opening rather we based it upon our storyboard and what was possible within the location on which we shot the project. Though it worked well enough not having a script, I feel as though we would have had a more detailed film opening that flowed more seamlessly.

Fight Scene Choreography

Costume - Main Character and Extras

As a group we put much thought into the costuming of our actors. Our initial storyboard depicted the main character wearing a bright red tshirt - making him stand out from the background and the other actors whilst also acting as a symbol for danger and violence with the colour red. This was, however, not the case when it came to purchasing costume as we could not find an appropriate shirt for our actor. We adapted our plan when we found a grey tshirt with a brightly coloured design on it. The red and blue patterning on the shirt means that the actor stands out from the backdrop and the grey is in stark contrast with the black of the extras costumes. Grey also fits with the Sci-Fi genre as it fits on the monochrome spectrum which makes it more appropriate than bright, cheery colours. 

For our extras we planned for them all to be clothed in dark colours to give a sense of all the bodies blending together in the background, especially with the dark filter we intend to put on the footage. This works very well as it is difficult for the audience to figure out what exactly is in the background.