Diary of Filming and Editing

Sunday 5^th December 2010

We filmed for the first time, in Warrington town centre. Fin, Emily and I were filming the shots of the man running through the streets as if he was running towards the building which will feature later in the opening of our thriller.

It went quite well, as we were able to film quite a few of the shots we need, which means that we now have less to film. We managed to find some alleyways which fit quite well with the plot of our thriller and allowed us to film some effective shots. We could have started filming earlier in the day which would have allowed us to film more, or film more of each shot which would have meant we had more shots to choose from when editing and it would have been better if we had previously chosen the exact places within the town centre that we were going to film, but otherwise the session went well.

Monday 6^th/Tuesday 7^th December

We began to log the footage that we had filmed on Sunday. We also continued to work on our storyboards, which we had not quite finished.

Wednesday 8^th December

Emily and I filmed after college at Evans House. We had to film the shots of the man running through a building and into the empty room. We couldn’t film the shots of the girl in the room at the same time because the girl who was going to act in our film was not available.

We found a room which we could use for filming, and decided to work backwards: we filmed the shots of him in the room first and then went back through the corridors filming him running towards and away from the room as we went. This was because we thought that the shots in the room were most important, so it made sense to capture those first. This also meant that we could spend more time experimenting a little with camera angles and positions as we knew we had filmed the most important shots we needed.

Again, another problem was that we had to spend some time at the beginning of the session finding a room which we could use to film, which is time we could have saved and used to film more shots in. Also because it was dark we could not film the establishing shot of the building or any shots of him entering the building from outside.

Thursday 9^th/Friday 10^th December

We could not start to log the footage that we had filmed on the Wednesday as we had to continue with the paper work needed for our blogs. This included finishing the production schedule (which I did) and scanning the location sheets and story boards onto the computer so that we could add them to our blogs.

Monday 13^th December

We were going to continue logging the footage had film, but we could not find all of the logging sheets we had already filled out, which meant we had to re-log the footage from the previous week. This meant we were slightly behind in logging the footage.

Tuesday 14^th December

In lesson we continued to log the footage from the previous two times we had filmed. After the lesson was finished, James (who hadn’t been able to come to film before today) went to film the last shots we had left, which were the shots of the girl in the room.

We filmed in the same room of Evans House that we had filmed in before, which meant that we saved time by just going straight there. It did not take us long to film all that we needed, but we ensured that we had enough footage to use throughout our thriller. We also decided to film from two different angles as opposed to all from the same high angle, which will allow for some variety when we are editing.

Thursday 16^th/Friday 17^th December

Although we had not quite finished logging the footage, so couldn’t begin logging the footage that we had just filmed, we had some paperwork that we needed to finish for our blogs. We spent most of these two lessons doing this, which included finishing the character outlines and shooting script.

Tuesday 4^th January 2011

We began to capture the footage from the tape onto the computer in the editing suite. It took us a while to remember how to capture the footage properly, but by the end of the lesson we had captured most of the shots we had filmed; we captured those of the man running through the town centre and through Evans house.

Thursday 6^th January

When we got to the editing suite today, our project, on which we had saved the footage we had already captured, would not open. This meant that we spent a third of the lesson trying to find the footage somewhere on the computer, but eventually we decided it would be best just to re-capture the footage. I managed to re-capture almost all of the footage before the end of the lesson, and along with James managed to finish the logging sheets.

Friday 7^th January

I finished capturing the footage, and we began to edit the shots that we had. We edited about 20 seconds of our film, which was footage of the man running through the town centre. Fin mainly used the mouse but I pointed out which shot from the list of those that we had captured was to go next and we all had input as to which particular shot we would use each time (i.e. the second shot of the man running through the alley as opposed to the first, as it was a better shot).

Monday 10^th January

As we needed to finish a rough cut of what our finished thriller opening by Wednesday we spent the lesson getting as much footage as we could onto the timeline and into the place we would want it for the finished film. We made sure to take time in choosing each shot and in cutting the footage so that it would flow when it was played on the timeline, but we knew that we could go back to it and improve it later. I used the mouse for some of the session and Fin used the mouse, but we all participated in choosing the shots.

Tuesday 11^th January

We finished our rough cut of the finished film. We then spent the rest of the lesson beginning to add graphics to the film, mainly over the shots of the girl in the room. We want these to look like CCTV footage, and so we had edited each shot so that it is in black and white. We used the ‘titles’ option to create a graphic to place over these shots which said either ‘camera 1’ or ‘camera 2’ and also ‘rec’ with a red dot to show that she is being recorded as she tries to escape from the room. We began to place these onto the timeline.

Thursday 13^th January

I continued to add the graphics onto the shots of the girl in the room, although I had some difficulty with this because I was not entirely sure how to use the ‘titles’ tool. I had to create a ‘camera 1’ ‘camera 2’ and ‘camera 3’ separately, which took longer than I had thought, but I managed to place the graphics over all of the shots that we needed the graphics for. I then began to look for a font which would be good for the title of the film ‘Justice’. While I was doing this, James was finishing the logging (as we could not find one of the logging sheets) and Fin and Emily created the Audience Research questionnaire (for section 11) and began to look for music for our film.

Friday 14^th January

I finished adding the graphics to our film. I had finished adding the ‘camera 1’ etc.  graphics yesterday, so I found a font to use for the title ‘Justice’ and created the graphic, and added it to the end of the film. I placed a cross dissolve at the beginning and the end of the graphic, which means it fades in and out rather than just staying stationary on the screen. I also created graphics with our names so that our names will be shown on screen during the finished film.

Fin and Emily found music for the backing track of our film, and Fin began to edit it onto the timeline.

Monday 17^th January

James and I spent the lesson trying to finish the log sheets. We found the log sheets from the last few times we’d filmed, which meant we didn’t have as much to log. We didn’t manage to finish all of the logging though as we kept pausing to look and listen to our film, which Fin was working on, editing sound. I played the film and stopped it at the beginning and end of each shot in order for James to write down the log number and short description of the shot.

Tuesday 18^th January

I finished logging the shots, and spent the majority of the lesson working out the lengths of each shot. I then began to look through each shot and tick or cross good and bad shots, so that tomorrow I can complete the edit decision list, and then scan all of them into the computer to add to my blog. Dawn, our teacher, thought that our thriller film needed something more, so we decided to film some shots of the killer driving towards the building, which will add to the tension in our thriller. We will film these shots tomorrow, and hopefully log and edit them tomorrow too.

Wednesday 19th January

Emily and I went to film the couple of shots with the car and the killer as Dawn thought those would make a good addition to our film. We took out a camera and tripod and went to Evans House to film. We filmed a shot of him driving up to the building and close up of one of the wheels as he parked and a shot of him parking. We also filmed a shot of him getting out of the car and picking up a camera box, then one of him walking into the building with the box. We wanted to imply that the killer/kidnapper had gone to the building and set up cameras in a room, which we see later on in our thriller.
However, when we took the footage to the editing suite in college, it appears that the shots we had just filmed had corrupted in some way. We can't use the shots that are corrupted, and as the deadline is very close, it is unlikely that we will be able to re-film those shots.

Thursday 20th January

In today’s lesson we continued to edit our film, adding finishing touches, such as a grain effect onto the CCTV footage shots which will make them look more authentic. Then I continued with the edit decision list, firstly ensuring than I had completely finished all of the log sheets. I didn’t manage to finish the edit decision list during the lesson.

I went to the editing suite during one of my free periods today, after our media lesson, and finished writing out the shots onto the edit decision list, although I needed to copy them out onto another sheet to make them neater.

After college I went to re-film the shots from Wednesday, as I managed to find some time. I filmed the same shots as yesterday, only from slightly different angles. I then returned to college to capture, log and edit the shots into our film. Again, the first shot I filmed appeared to have corrupted, but the other shots were fine, so I used them to make a short sequence at the beginning of our film. Before I left, I began to go through our film and ensure that all of the shots are cut correctly, and that none are too long. I am going into college early tomorrow morning to continue editing before our last lesson on this project.

Friday 21st January

I came into college early to continue editing our project. I fixed the titles that would go over the CCTV footage so that the words 'camera 1' etc would remain constant but the 'record' titles would flash on and off, which makes the footage look more realistic. I then scanned the edit decision lists into the computer to add to section 10.
We went to our lesson half an hour earlier than usual in order to finish our editing. We found that we didn't have that much left to do, only making small changes to the lengths of some of the shots and the sound. I helped Emily with her blog for a while, before we uploaded our finished film onto YouTube. I had to wait after the lesson had finished to upload my Prelim video and my animatic storyboard as they were saved on a different computer, which another group was using. After uploading these and analysing my Prelim video, I've fully completed up to section 10 of my blog and begun section 11. This means I only need to complete the audience feedback, thriller analysis and evaluation of my thriller before my coursework is completed.