Lighting Techniques

The use of natural lighting was imperative in the forest scenes, it gave a sense of reality that could not have been achieved via the use of artificial light. With the added black and white effect, the natural light was emphasised, creating a distorted mindset - which represents our protagonist's understanding of what has gone one. The fractured light which filtered through from the tree
let beams of light come through the undergrowth. This  black and white effect couldn't have been used previously due to previous light implications, and as a result, we had to reshoot. But the contrast in the black and white scenes is effective as it is a convention used in other thriller films, such as the Curse of Chucky.
use of b&w to highlight the contrast in

Typography

Typography & It's Uses

To show our credits - featuring our director's/editor's names etc. - we used the a sans serif-like font, as it was functional and served no other purpose than to showcase our personnel. Moreover, the font of a title, may symbolise what a films about, its genre

The idea stated in the video - "less is more" - is one we (my group) incorporated into our opening scene. As stated above, our text used to show our actors and film crew in a plain and simple way, a convention that is used throughout the film industry, let-alone the thriller genre.


The bold text in the film's title suggests that the film is a blockbuster - big films such as Taken often share similarities in their fonts regardless of genre - the use of red suggests that it's an action film, or, at the very least, incorporates action into the film. Also - as previously stated - the lead actors and such are given a plain, unassuming text to showcase their names, a convention we (as a group) followed during our preparation of our films.

Characters + Profiles

Each film has it's actors, and they're usually mentioned in the credits (along with the directors, camera crew and editors); but if - for whatever reason - we don't have credits, here they are:


CAST
Khaleem Hussain starring as Jayden Yusuf: the star of our story, a mid/late teenager, a footballer who          witnesses
Ella Robbertson starring as Murdered Girl no. 1
Ellie Hogan starring as Murdered Girl no. 2
Lucy Henderson starring as Murdered Girl no. 3
Davina starring as Mystery Girl no. 4 / Missing Girl
Alexander Bell starring as D. I. Walker:. I. Walker
Joel Coupie starring as the Killer



CREW
Mateusz Boruszewski - Editor
Alexander Bell - Director
Khaleem Hussain - Music Producer

Production Company Logo - Progress & Brief Analysis

One can see that the candle represents a metaphor for life and death - like a candle, life can as easily, and as quickly, be snuffed out. This suggests what kind of film may be shown - for example seeing a Warner Bros. logo would suggest that a the film is likely to be part of the action or fantasy genre. In this case, our production company logo suggests death, horror, and thriller.

In addition, this engages the audience as, the opening scene suggests death, therefore, this logo acts as hermeneutic code as the audience may begin to think is someone going to die? And if so, who?

However, the disadvantage of this logo is that many of these subtle nuances may not be picked up by the film's younger audiences.

On reflection, one can see that the previous candle logo is quite primitive, and amateur-looking; therefore we changed the candle to a more realistic image. This addition makes the logo more ominous, suggesting a grim fate of a character within the film. What's more the gothic text that floated in on the previous logo, looked clumsy; and as a result the animation was changed to a fade-in animation. Finally, the issue of our production logo being too complex for the audience to understand has been quashed. We asked people what type of film our production company produced - the most popular results being horror, thriller, murder-mystery.

Behind The Scenes & Bloopers / Evidence of Filming

As the title suggests, these are the scenes that didn't quite make it to the rough cut. Whether it was noise, lighting, props, or unwanted backgrounds, it was a plethora of mistakes. The lighting was very temperamental which led to several looking too bright, too dark - just unprofessional in general.  An inadequate classroom and unwanted mise-en-scene meant that our "interview room" looked like a classroom, which made our storyline seem unrealistic. Moreover, the excess sound of the cleaners hoovering in the background furthers the idea of the being unprofessional, and as a result we had to do a reshoot, brief appearance of my chain. And finally, most of our problems have been to do with external influences; however, this mistake is human error - mine to be precise. The brief appearance of my chain in shot was not expected, neither was it noticed until the end of our filming, and it did not fit the atmosphere of our film.

To summarise there were multiple reasons for us needing to reshoot: the lighting, unwanted mise-en-scene, excess noise, my chain (sorry Matt & Khaleem). But don't worry, onwards and upwards...

Animatic

“This wasn’t how things were supposed to turn out, we’d meant to be having a laugh,” and we see our character’s (Jayden Yusuf) features and surroundings: he’s in a police interviewing room, he’s clothes are shredded and covered in mud, he has a gash to his cheek, and his curly hair is saturated / soaked in blood. There is also screaming and a heartbeat as non-diegetic, incidental audio. Cut to (high angle / eagle-eye shot - camera is grainy / poor quality, symbolising CCTV at a police station) our protagonist, there is little / no audio as we are emphasising to the audience that the protagonist is on his own. Audience hears screams even though we see that the protagonist is alone (establishing shot - colour is now present, quality is good - we have incidental audio getting louder; we also see cuts of POV shots from the protagonist viewpoint, we see a view of his feet running, brief look over his shoulder, the audience also hear heavy breathing as non-diegetic sound). The incidental audio - screams and heartbeat - grows louder and louder until the protagonist screams “ENOUGH!!” - in a slightly higher / deeper voice - and he slams his fist against the table.                                          

Music Analysis

Sound

Isn't it funny how a piece of music can become synonymous with a film, or TV show? Sound is something that is seen as a minor part of film. Other factors such as camera angle, image quality, script are frequently prioritised over sound. Music is a narrative device that helps explain, and may also give further context to, the plot and it is an essential part of a film and can even enhance an audience’s experience. For example the music above (Doctor Who) is synonymous with the show, regardless of whether we see the T.A.R.D.I.S or the Doctor.

There are multiple classification types for sound in film:

•  Parallel Sound: sound that compliments, and goes along with the story that is unfolding on the scene, to may also add extra atmosphere to the scene

• Contrapuntal Sound: sound that contrasts with what is being on screen, it is used for comical purposes, and it may also be used to make light of what is going on in the scene