Behind the Iron Curtain

Final editing and feedback session

Final editing and Feedback session

During the final editing session of the opening sequence we allowed time to finish up all of the final touches to make sure that the opening sequence both ran smoothly and followed the narrative that we set out to achieve. I then gathered a group of students who sat down and watched the entirety of our opening sequence, once they had finished watching the short clip I handed out feedback cards on which they could write their opinions of the short clip. The majority of the feedback received was mostly positive however we did receive a few criticisms regarding the non-diegetic sounds. 

One of the feedback cards said how it was quite hard to hear the narration over the top of the non-diegetic sound which was the soundtrack. We felt that the soundtrack was essential to the flow of the sequence due to the fact that the soundtrack was taken directly from a war film which in addition to ours obtained verbal narration. Although we assumed that the volume levels were fairly accurate we took the advise and acted upon it by adjusting the various sound levels in order to make sure that the narration from both myself and Cameron was the primary sound throughout the opening sequence.  

Another piece of positive feedback that we obtained was how we utilised the slo-motion features on final cut pro which gave us a chance to further enhance our desired effect of both suspense and mystery. The slo-motion feature however challenged us during the final editing stages due to the fact that the speed of which we wanted the action sequence kept changing on a daily basis which resulted in the opening sequence being different speeds throughout. This resulted in the opening sequence not flowing as smoothly as we hoped and therefore required us to pick out a speed that we were both comfortable with and that allowed the opening scene to flow smoothly. 

Filming and Editing Session 3

                                   

                                          Editing Session 3

  

Our third day filming took place on January 3rd. On this day we filmed the final scenes which was a character running through a tunnel evading enemy fire that we will later add into the editing process. The advantage of adding this is that we can position exactly where we want the sound effects to be introduced and whether or not we require any additional lighting such as the gun flashes.

We were able to complete this scene very fast due to the fact that it was a very simplistic scene and the setting and whether conditions were already what we wanted, therefore we didn't have to add any more features. 

         16/01/16
However, we discovered that we filmed the tunnel sequence using a vertical angle instead of a horizontal camera. Therefore the final shot came out with a large and obvious black space at the top and bottom of the screen; which meant that we had to delete that shot and not use it within the feature. As we deleted a shot which was located in the middle of the opening scene, we had to readjust the soundtrack and dietetic sounds such as the monologue in order to continue to have a smoothly flowing opening scene. 

         

Filming and Editing Session 2

                                         

                                       Editing Session 2 

Our second day filming took place on January 2nd where we met up and discussed what scenes we were going to film next. We filmed the scene where one character was required to take down the other character and steal his weapon whilst also maintaining the correct camera angles and shot types.

        We found this to be quite difficult due to the fact that the weather was an issue on this day which meant that the terrain was very slippy and we found ourselves falling over quite often which ruined the shot. Due to this we were then required to retake the scene over and over again whilst also acting fast as we began to loose a lot of daylight at this point. However, we were eventually able to film the scene and are happy with the outcome. 

09/01/16

Today I further grouped the rest of the images and videos from the camera and correctly sorted them into the right order. 

I managed to:

- experiment with the black and white filter 

- Utilise the speed function to create a suspenseful effect 

- Obtain various sounds from sound bible 

This is a screen shot of where you can clearly see in detail the various points at which I imported the sound to fit in with the clip. The sound that I obtained was from sound bible which is a free website full of non-copy write material which is free to use.  I continued to experiment with the various features and came across the time duration of the clip. This feature allowed me to speed up and slow down the clip whilst also maintaining the same duration of the original clip. Where the character is sneaking up on the enemy, I have slowed the scene down just before he attacks him which creates more suspense. 

          

          In addition, the sound of the cocking of the gun which was obtained from sound bible.com has been inserted and stretched out to make sure that the sound accommodated the duration of the original clip. This was due to the fact that the clip was four seconds long and the sound sample was a short 1.5 seconds long so therefore I had to change the duration of the sound sample and adjust the audio settings to accommodate this.  

          In our next editing session we will finish the last of the importing of the images and clips onto the macs and then round off the sound importing whatever that may be and then place them into their correct positions.  

Filming Progression

Filming progression from alexrobins1234567

Filming and Editing Session 1

Filming and Editing Session 1

Our first day filming took place on January 3rd where we met up and discussed what scenes we were going to film first. We decided that due to the whether (which was torrential rain at the time) we were going to film the scenes that required us to be deep in forest like areas. This was due to the fact that we wanted to capture the effect of the rain falling off the leaves and hitting the ground and perhaps the camera lens just to enhance the effect further. As this was the first day that we were filming, we decided to experiment a little bit with the camera shot types and tripod that we had available in the form of a selfie stick. We found that in order for the camera to maintain a steady angle and still be able to see the full shot, we dug a small hole in the ground where we inserted the selfie sticks pole into and surrounded the pole with our bags in order for the weight to be counter balanced.


08/01/16

Today my group and I collated all of the footage that we have gathered during the course of the filming and successfully imported them onto the computer and into final cut pro X.

I managed to:
- Get all of the footage from my phone that I filmed the feature on, off onto the Macs
- We then gathered all of the imported data and put the clips in order chronologically
- Also I made sure that all the clips were cut down to the appropriate sizes and fit well together

This is a screen shot of our first editing session where we accumulated our efforts into deciding whether or not we were going to use various transitions in between the various different clips. We decided that in order to maintain the amount of professionalism within the feature we would have to keep the clips as the originals and not incorporate any transitions as this would make the opening scene less professional and almost amateur.
I felt very confident going into the initial editing process due to the fact that I had learnt a lot of different examples of where to incorporate features and examples of this is detailed throughout the preliminary task.

Step-by-step filming schedule

Filming Schedule 

The filming schedule had to be discussed on the basis that various factors such as light and weather had to be taken into account during the planning of the opening sequence. 

December 29th

The sequence in which to characters would be seen parachuting down on to the ground would be filmed with a tripod and an iPhone 6s camera due to the fact that the camera app on this phone would allow us to film straight away using slo-motion. This would dramatically decrease the amount of time that we would have spent editing and finding a way to incorporate slo-motion post filming. 

2nd January

The primary focus of the opening sequence is to capture a character sneaking up behind another character and taking them down to the ground unconscious. This will require us to make use of as many different angles that were available to us over the course of the sequence. The personal research that I have conducted allows me to know that there are a few river banks nearby that would allow us to insert the tripod into the ground in order to obtain those different angles needed. 

3rd January

The last part of the filming of the opening sequence would take place during the night time and feature a character running through a tunnel attempting to escape gun shots from nearby enemies. Due to the fact that the section of the opening sequence is at night time we would need to use artificial lighting such as the torch app on the iPhone 6s in order to fully see the picture and allow the black and white which we will input into the opening sequence post filming during the editing stages.

Dates may be subject to change.  

Production Schedule

Production Schedule 

Once we had finished discussing our setting, location and props for the opening scene, we began to discuss where and when we were going to film it. We both had to take into account that we may have personal matters that we had to attend that would not be able to be altered. In addition to this I am currently working so I had to check whether or not my shift schedule would be able to accommodate for the task that I had to commit to. 

December 29th

The first day that we are planning to start filming is on December 29th. This is due to the fact that we are both available that date and we decided that it would give us enough time to correctly and efficiently film the first part of our opening scene and would allow us to make a few necessary mistakes so that we could learn from them and also correct the filming by retaking the shot again. We plan on filming the first part of our opening scene which is two soldiers parachuting down behind enemy lines.  

2nd January

Our next scheduled filming day will be on the 2nd of January. This is due to the fact that we will be able to recover from Christmas and New Years in time and be ready to return to the filming at this point. For this we plan on filming the main part of the opening sequence which will be a character sneaking up on an enemy and taking them down by the canal before the character steals the weapon and continues on with the mission. This will be arguably the most difficult to get right due to the fact that there are a lot of different shot types involve. Ranging from match on action to the 180 degree rule. 

3rd January

The final day that we plan on filming the opening sequence will be the final day of the holidays. This will be because I am working in between the other days leading up till the end of the holidays and would not be able to begin filming before the 29th of December. As a result we were under a slight amount of pressure revolving the production schedule. For this final bit of filming, we had to film a character running through a dark and gloomy tunnel whilst dodging incoming fire from the enemies that are chasing him. 

Dates may be subject to change.  

Focus group findings

Focus Group

The focus group involving the year 13's allowed both myself and Cameron to successfully identify what structure the audience normally prefer to watch and how they feel about stepping out of their comfort zone. The action - thriller genre was mentioned briefly by one of the candidates which allowed us to intrude the conversation and input out own ideas into the topic to see how the candidates felt about this. Adam one of the candidates in particular mentioned how stereotypically the protagonist always prevails against the antagonist; this gave us the idea that if we were to further complete the entire feature we could challenge the codes and conventions of the action genre by allowing the antagonist to complete their master plan. 

The storyline/ narrative of the opening sequence greatly appealed to the focus group as it followed the certain expectations that they had gained from previously watching movies of a similar genre. However, some participants suggested that we incorporate a lot more action sequences into it accompanied by a slo-motion effect. At this point we had to remind the focus group that it was only the opening sequence that we were filming and if we continued the project we would include a lot more action scenes. On the other hand the slo-motion suggestion was of great interest to us as we felt that this would work exceptionally well in the sequence where one of the characters drops out of the trees onto the ground. This effect would allow us to greatly improve our desired effect of suspense and mystery.

Focus Group

Story Board

Opening Scene - Story Board

Throughout the original creation process, of the opening scene we discussed various different plots and narrative routes that we could go down. We have changed the way we went about thinking the opening scene should be and look like. We did this by further looking at action opening scenes and decided to completely change the narrative that we had previously come up with. We decided to adopt an approach where little dialogue occurred throughout the opening scene but instead obtains a constant narration over the action sequences which creates a more suspenseful and effective narrative. 

We decided to adopt the technique of using a story board to plan our opening scene due to the fact that it made the planning process very simple in the fact that we could see step by step what needed to be done and in what order. We ordered all of the initial ideas in  the order of appeal to us both and then eliminated them by looking at what would appeal to our intended target market.