DC: Production Log- Wilderness Woods

My role in the group:
-While filming, my main role in the group was to act as the main protagonist, as well as helping direct  several of the shots in the short
-I also fond several of the locations used during the recce
-During post-production, all members of the group participated in the editing, my editing role included adding several of the cuts and implementing the non-diegetic sound (e.g. the soundtrack)

What did i learn:
-I learnt to use a variety of film equipment that i had no previous experience with, for example a track
-I learnt how to edit footage more effectively, and improved my editing skills on Premiere
-I learnt the importance of a Recce/ location scouting

What i was pleased with:
-I believe we constructed a narrative very effectively
-I believe the location of Wilderness woods, and the locations within the woods were very effective settings for the Slasher horror genre, and the narrative within our short

Challenges we overcame:
-There was a very large group filming in Wilderness Woods at the same time, therefore some locations that we wanted to film in were often being used. However we overcame this by planning our time effectively and filming other shots instead of just waiting
-At one point during filming, it began to rain fairly heavily, however we overcame this by filming the shots within the woods where the equipment would be covered by the trees


What didn't work so well:
-Some of our shots were fairly rushed due to the time limit, for example the final shot in the short was
recorded in one take, if we had more time/ planned our time more effectively we could of taken several takes to ensure the shot was a good quality

How has this influenced our production:
-The location of woodland was very effective in the short, therefore we have considered filming out final piece inside of a similar setting
-We may re-create some of the more effective aspects of some of the shots in our short, for example, effective framing or certain angles

Group: Wilderness Woods Short

After filming our short inside of Wilderness Woods, we returned to school and carried out the post-production using Adobe Premiere Elements 9.0. We edited our footage in a variety of ways, including:

• Re-ordering the footage to establish a narrative/ make the narrative more coherent
• Introduced more cuts and edited the cutting rate in order to anchor the events on screen and build tension
• Composited non-diegetic sound to anchor the events and establish the mood of the short
•  Added examples of 'black-screen' to build tension and create a 'calm before the storm' effect

Group: Treatment

A girl is standing at the edge of a clearing in a dense woods at early morning. A mist hangs in the air and the floor of the clearing is coated in a thick layer of mud, wet after a night of hard rainfall. The girl s barefoot and in a flower print, dress, despite the cold weather and rough terrain. A shot of a newspaper flashes on the screen panning across the headline from the end to the beginning. The headline is titled: "Another victim to the woods" and 'One body recovered, Child of 16 still missing.' The girl calmly and slowly walks into the clearing, their exposed feet sinking into the mud with every step, a tendril of dirt slithering up her leg before stopping at the top of her calf.
 The scene cuts to a clip of two teenagers filming themselves with a video camera as the sun is setting. They are both wearing casual clothing typical of teenagers. They walk through the woods, cracking jokes and occasionally trying to scare each other by ducking into the various bushes and trees before jumping out a few moments later, it is implied that they are taking a shortcut through the woods to get to a party however they have become lost, one of them continues to insist that they know where their going, while the other becomes increasingly worried.

It continues to cut back to the girl walking through the clearing in the middle of the wood, she has now made progress and is walking in the middle of the clearing, very isolated due to the distance from the middle of the clearing and the tree-line around it. It tracks her for a few seconds before cutting back to the pair of teens, it is now night time in the woods, indicating that time has passed since the last shot. One of the pair is becoming increasingly worried and the teen filming  is trying to console him, telling him that he recognises the location, before reaching into his backpack and pulling out a torch. A breeze sweeps through the woods, bitter cold due to the winter.  Over time the teen gets more and more frantic, insisting that he is hearing noises and telling the other that they should try to retrace their steps however the teen filming dismisses this, saying that they have already come to far.

The scene cuts back to the girl  for a few seconds before cutting back to the duo. A stifled shout is heard and the teen filming quickly turns to the right, however his friend is no longer there. The teen filming, suspecting a joke calls to his friends uneasily. A loud noise is heard causing the teen to break out into a run through the woods, leaping over bushes and running through bushes and plants as he goes before cutting back to the girl in the clearing, the calm figure in the clearing act as a juxtaposition against the teen running. The cutting rate increases rapidly between the teen running, the woods illuminated by his torch, and the girl walking. A loud noise is heard as the teen is collapses and the camera falls to the ground, still recording.

Near the end of the clearing, two bodies lie side by side, holding hands. The girl approaches them and stops, standing and looking down at them for a few moments, before turning away, walking off into the woods.

DC: Technical Analysis- Nightmare on Elms Street (Craven, 1984)

-Continuity editing

Shot thumbnail	Technical Info
0-17 seconds	-Shot starts as a close up on Glen’s face, before slowly panning away from his face, revealing his bedroom. -The teenager’s bedroom is a familiar location to the target audience of 15-35 year old males. -Glen’s costume is casual, teenage clothes, depicting him as a normal teenage boy -Background soundtrack with slight crescendo contributes to tension of shot, connotes a ‘calm before the storm’
17-28 seconds	-This shot involves a mid shot of Glen still lying in bed, as the antagonist (Freddy Kreuger) grabs him and pulls him down through the bed. -The shot involves no movement, staying at the same angle throughout the duration of the shot as Glen is pulled into the bed. -Non-Diegetic high pitch ‘squealing’ soundtrack is conventional of the Horror genre, for example the similar soundtrack in ‘Psycho’ (Hitchcock 1960)
28-32 seconds	-Shot shows a girl reacting to watching Glen’s murder. -Diegetic sound of her scream contributes to the tension of the shot and anchors the events seen in the previous shot. - The short stop in the non-diegetic soundtrack in the previous shot connotes the action is over. -Girl also in casual clothing
32-35 seconds	-Scene shows Glen’s blood being shot back through the hole in the bed that he was pulled through -Sudden return of ‘squealing’ non-diegetic soundtrack anchors the return of the action -Fake blood conventional of Slasher genre and introduces gore to the scene - Mid shot used to show focus of the scene (hole and blood) and enough of the rest of the setting to establish the location as Glen’s bedroom
35-39 seconds	-Similar to previous shot, depicting same events (blood coming back out of the hole in Glen’s bed) -High angle shot is used so that the audience can see the blood hitting the ceiling, making the events in the shot even more grotesque and contributing to the gore factor in the shot
39-45 seconds	-This shot involves a ped shot, tracking the blood from the bed all the way to the ceiling. This anchors the blood hitting the celing in the last scene
47-50 seconds	-Mid close up of Glen’s mother entering the bedroom - Mid close up allows the audience to see her shocked facial expression and see some of the scene around her (Glen’s door) -diegetic sound of her scream anchors her shocked facial expression
50-54 seconds	-Shot shows the blood coming from the hole beginning to slow down as less comes out - reverse ped-shot as the camera pans from the ceiling of the bedroom to the floor -non-diegetic sound of the mothers screaming still prevalent
54-56 seconds	-mid close up of the mothers screaming as she becomes more panicked -drastically decreased length of shot shows the increased cutting rate in the latter stages of this scene -body language denotes mothers fear and panic
1.01-  1.03 minutes	-These 3 shots all show Glen floating out of the hole in the bed, before being thrown to the ground - The shots are pieced together with a very high cutting rate, making this section of the scene a good example of continuity editing and anchoring the tense, frightening events in the shots -Glen’s lifeless body language connotes the fact that he has already been killed by the antagonist -Mothers non-diegetic screaming also contributes to the continuous aspect of these shots as it shows she is still standing at the doorway in the previous shot
1.03-1.05 minutes	-The final shot in the scene cuts back to the mother standing in the doorway, showing her running off camera, while screaming -The shot uses the same framing as the other shots of the mother, contributing to the continuous nature of the scene -The mothers body language, for example, placing her hands over her ears, shows her great distress and fear, also anchoring the fact that she has reached ‘breaking point’ and cannot watch any longer

 

DC - Analysis of a Title Sequence- Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960)

Order of Titles:
Director- Alfred Hitchcock
Name- Psycho
Starring- Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, John Gavin
Co-Stars- Martin Balsam, John Mcintire
Screen play- Joseph Stefano
Based on Novel- Robert Bloch
Director of Photography
Art Direction
Set Designer
Set Decorator
Unit Manager
Titles Designer
Editor
Costume Supervisor
Costume Supervisor
Make-up Supervisor
special Effects
Sound Recording
Assistant Director- Hilton A. Green
Pictorial Consultant
Music- Bernard Herrmann
Director- Alfred Hitchock

Typography
-The titles in this sequence consist of a fairly plain white font. This font has little to do with the Horror Genre
-The titles take up the screen as they are fairly large and are placed in the centre of the screen

Relationship Between Text/ Visuals
There aren't many visuals in the sequence, other than the transition that swipes the titles onto/ off of the screen

Our Production:
 possible titles for our own production:
-Awoken
-Dread

Typography:

EC: Analysis of a Title Sequence - The Shining (Kubrick, 1980)

Order of titles:

1. Stanley Kubrick                           (Director)
2. Jack Nicholson                           (Lead male role)
3. Shelly Duval                               (Lead female role)
4. The Shining                                (Title)
5. Danny Lloyd                               (Secondary actor)
6. Scatman Brothers
7. Barry Nelson
8. Philip Stone
9. Joe Turkel
10. Anne Jackson
11. Tony Burton
12. Jan Harlan                                     (Executive Producer)
13. Stephen King                                (Author of original novel)
14. The Producer Circle Company     (Production Company)
15. Screenplay by Stanley Kubrick & Diane Johnson
16. Produced & Directed by Stanley Kubrick

• The titles roll down the screen at the same speed. The general trend is that numbers 1-5 and 12-16 are larger than numbers 6-11, due to importance in the making of the film
• The film title is the 4th title to appear

Typography:

• Font - Neat, average
• Colour - Light Blue
• Animation - Scroll (bottom to top)
• Position - Middle line of the screen
• Size - Taking up a 3rd of the width

Relationship between titles and visuals:

• The titles don't have any relationship in terms of visual style
• The titles aren't used to convey anything about the film

HS - Task 9 - KJ: Analysis of Title Sequence

The Purge

Order of titles:

1) Universal pictures presents
2) A platinum dunes / Blumhouse / Why not production
3) Ethan Hawke
4) Lena Heady
5) Adelaide Kane
6) Max Burkholder
7) Edwin Hodge
8) Casting By: Lisa Fields
9) Costume design by: Lisa Norcia
10) Music by: Nathan Whitehead
11) Edited by: Peter Gvozdas
12) Production design by: Melanie Paizis-Jones
13) Director of photography: Jacques Jouffret
14) Produced by: Jason Blum
15) Produced by: Michael Bay, Andrew Form, Brad Fuller
16) Written and directed by: James Demonaco

- Short duration between each title, 2 or 3 seconds, consistent, major roles however are on screen for slightly longer period of time.
- Film title does not feature in clip.

- The font is a San Serif font in white and rather small size compared to the rest of the screen. It is being played over background clips of CCTV footage of violent attacks, so the use of a small font suggests that the audience are being made to focus on the clips not the credits.

- There is a subtle animation when the font disappears, of a computer bugging/glitching, suggesting that the film is more of a modern horror, with technological horror aspects, rather than relying on more traditional techniques for effect such as costumes and settings.

Own production:

- I believe a good name for our production would be; 'The Presence' or 'No Escape'. This is because they both connote the use of an antagonist who sneaks up on their victims, which is a trait of the antagonist in our production.

- I did some research into possible fonts that would be appropriate for our production: