Editing of Title Sequence and Feedback

This week, we showed our teacher Mr Ford our title sequence so he could see what it looks like and if we need to improve certain bits of it. There is a particular shot where Matt (our antagonist) throws down a set of keys on a table, Mr Ford gave us feedback on this certain shot because it looked a bit distorted due to the image of the keys being zoomed in quickly as a separate shot. This made the title sequence look messy as it looked like the two shots did not flow into each other well, therefore Mr Ford suggested that we just get rid of the shot of the keys zoomed in and to just leave it of the keys being thrown down on the table. Another piece of feedback that Mr Ford gave us is that during the pin board scene right at the beginning of our sequence, there are pictures of both Lily and Katy, there is a close up shot of Katy during the title sequence and Mr Ford said that from an audiences perspective, it looks as if Katy is the target instead of Lily and that is not what we are aiming for. Those are the two main pieces of feedback that we need to challenge. We need to work together to plan when and how we are going to fix these problems and what changes we are going to make. Tomorrow, we are meeting together to challenge the pin board scene again and we are going to focus on printing and pinning up more pictures of Lily so that from an audiences perspective, it looks like that she is the target and not anyone else. 

Changes and Further Shooting - Pin Board

Today, we all met up to discuss what we are going to do to improve our title sequence, starting with the pin board footage. Lily and I focused on gathering more images of herself to pin onto the pin board so she will hopefully be perceived as the target this time. We had to re-arrange the layout of the pin board and get rid of some pictures that we already had on it. For example, we have gotten rid of the picture of just Katy by herself and we replaced it with a current picture of Lily. The close up shot that we had of Katy will now be replaced by Lily as this is was one of the main problems that we had to fix and it was part of our feedback that we received. We also thought of replacing our red arrows with white ones however Matt said it would not work as well due to it the scene being shot in a dark room with lighting placed directly at it, he said that the white would reflect and could possibly be washed out so we stuck with using red arrows on the pin board.
Here are some images of our storyboard and how we have developed it:

Common Re Shoots

As we are getting closer to our deadline date, we sat down together as a group to see if there were any gaps whilst Matt and Matt B were editing and piecing it all together. We realised that about half way through our opening sequence that two shots did not flow into each other and it looks evident that they are two separate shots and we don't want it to look like that from an audiences perspective. We discussed whether we should re shoot one of the shots as Lily ended up repeating what she said in one shot and in another so we had two shots that look and sound exactly the same. We couldn't decide on a final decision together so we decided to ask Mr Ford what he thinks we should do and how we could resolve this as quickly and efficiently as we could. He suggested that we remove one of the shots as it would still flow together even with getting rid of that shot. We took on this feedback and Matt took the shot out. We watched our sequence from the beginning to see whether it would work and it did - this has saved us a lot of time as we would have probably ended up re-shooting when it was not necessary. 

Title Sequence

For our title sequence, we have a decorated pin board of pictures of Lily, Katy and I to present to the audience that Lily is a target. On the pin board, there are pictures of Lily from when she was younger to what she looks like now. Our narrative is about stalking and this presents to an audience that Lily is being stalked and someone is constantly watching her. We got Matt H to take pictures of Lily, Katy and I walking and talking at distorted angles and some from a distance. This is to show that the 'stalker' follows Lily's every move and is constantly watching her. We printed out arrows to pin onto the pin board, linking pictures together. At first, the footage shows a close up of the pin board then panning out. This shot can be viewed as ambiguous to an audience as it could be seen that this is more of a police investigation and they are gathering information about Lily - this is what we originally planned to do when we drew out our storyboard. Matt H and Matt B filmed the title sequence together as Lily and I were both in lessons at this point. They slightly adapted our original storyboard further on as in our storyboard, we do not actually see the antagonist at all, only certain parts like hands and arms but what both the boys filmed actually turned out to look incredibly good and definitely works better than our original thoughts. Before the antagonist is seen, the camera is fading in and out to different pictures of Lily and friends on the pin board - after the last fade in, the zooms out to a shot of the pin board where Matt (the antagonist) suddenly appears for a split second. A problem that could arise when it comes down to editing the  title sequence is that the footage may not flow into each other. 

Progress With Filming

Today, we filmed with Matt as well as myself and Lily as we have reached this section of our storyboard. Filming today went really well, it flowed nicely and we did not have too much of an issue with the weather either which was a positive. One aspect that we realized after we had filmed the few shots with Matt is that Lily was not wearing the bag that she had on in the previous footage. This became a disadvantage to us as now the all the footage won't match, however we did only film a couple of shots of Lily from the back, with the bag on so we decided that we are just going to re shoot the couple of scenes of Lily without the bag this time. In a way, this will become an advantage for us as the bag didn't exactly match what we had in mind as we brainstormed a more floral patterned bag to connote vulnerability of our protagonist. 

We are adapting our storyboard a little as previously before, we see the antagonist at more of a hidden angle instead of directly behind Lily, but very far away at a distance from her. Whilst filming this, it was difficult to get the exact angle so we are able to see Matt (the antagonist) but to also see Lily's reaction and face in the shot. At one point we had to ask Matt to move further away so he was able to fit in the shot. Together, we all looked back at the footage we took and we were really happy with the outcome of it. At this point, we really felt like we had achieved what we set out to as the opening sequence is meant to be based on the Thriller genre and this particular scene really sets the mood of the genre. 

Tomorrow, we are going to re shoot the two scenes of Lily without the backpack this time so Matt and Matt have time to edit the sequence together to show our teacher what we have got to far. Together, we are going to discuss our title sequence and how we are going to do it so that can be filmed at the beginning of next week. 

Filming

Now we have gotten into the habit and structure of filming, it has made it easier for us as a group to plan and structure how we are going to shoot the rest of our clips. We have filmed three clips outside and we used a bag as a prop that Lily wears slumped on her shoulders in the clips. The prop does not match our idea and brainstorming of props that we wanted as it is not as colourful. An issue that we came across is that us having to shoot extra scenes outside and possibly re shooting puts us in a position where we have to get us much as we can done in one day due to weather changes. In our clips that we filmed today, it was dry and quite sunny. In our future shots that we will be filming, we must try and match our previous footage as much as we can because it needs to look accurate and all of the footage must flow into each other or it is going to look unprofessional and messy. Another key area that we must be accurate on is making sure that we wear the same clothes to much the previous footage - this is a key element that we need to make sure we get right as a group as when we filmed our continuity task, we dragged out the filming and entire process so much that we did end up wearing different clothes. This is also due to the lack of planning and structure we had during the process of filming the continuity task and as a group we have worked hard together to make sure that we do not make the same mistakes. 

Today when we were filming, a positive was that the weather was still and there was no wind. I was worried that if it was windy when we started filming, the camera would pick up the noise of the wind and also visually the footage would look messy if it was really windy.