Thriller - Editing

At the moment we are mid editing our thriller and I find it quite intimidating and scary as it appears to be quite complex. But so far we've managed to creat something quite cool which resembles the Walking Dead opening.

I was in charge of taking care of the titles, which I found quite fun. Matt (media guy) helped me to find fonts and different effects which would best suit our epidemic thriller. So I messed about a bit with that which I found quite fun and we've nearly sorted that out. I edited these by putting them onto photoshop and going from there.

We have also sorted out a lot of the basic/main edits that we wanted to do, we wanted to make it gritty and harsh and have put in a lot of fast flashes of virus shots and evidental bits on diseases like lots of dead bodies and blood.

Thriller - Questionaires

A couple of our group members recieved a mixture of critical and very well done feeback on our thriller. Here is a report of some of the views and opinions people had.

Name:	“What do you think the basic plot of the thriller is?”	“What do you think are the key strengths of this thriller and why?”	“How do you think this thriller could be made even more effective and why?”
Gen	“about an epidemic of disease breaking out over the world”	“the use of effects with the titles and edits was amazing, the set and camera shots were also very good”	“a little to many credits I think”
Laila	“people have been killed”	“good sounds”	“sometimes maybe too much editing, makes it confusing.”
Anna Sophie	“epidemic, dead people”	“very interesting, actually freaks me out. Good camera angles with dead people.”	“maybe a bit too shakey sometimes”
-	“Epidemic”	“Very good”	-
Sara	“dead people. Epidemic”	“good camera angles and lighting”	“too much time dedicated on showing the names!
Will	“virus, lots of dead people”	“editing was great”	“include more shots of dead people”
Paul	“people dying from disease”	“good editing and music”	“more shots and details about disease.”
Mykola	“Disease has wiped out population of the earth and only one person is left.”	“very good editing”	“by the end it gets a bit repetitive.”
Kara	“people killed, mass murder”	“flashing of titles at the start was incredible”	-
Genevive	“epidemic where everyone has been killed.”	“ great flashing shots and vibration of camera.”	“maybe include a character”
George de Freitas	“outbreak of pathogenic virus has killed everyone and has a post-apocalyptic feel.”	“editing-fast paced cuts, sound- DNB is sweet, Camera – nice shots”	“Titles could do with quality decrease to give a more authentic feel.”

Thriller - Editing

Now that we are working on our final cut for our thriller and thinking about how we want our thriller to actually look, we have decided to reflect it to the opening sequence to 'Land of the Dead'.


We are using these sort of images to help portray it as best as we can, that it is part of an epidemic:



This is all in order to show the audience exactly what has happened, and by showing pictures of bodily fluids and molecules this will correlate to the idea of theme and give the audience an idea of what we are doing. 

Thriller - Day of Shoot

Well, after all that preparation and time put towards our thriller we finally did it... The majority of it anyway. As we didn't have much time (due to careers, we had to start at 10, and because Matt had to leave early we finished at 3) we had to do as much as we can and then finish whatever we didn't have time to shoot another day.

Firstly we had to set up our first location the afternoon/night before. This involved making a tent in which doctors would operate patients on in order to try and cure/save them. We got all of our sheets and tarpaulin etc from Al in the theatre department. Setting up was quite fun as it was only three of our team mates; Tilly, Lavinia and me. We used lighting stands with weights to help keep up the sheets to create the tent. With the help of Scott one of the workers for the media shoots, we used crocodile clips to keep them attached to the lighting stands.      

from left to right; me, Lavi, Tilly

To help make this look more shocking and menacing, we got some hospital masks and put fake blood in them so as to make it look like people have TRIED to save themselves but our setting and thriller is sort of saying that nothings worked. I think that this will work a lot more effectively and will hopefully encourage the audience to see what we are trying to make them see.

After we had shot this sequence we started getting ready for our next set which was the Morgue. We laid out 7 bodies out onto the floor of the studio with white sheets over them to indicate that there had been a lot of work put into organising the people that had died. We left the studio doors open with a dust sheet half attached to the upper door frame. We then threw blood onto the sheet to show that humans had tried to barracade them away. This was my favourite scene to film as it went a lot better and looked a lot better than how I thought it would. I was really impressed that it ran so smoothly and that we didnt have any problems or stressful situations, apart from the fact that we painted a lot of hands of the extras with dead make up, then finding out that this couldn't be seen through the camera.

After this we then had a plan to use the trailer which Frankie had been in charge of taking care of (although she had failed to do so so it was very last minute). Tilly and I spoke to Georgina (the kitchen staff who's son owns the trailer) and she said that the trailer was at Cornhill Manor. So Matt, Phil, Tilly, Lavi, Frankie and I went to Cornhill only to find that the trailer was filled with trees and branches which we couldn't empty. So we had an idea of going to the tennis courts which would have been quite good to use for a body situation because the fence and gates were very rusty and looked as though they had been left for ages. When we got to the tennis courts (still at Cornhill - which is about 15 minute drive from Hurtwood) we spent ages trying to plan out that in order to make it look like there were loads of bodies, we had to lie - take the shot - move and lie down - take the shot, etc. This was going to be a very long process and also seemed kind of pointless so we decided against it and went back to school.

From left to right; Frankie, Tilly, Lavi, ME

When we got to school we did our last shot which was down in the corridor in Hurtwood where the laundry rooms and bathrooms are. This shot was very fun to shoot because it meant getting all of the people we could find, including friends and people who we didn't really know, to lie down on the floor warped and squashed together. It looked really impressive and I was really satisfied with this particular shot. However it was very stressful to try and get people to be quiet constantly and stop wriggling but to get people to stay completely still and silent through the extreme heat which was radiating from the Red-Head light. We put the camera at an angle so that it looked warped and much more menacing so I'm really looking forward to editing and seeing all of it.

All in all I was genuinely surprised and satisfied at how good it was and had gone. We haven't finished shooting it all yet and will take out a day one day this week to complete it and I'm really looking forward to finishing and editing it.


Here is a video which my teacher filmed of me shooting the tracking shot inside the Morgue.

Thriller - Practice Shots

We were slightly concerned with the different shot ideas which we would have to take, and as our teacher comes in early to school he kindly took some photos on his iphone and showed us how to edit them on garage band. This benefited us greatly as it broadened our ideas on different ways to film and edit.

For our opening shot in our thriller we wanted to have an establishing shot of the sun rising to set the scene. My teacher took some photos of what we would potentially like to shoot, he took this on his iPhone.

I think this is a beautiful shot which is very atmospheric and could potentially suit our thriller in the fact that as well as being seen as something beautiful, it is also very naturalistic and dark, correlating to the idea of the end of the world and how nature takes its course.

This is another example photo which he took, experimenting with a low angle shot which we found worked really effectively as the daunting bare tree branches leave little room for comfort and hope and although it's still a beautiful shot, it's less cliche beautiful than the first picture.

 This final picture was taken at roughly 7.20/30 in the morning (the same time as the previous pictures - as we found that this was the best time to capture the sunrise) from our media classroom. I like this one a lot because it associates with fire and burning which again links to our idea of destruction.


As well as researching our shots we also looked into creating a tracking shot which we took from a car driving up to school early in the morning.

Thriller - Schedule

8.00 - 9.00 = Tibetan Village

9.15 - 10.30 = Media Room (Set up the night before)

10.40 - 11.30 = Hurtwood House

11.40 - 12.30 = Police Tape/Perimeter Shot

12.30 - 1.00 = Trailer (Set up the night before)

LUNCH

1.30 - 2.20 = Laundry

3.00 - 4.00 = Studio/Dead Bodies


process of doing dead body make up will be carried out in lunch.

This has been laid out in this way due to the time schedules from other thriller groups needing to carry on their shooting, but also because of particular timings and which rooms (eg the laundry) are open/closed/available at particular times.

Thriller - Update

We have decided that instead of paying a huge sum of money to film our thriller in a small barn, we are now going to stick to our original plan and film it at the school.

With everything in order and our plan and locations finally set out I'm sure it will all go to plan as we have gathered up our props necessary and scheduled our film plan.

We have had some trouble however in the time periods and schedule with our thriller, we have been told that we can only work until 4, which I suppose works out not too badly because we can get home okay but also we were told that we can finish off what we finished next week. However, our entire year have been told that we have to go to a careers meeting which means that some of group will not be there when others are and visa versa. I have been told that I have to go to the 9.00-10.00 meeting which means I will not be able to work until 10.00. This means that our group is very short for time which is really frustrating and my biggest fear is that we will end up paying for it when we lose the marks.

Although Matt and Luke have reassured me that it is completely fine and that we will definitely get it all done.