Update

20/12/2016

Today is the day which we break up for our Christmas holidays therefore, Ed and I thought it ideal to film in this period. Due to the nature of holidays, our new cast members will not be working and therefore we will be able to re-shoot any necessary scenes in our opening sequence. Furthermore, the holidays will allow me personally to update and refine any information available on my blog posts, as well as continue to do further research. 

Ed and I have booked a camera to use over the holidays last Friday, so I am able to pick it up today. As of yet, we have not allocated a specific time for re-filming any parts of our opening sequence, however, we will be due to do this in the upcoming week. Furthermore, we will be able to edit as soon as we get back to school and on the two inset days before lessons resume as we'll likely be in school anyway due to resits of mocks. 

To-Do for next Draft

Here I provided a 'to-do' list I created with 'Wunderlist', an online application that can be downloaded onto the phone also which will come in handy as Ed and I is able to cross off the list as we go along with filming to ensure that everything that is needed for our final edit is filmed. 

This is a mistake which we made previously that due to poor organisation on my behalf, I didn't bring the storyboard which would've been useful as a reminder as to what shots are needed for our first draft of the opening sequence. An easy to read list is provided below:

Second Draft

☐ Make long shot of Ed walking in shorter but NOT sped up

☐ Re-size titles

☐ Move all titles to the bottom left

☐ Re-film wobbly CLOSE UP of Ed

☐ Film more close-ups

☐ Create dialogue

☐ Cut down the walking through paths

☐ Cast older actors

  

First Draft

Evaluation

I will start by discussing the general, practical points about the process, mistakes etc. Below the following paragraphs about the practicalities of making our first draft, I have provided the opening sequence as a reference, however, the video can be found in a separate post for easy access.

For a first draft, Ed and I both agreed that the opening sequence isn't badly put together. In my personal opinion, considering that the actors which we had intended to cast originally weren't available our opening sequence was of reasonable quality, however, I understand that making excuses is useless at this point, especially because we aren't really able to physically do anything about it. Therefore, below I have provided solutions to some of the problems concerning the practical/ administrative part of making the opening sequence.

Firstly, the problem of casting actors can be solved easily by casting actors who are known to be reliable to turn up without excuse. As well as this, Ed and I will be re-shooting over the Christmas holiday which is usually a time where not many people are working. This makes it easy to cast actors who are going to be reliable enough to turn up as they are less likely to be busy. 

Secondly, due to my organisation, we had forgotten to bring the storyboard with us on the day of the filming which was a vital mistake. We had wrongly assumed that we'd be able to film the necessary parts, therefore, as I will discuss in the following post of the 'to-do' list, I chose to type up what is necessary to be re-filmed and updated with new actors etc. 

Thirdly, we obviously have the problem of meeting the deadline for the next draft on the 20th January 2017, however, I suspect that the editing process won't take up too much time because the first draft of our opening sequence only took four hours all together. Additionally, it shouldn't take more than four hours to edit as our first two hours were spent arranging the clips; because we won't need to start a whole new project in adobe, we won't have to load any new files or arrange anything new apart from the necessary clips. In fact, if we are efficient in using our time, we may also be able to create another draft to further refine the opening sequence and make any necessary adjustments.

Lastly, a point on editing is that Ed and I will have to ensure that the credits which we originally made for our first draft are refined and edited as the sizing and placement aren't necessarily appropriate or aesthetically pleasing. We sought advice from people who've watched our opening sequence to make suggestions about improvements we could make and credit placement was one of them. We'd been informed that because the titles seem to jump up in random areas of the screen, it distracts the eye from the actual footage and what is supposed to be happening.  

A useful idea is that we can, in fact, re-make the credits in a separate document before we even begin to re-film anything, therefore, when it comes to editing, time is not taken up by moving and re-making titles, it'll be ready to paste into the video when it comes to editing. We will, of course, have to ensure that it is saved onto our 'Google Drive' so we can easily access it on any computer, be it for editing or blogging. 

First Draft

Opening sequence:

 

Editing

09/12/2016

Ed and I, once again spent two hours, but this time making final adjustments, as well as inserting credits. We were able to use the fonts as stated before hand in a previous post to create credits worthy of the thriller genre. Here, Ed and I are seen in the process of evaluating the results by referring to previous work and shots uploaded to YouTube.

I feel that the most difficult part about this session in editing was probably tying the sound together seamlessly. We realised that some of our shots had excess sound produced by wind and passers-by so we decided to fix this by taking sound from some of our 'filler shots' and putting it into our opening sequence. We did this successfully, however, in order to avoid the hassle, upon re-filming, Ed and I will ensure to shield the camera to attempt to reduce sound it may pick up from winds.

Editing

07/12/2016

Ed and I spent two hours inserting the clips into an initial order and looking for suitable music even though we didn't originally plan to do this. We found that there weren't enough of certain shots such as close ups, therefore we will need to film more on our next filming session.

Furthermore, we realised that the continuity of the weather was rather awful, therefore we attempted to correct this by experimenting with the colour balance of certain shots. A screenshot is provided here:

Filming

06/12/2016

Today we completed filming for our opening sequence with the rest of the important cast members. This included the close- ups of our characters which Ed filmed:

As well as this, this day was an especially good day to produce captivating shots which better fit the thriller genre as the weather proved foggy. Due to this, Ed and I decided to re-film the bridge-scene for continuity purposes however, we were not careful enough to re-film any of the other scenes within our opening sequence and therefore, when we re-film scenes, we will be sure to watch out for the continuity in terms of weather. We plan to film in the same conditions but with different actors. 

We shot a lot of extra 'filler' shots which we did not have in our storyboard, but thought useful so that if needed, we can insert them into the opening sequence throughout the editing process.

Filming

04/12/2016

Ed and I decided to do some filming on this Sunday as the weather was ideal. We experienced clear lighting as well as a safe working environment due to the lack of rain, however, we were unnable to gather our actors as a result of uncontrollable circumstances such as mock exams and revision sessions.
 
Due to this, we ensured that any scenes including Ed (absent of other characters) were filmed the best of our ability. Certain shots such as the 'bridge shot' (as seen below) were filmed by myself and shots such as the tracks for our montage (also found below) were filmed by Ed.

The Bridge walk shot is not in our storyboard, however, we made a decision to film it as a 'filler' in case we don't have enough footage to produce what we'd like to. As well as this, the different shot types generally make it interesting. 

I also filmed a close up of Ed's shoes as he walked past in several angles. A video is provided below the 'tracks' clip depicting the several shots I took of Ed walking.

 
Targets for next filming session:

• Film close ups of other characters
• Film long shot of the 'tension' scene
• Film over the shoulder shots
• Record dialogue
• Film as much as possible, even if not needed.