Night Vision

In our teaser trailer we wanted to include a section where we use night vision as it will be a scene of me breathing which will be filmed in darkness and to create the effect of night and darkness we thought it would be effective to use night vision. As the camera didn't have night vision on it we had to film our scene in the dark with a small light on and when editing change the colours and add effects to create the green tint which is commonly found during night vision scenes. To allow us to have the night vision scene we had to search YouTube for some helpful videos on instructions for how to get the effect of night vision (the video which we used is featured below). We found an effect on Premiere Pro which was called "ghosting" and we thought it would be great to use in our trailer and combining it with the night vision would be very effective. After following the step-to-step instructions and constantly pausing the video to find the same effects on our version of Premiere Pro and following every instruction we had finished. Unfortunately the night vision on our clip wasn't similar to the one shown on the video. Our clip is slightly different in colour which means that the night vision doesn't have the same effect on the audience. One way in which we could try to fix this problem is to go over and start the process from the beginning and change some of the darkness and contrast levels to create the same effect.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dt2eiYvRpy4

Night vision tutorial
















Our attempt at night vision

Day 2 of Editing

For the second day of filming we only had 1 lesson to spend on editing due to it being the end of term. We therefore spent the time fixing the ending of the trailer with the bloody hand as we had to get the timing and speed perfect. After we showed the shots that we started editing to our teacher we got feedback that the colour of the blood when its on the screen shows ur as being pink. I then spent a while changing the brightness and contrast to make the colour more red but not darken the shot too much otherwise it will not fit together with the shot of the hand before. I managed to make the blood seem more red by slightly changing the colour but I feel that more time will need to be spent to fully create the effect that we want.

Day 1 of Editing

To start the editing process we watched every scene that we had shot in one continuous viewing and then we went over it again and wrote down next to our storyboard the shots which go with each part of our narrative in order of how it will be shown. We then put the shots which we had written down in order and cut them to the length that we needed. We began with the beginning of the teaser trailer narrative and decided to experiment with the night vision as it was probably the most difficult effect to create. We also spent time on the ending as it had to attract the audience and we cut the shot into 2 so each part had to fit with the other. Overall we spent 5 lessons editing the first section of our trailer and collecting all the shots together. I feel that it went to plan and we were able to work together as a group and we had the chance to input our own ideas on what effects to use and during the night vision process. As we had around 20 minutes of footage to cut down, the process wasn't very hard and we all already knew what we wanted to achieve so the editing process started smoothly.

Day 3 of Filming

The final day of filming caused the most problems for us as it consisted of props which happened to be fake blood. We began with using ink as the blood but found out that once put on our hands it would turn pink, we later tried red paint which dried very quickly, fake blood and finally all three which created the look of blood. As the paint dried quickly it gave a look of cracking skin which I thought was very effective. Our plan was to use a double lesson in the morning but due to us having trouble with the blood we carried on the rest of the filming during lesson time in the afternoon. We started off filming the close ups which were difficult as we were not able to get the shots that we wanted, also there was a shot when my bloody hand come towards the screen and hits it. To do this we had to search for a clear sheet of plastic ensure that it was as accurate as possible as we only had one take. During our lesson in the afternoon we decided to shoot our last shot which was of my hand (covered in blood) turning the light switch on. For this we had to search for a light switch around school and ask permission from teachers if we could use them. Once we found the switch we had a few takes of the hand shot until we found one which we thought was the most effective.

Location Images - Church

Day 2 of Filming

The second day of filming turned out to be the most difficult as we were filming outside at a different location. Today's filming took place in Streatham outside an abandoned Church, as we were filming on London road we had a few issues with people walking into our shots but we managed to overcome this difficulty. Filming today went as planned although it was FREEZING outside, we all managed to stay professional and film each scene with very few complaints. The most trouble we had was trying to find a way in which we could balance our camera during shot 17 where there was a close up of our feet walking through the bushes. We experimented with different ways of balancing the camera and finally were able to lean it against a shoe which worked on our behalf as I feel that it was one of our best shots.

Location Images - Seclusion House

Day 1 of Filming

Our first say of filming went very well, although we began 15 minutes late due to us not being able to collect the camera, we managed to finish early. What I feared the most was that we would not be able to film the scenes we needed, once we began we became very professional and were able to stick to the shooting schedule and film each scene as many times as we needed. The first day of shooting took place in the seclusion house within school which is very accessible and we were very familiar with the environment. As there are people working within the building we had to minimise the amount of noise that we made which turned out to be difficult as we were shooting the scenes where Riley (Maria) was being thrown against a wall and dragged across the floor. We overcame this problem by trying to make each take as perfect as possible with minimal mistakes. Overall I feel that our first day of shooting was successful as we were able to shoot approximately half of our trailer, we also experimented with different ways of positioning the camera which we will combine with the original camera angles during the editing process.

Snow Problems

My group and I had decided to start shooting our teaser trailer on Wednesday 1st December 2010, due to adverse weather conditions our school was closed and transport wasn't running smoothly. We were therefore forced to reschedule shooting our trailer and reconsider the order of each scene and the appropriate timing to shoot them. We decided to shoot at the closest location first which is the seclusion house, at the Church on the second day of filming and finally the media recording studio as our shots are not very long and these final shots include props which may be hard to purchase on short notice. We should hopefully start shooting on the 8th of December if the weather improves. Keep your fingers crossed :)