construction

During the construction of my film introduction Amy and I started by following our original storyboard. This proved to be successful as we included many shots in our storyboard which was thoroughly planned out allowing the filming to be easier as we knew the sequence of each shot. We began filming in Gas Place car-park which we chose to film the main body of our introduction. We filmed at night because we planned to set our film when it was dark allowing shadows to hide the kidnapper so it scarier, but we encountered a few problems when it came to editing as the shots were too dark, it was unclear what was happening due to poor lighting. As a result of this we then organised a second filming in the day-time to ensure the lighting was correct. This proved to be a lot easier as the footage and action was clear and therefore successful. Doing this meant that we needed to edit the shots in After Effects into ‘night mode’ to give the audience the impression that the filming took place at night.
For all of our scenes we managed to steady the camera well meaning there was no camera shake allowing for a good quality film. However there was a problem with one shot in particular whilst filming the kidnapping. We found it relatively difficult to produce a tracking shot without professional equipment. This shot consists of the woman and the kidnapper (secretly following her) walking beside a random car, then the woman drops her keys and the kidnapper grabs her, covering her mouth. At this point the camera rotates tracking around the car to block the characters so the audience don’t see the action of the kidnapping. The camera continues to rotate around the car returning to allow the place where the characters were standing to be in view, but they are gone. This gives the audience the impression that the woman has been taken away by this man. Our first attempt of this shot failed as we tried filming by hand and moving around the car, but this was shaky and the plot became unclear.
As a result of this unsuccessful attempt of a tracking shot, we arranged to meet again and film using my moped as a base for the camera to sit on so we could push the camera on the bike around the car hoping it would shoot it smoothly as we now had wheels. But again this was unsuccessful as the pushing was not as easy as we thought and the level of the camera was too low. Finally we decided to try holding the camera in a car filming out the window whilst someone drove the car smoothly and slowly around the action. We did this twice for accuracy and when we came to edit it, it turned out to be a great shot which looked effective and worked steadily when rotating this tracking shot.
During this filming in the car-park we kept the same sequence of shots throughout all our filming which was:
Woman turning off the car and opening the door.
Stepping out of the car.
Shutting the door and walking away.
Kidnapper comes along behind her as she walks, following her.
Woman drops her keys and kidnapper puts his hand over her mouth.
These shots were filmed at different angles and levels each time so when we edited the footage, we were able to choose and cut the shots applicably. This was a simple sequence making it easy to follow and repeat accordingly. This enabled us to have the freedom to chose when editing, which shots looked better as long, medium or close because we had many for each.
After shooting our car-park scene, we then went to a garage and filmed the rest. These shots included:
An extreme close-up of the woman’s eyes.
A close-up shot of her face, showing she has been beaten up.
A medium shot of the woman lying on the floor with the kidnapper watching her with a weapon in hand.
A mid shot of the kidnapper’s feet, slowly walking towards her.
Another shot similar to number 3 but the kidnapper is closer to her.
A close-up of his hand, holding the weapon.
A mid shot of the woman’s face as the weapon is dropped in front of her.
This was the scene of which the kidnapper took the woman to and beat her with the weapon he holds. After shooting both scenes and making sure we had enough camera angles we then edited our footage. After watching through each clip from the different angles, we cut the clips appropriately to ensure the sequence made sense. The introduction starts with the state of the woman after she was beaten up (a black and white close up of her eyes and face) before going into the details of her kidnapping in the car park, to make sure the film made sense, we edited the garage scene at the end into black and white to determine that it is the same scene as the beginning. We decided to use the music selectively with the film. After hearing scary background music in other films, we decided that the music used in Prison Break would work best because it gradually becomes tenser as the pace increases working well with the climax of the kidnapping.
Using After Effects we decided to spread the opening credits out across the shots as the characters came into set helping reveal the identity slowly. The film introduction opens with a black screen with white writing in the middle of a Chinese proverb like that in the film Kill Bill. The directors’ names then appear (Amy Mickhael and Katie Freeman) with the actress’s distressed heavy breathing in the background to create tension causing the audience to wonder what’s happening. Then as the footage unfolds showing the characters, their names appear in white font placed in areas that don’t hide anything in the shot.

Our film is now complete after planning, filming and editing we have created an effective film introduction following our brief and learning about various technologies throughout the process.