Opening Titles - Positioning of the Titles

One of the decisions we had to make was where to place the opening titles.

Our options were:
- At the beginning in a block of all the titles
- At the end in a block of all the titles
- Throughout the film, overlaying the footage.
- A combination of two of the previously mentioned ideas.

In the end we decided on having it start with a block of the of the titles, however have some of the titles play during the first half of the footage. We chose this as from our prior research into the thriller genre, we had found that this is the best flowing option which suited the film well.

Coursework: Sound Editing

For the film we needed some sound to play alongside the video. We ideally wanted some instrumental music, preferably as dramatic as possible without being too upbeat or falling into an action sound track. We found that using a sound bridge would be a good way of improving the fluidity of the film. We also made the decision that we would need two pieces of music for the film, to help signify a shift in scenario.

We started by searching for sounds to use on the copyright free music sites which the school had provided us.

The main site we used when searching was:  www.freeplaymusic.com, a site recommended to us by the teachers. It allowed us to easily search for specific music genres and try to find the most suited one.

In the end it was Chelsea who managed to find the best sounds to use during the film. Better yet, she had been taught how to manipulate the sound within Adobe Premier, meaning she could make the found sound even more suited to the footage.

The names of the sounds we used were:

- Digital Info

- Army Angels

- So Focused

The idea of Black and White

We had the idea of making the film in black and white, rather than in colour. We thought about this as it was a film technique commonly used in thriller films in the past. It would commonly be seen in Psychological thrillers, for example the film 'Noir' made use of it, they used it to create tension between the film and the audience.

A more modern example of black and white films would be a film known as 'Tabu', which was brought out in the year 2012.

We were discussing whether to go through with the Black and white, and tested it out with a black and white filter. In the end, we decided on keeping it in colour as we felt it would end up being too close to previously made films and would make our film seem like any other thriller film.

Camera Issue - Refilming

Due to part of the film being filmed on a different camera, we were unaware of the fact that the resolution was different. The resolution of the other camera was lower, and the only way to make it fit would be to stretch it out, which in turn made it look terrible. In order to solve this issue we went out with the first camera and re-shot Aman's scenes and the Motorcycle scene.

We were set back by this as some of scenes recorded on the lower resolution camera we thought were perfect, so it was de motivation for the group, we did however know that we had to refilm so we pulled ourselves together and doubled our efforts further to get the new footage filmed.

Progression

Since the beggining of this project I feel that both as an individual and as part of a group I have improved greatly.

In terms of skills, I was already skilled in using Adobe Premier, however I knew there was more I could learn. Throughout the project I learnt about more in depth editing of footage and sound which could be done in Premier, however what I feel I learnt most about was about the base settings whilst editing and the formatting needed.

What I feel that I learnt about most was using cameras and the effects camera angles had. Before I only had basic ideas of photography and filming, however after learning about all the different ways a single shot can be filmed and how that can result in several different meanings. Another thing I feel I really made progress with, was the use of Adobe After Effects. I had never used this program before so I didn't have too great an idea of what I was doing. After having a brief introduction to it I managed to start picking it up quickly. I feel that during the research stages I improved in my analysis skills, which I used to feel that I lacked, I've been able to use this during filming to improve our shots and be able to get closer and closer to the perfect shot. I now realise that at the start, I was far too lax on the research initially, because that has made decision making more difficult, however with the rest of the group we managed to get through the stages and make the choices that were best for the film.

As a group I feel that honestly, we had a very poor start. We weren't very motivated at the start barely got the research done, however as soon as we realised the remaining time I feel the group really went forward in terms of work and effort. We were constantly filming as much as we could to get all the shots, and while the others handled the bulk of the editing in premier, I feel they needed the experience of its use much more than I did. We became progressively more efficient as went on and really made progress with filming. The after the others picked up editing they really improved, I wasn't needed to advise or help them with the editing at this point and could spend my time putting together the other parts of the project, such as the Titles themselves and the 'Cube Motion' introduction.

Making The Company Introduction - Change of Plans

In the end we decided against the use of the rotating cube. As a group we decided it was too much for a thriller opening, which were typically just the text of the studio in a similar, or the same, style as the titles themselves. Although I was a bit disheartened by the fact that the Introduction I spent quite a lot of time on was shot down, I knew it was for the best and moved on. In the end we decided on a simple San-serif font, with the effect of fading in and out if a black screen. Although personally I though it was a bit too basic, It did suit the film just fine, and we did not have time to argue over small details.

Making the Company Introduction

Another task that needed to be done was the creation of the companies logo/ Introduction, with this in mind we came up with the idea of calling the Company, 'Cube Motion'. After a brief mind mapping session we came up with using a 3D Cube rotating, along side text saying Cube Motion. To make this 3D I made the descision on using a 3D modelling software I was skilled with called 'Blender'. This would allow me to animate the Cube on a time line, and adjust it easily.

With limited time remaining, while I was unable to make the introduction, I used Photoshop to create a brief plan of how it would turn out, and adjust colours to be able to find what works best.

Unfortunately I found that the program I was using, was no longer functioning properly as of an unfortunate bug. So instead I found tutorials on how to make one using Photoshop and After effects and made a new one relatively quickly.

From here I placed the Cube into Premier, and began editing it into a sequence.

I placed the Cube on the side of the Screen and made the decision to have the text fade in on the other side. For now the Cube was Black with a white Outline, making it easily stand out on most colours of backgrounds in case of a later change in colour. I wanted to chose a san-serif as I felt that it worked well as the idea of the company being friendly towards it audience. After that I used the effects to make it so the text and cube fade in, whilst following the order of

- Cube + Company Name
- Productions
- Presents

This was a simpler more time efficient way of making the intro and I made it so it would be easy for any future edits.

Making the Titles - Change of Plans

In the end we found that the typewriter effect I had been working on was no longer the best option for adding dramatic effect to the titles. We decided instead on using some effects for them made in Premier as it was faster, easier and we had more control over them.

The Titles in order of appearence are:

"Motion Cube Productions Presents"

"Name of Production Company"

"Starring"
 - Aman Dhillon
 - Luke Mayes
 - Lisa Machin

"Cinematography"
 - Priyanka Chawla

"Sound"
 - Luke Mayes

"Editor"
- Chelsea Wilson

"Producer"
 - Priyanka Chawla

"Director"
 - Chelsea Wilson

Making the Opening Titles

While the rest of the filming for the film was being done, I needed to take our ideas for the opening credits / titles and create ones suitable for our own thriller film.

From our previous research we found that the typical thriller film makes use of a sanserif font. We found some various fonts.

"Lucky Typewriter"

"Last Draft"

"Harting"

In the end we made a group descision on using the 'Harting' font. With this in mind I went on to create the opening Titles for the opening.

Screen Shots of making the Title Sequence:

The previous ones were made in photoshop as it was more efficient for someone else to make them quickly outside of Premier in order to save time.

Making the TypeWriter effect was more time consuming, however we felt it would be worth the time spent. We planned to only have this typewriter effect for the character introductions, e.g. Jack of Spades etc.

To do this, I used the timeline in Photoshop to create a gif, making the letters appear rather sharply, like an actual typewriter. We again used the Harting font as we have learnt that it's best to keep these consistent to prevent any confusion within the audience.