Task 7. What do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Task 6. What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

We started shooting on the 24 of January. As we were taught during media lessons in studio that for shooting we needed a tripod and a camera. We used a Sony NX5 camera for our thriller shooting. We made a plenty of shots, there were sets of middle shots, close-up shots and wide shots which then we can use to cut and made a thriller out of them. We set up the camera several times and changed some features as the different types of lenses, temperature and balance as we were changing locations during the process of shooting. Moreover, we have done the time lapses shooting with clock using s photo camera !The idea was to show the audience the time running.

We also used two different types of micro: a boom mic was used to make sure that any foreign noise would not appear and the micro on the top of the camera was the main, it recorded all the sound.

The next day after shooting we transferred our footages into computer Mac Pro and added them into the program me Final Cut Pro where all the process of editing had to take place. To make the process more easier and quicker we were told to sort out our shots and put them into bins which we named “log bin” and “rush bin”. In the rush bin we placed all footages which we decided to put into our thriller sequence. Then we needed to decide on the plan of editing process. Our group’s first decision was to make all footages together and then add tittles however after two days of discussions we came to the decision to make firstly all titles and then add in between them our scenes. This process can be seen as conjunction and scenes are used as a “glue” for our thriller.

The art of title is a very important and hard work so we spent mostly all the time messing around with it and trying many different things. Firstly, we searched in the internet for the information regarding titles. The length of the title on the screen is about 4 seconds and can be checked by reading in the head a title for 3 times. This is done to make sure that the audience will notice the name of a person and it will stay in mind. Secondly, we used jump cutting with different size, font and position of titles to create the effect of abruptness. We placed titles on a black basic background to make the audience pay more attention to what happens on the screen ignoring the surrounding.

After this we decided that’s time for music to be added. So, we searched for some tragic, scary and creepy sounds which can affect on our thriller and help us to create the whole feeling of the triller atmosphere. We add some similar sounds which suited out sequence and can be used as connotations of scenes. We used shortcuts as “B” for Blade, “ M” for Marker and “A” for Arrow to cut, separate or split the pieces of sound. After the creation of an absolutely new sound, we saved it as a wave product and opened in Soundtrack Cut Pro program. There we messed around with the waves of the sound and its amplitude, raised the cadence and add some effects. 

After this we put the new transformed sound on the timeline as a main sound in titles sequences however we needed the background music which would develop with the plot and would come to the end with the audience. So, we searched for another soundtrack and edit it in the same way as the previous one. After we put it on the timeline as the background sound and put the tone down in the bits where the titles appear on the screen not to distract the audience with a mess of sound.

After this we came to the main process of editing the shots we took. We used the same shortcuts features as “B”, “A” and a new one “TTT” which helped us to move the pieces of work to the left or to the right depending on where we needed more places for scenes. So, the idea was to put scenes in-between titles and their length has to be no more than 3 seconds. The effect which was used to create the effect of connotation is called the Kuleshov’s effect, so its main purpose is to make audience to create their own understanding of the picture and finish the plot. Our role in this was just to make the sound and the picture work together and make this effect.

Moreover, after this was done, we added an extra effect on the scenes “ Bad film” effect, which helped us to create a creepy image of crosses, graves and other pics.

Overall, the shooting and the editing process took about 1 month and we learned more about both of these processes, how to use the camera and edit footages.

Here is our final piece with annotations added.