Final cut - Tracks of Damnation

This is our final cut for our film opening for Tracks of Damnation!

Evaluation question 7

This is the link to evaluation question 7;

Evaluation question 7 

Evaluation question 6

This is the link to evaluation question 6;

Evaluation question 6 

Evaluation question 5

This is the link to the fifth evaluation question;

evaluation question 5 

Evaluation question 4

This is the link to fourth evaluation question;

Evaluation question 4 

Evaluation question 3

This is the link to the third evaluation question;

Evaluation question 3 

Evaluation question 2

This is the link to the second evaluation question;

Evaluation question 2 

Evalution question 1

This is the link to the first evaluation question;

evaluation question 1

On the slide, there are some Gifs (animated images), in which help some of the points to become more relevant. To see these Gifs work, save the presentation and put it on slideshow and they should work perfectly.

Jobs for the crew - final edit

Overtime, our jobs as individuals to get the work done has changed so we were efficient  with our time. Over the next couple days, we are hard at work with piecing together the final cut of our film. The jobs for my associates Alfie and Charlotte is that they are to use their expertise on Premiere Pro to put together the clips and add effects, titles, etc, and I am to piece together the incidental music on GarageBand so we have music that works in time with the opening clips.  By doing this we should get the jobs done quicker so we can meet the deadline.

Filming update

On Wednesday the 18th of march we were due to film a couple clips for our film opening. Unfortunately, this wasn't able to go ahead as we forgot to bring the memory card for the camera, which then set us back even more than it already has. We then decided that it wasn't necessary to go all the way to Chacombe to film a couple of scenes for our film, so we decided to use our free period during school time to film in the woodland area at the bottom of the field. We did this today (Tuesday 24th march) and all went well and we have finally completed our filming sessions required for our film opening!

Filming update

On the 12th of march, we had a filming session with our antagonist. We filmed one part of our dual narrative within a dark garage, in which took place after school at about 3:30pm. The filming session went without any issues and we were finished within in hour. During our filming session, new ideas were created and certain shots were added in addition to our storyboard so we had plenty to work off. My associate Alfie Russell came up with the idea of having a flashing light effect, in which when the lights where turned off, created an unsettling effect. Other new ideas included focusing the camera in and out of the object to help add to this unsettling effect, and new angles when showing the antagonist (which we adjusted due to underestimating his height).

Audience test

This is what our target audience made of our tester footage.

Changing the narrative

In order to give our film a stronger narrative, we decided to add a dual narrative to our film opening. This idea was inspired by Nightmare on elm street (1984), in which the opening showed the antagonist preparing for the kill. We used this idea of preparing the killing instruments and put it into our dual narrative, so it showed what was happening on the end of the antagonist and the protagonist; 

To also add to our narrative, we are going to add non-diegetic sound (radio) over the top when the antagonist gets killed, including a range of close ups running along the body to show details of the kill. We took this idea from the film opening of Texas Chainsaw massacre (1974), in which a radio report describes a corpse which is shown on the screen in which starts off as an extreme close up and zooms out to show the rest of the corpse;

Call sheet

Now that we have rewritten the narrative, new shooting sessions are going to be needed for our film opening. These call sheets have been created so we can keep track of our filming dates and what is needed;

Call sheet 1

Date and time; Thursday 12th March 

Location; Charlottes garage 

Cast; Joe James (antagonist)

Props; Axe

Costume;  Black long coat, mask, dark trousers and t-shirt 

Makeup; not necessary but fake blood might be used


Call sheet 2

Date and time; Wednesday 18th march, 

Location; old railway track

Cast;  Ton Wentink, Edward Morgan and Joe James

Props; axe, dog, leash

Costume; Joe; dark clothing + mask
                 Ton; hat, hoodie and jeans
                 Ed; zip up hoddie, jeans, shirt

Makeup; eyeshadow for bruises plus fake blood

Blog update

Myself and my colleague Charlotte have been away in Venice for the duration of 5 days. During this time, our assistant Alfie has been filming the audience for our tester footage of our film opening, which will be up and running on our blogs presently. 
Before we left, we started planning reshooting sessions, as well as a narrative adjustment so that our narrative has a context and makes sense to the audience. We have added on a duel narrative in which a shot reverse shot shows two different narratives happening which then come together at the end of the opening sequence. we hope to start to put this together some time this week and also over the next couple weeks.

rough cut part 2

This is the second part of our rough cut. These scenes include the climax towards the killing and the moments before the protagonists death.

Tracks of damnation rough cut part 1

This is part 1 of the rough cut. It includes the protagonist within a group and builds up to the antagonist and mysterious happenings.

The ident - hustler productions

This is our complete ident in which using a combination of the foley art sound, photoshopped image and trumpet sounds from garageband. This ident will appear right at the beginning of our film opening.

Ident foley art compilation

Our production company is going to be called "Hustler productions". We created this compilation to go along side the ident logo, in which a trumpet noise (created on garageband) will accompany the ident before the foley art sound.

Filming update

Now we have majority of the filming done there are a couple things we need to go over;

The murder shot - when the protagonist gets killed
Finding the body - when the rest of the group find the protagonists mangled body

In edition, some extra shots are needed as we felt they were quite rushed and some of them were out of focused or too shaky. Whilst myself and my coworker Charlotte are on a school trip to Venice, we are depending on our other co worker Alfie to get some of these shots done, and then we will redo group filming when we return next week.

Choosing the typography

In terms of typography, we needed to decide a suitable font for our film opening. We had a vast range of fonts, in which we narrowed down to 4 choices to chose from. We then asked our focus group to give their thoughts on these fonts by asking them a range of questions in which they gave their opinions.

these are the 4 fonts our focus group were given;

We recorded their feedback on a voice memo, in which we ask a few people within the target audience group and their thoughts were then summarised;

Q: What font do you prefer and why?

A: Font 4 because it looks like its been scratched into the wood and looks most effective with the genre

Q: What font do you prefer and why?

A: I think font 1 or 4, but mainly 4 because I think it fits in with the genre more and stands out

A: I think font 4 fits the supernatural and horror film. I think that font 2 looks nice but I like that font 4 isn't a cliche and its quite unique. 

Changing the weapon

When filming on the 11th February, we discovered that the weapon required as our prop was unavailable at the time of filming, and so we had to improvise using a rugged blunt instrument (in this case, a table leg) to use during the filming. 

Progress with filming part 2

On the 11th February, we were able to do some group filming with all our actors. We were due to leave during 5th period, however due to certain issues, we left at the end of the school day. On site, we did 2 hours worth of filming in which we filmed the opening bits with the entire group, however some of the clips we filmed were rushed and blurry, which we only discovered when editing together the rough cut. We hope at some point to refilm this footage in the next couple of weeks.

Progression with filming

So far, we have managed to film the sessions, one was filmed with the protagonist and antagonist, the other with just the antagonist. The first session went quite well as we were able to get quite a lot of shots done, however we later realised we hadn't included enough shots for a horror/slasher film. There were several occasions when we tried to organise film dates with our antagonist, but we ended up filming later than we thought we would be. 
The second filming date was slightly more difficult as the weather was a lot brighter and sunnier than the first film date, however we managed to get quite a lot of new shots, including more close-ups and backup long shots just in case. 
We plan to do another filming session with the group during half term, in which we should gather the group shots before and after the attack, and also more shots of the antagonist. 

Foley art - recording and distorting the whistle

The clip above shows the final result of the train whistle distortion.

The whistle sounds were recorded using Quicktime player, in which the sound was repeated 5-6 times. This way, we were sure we had a variety of sounds to chose from so we selected the right whistle sound effect to use for our film opening. 

Foley art work - creating sound effects with the distorted whistle

To create an atmosphere and to relate to our setting, we are going to create sound effects with a whistle to relate it to the train track setting and then distort it for a unsettling feeling for the target audience. The images below show the train whistle we are using to create this effect;

Practicing - testing the filters

for our film opening we hope to use filters to create a ominous effect to relate to the film sub-genre. During our recent filming date, we had an issue with the lighting in which it was too bright, however if we use these dark filters then the high key lighting shouldn't be an issue and we can still create this ominous effect.

This is evidence that we have practiced using filters (using PremierePro) with practice footage we filmed using an amateur camera, as well as incidental music which was created on GarageBand;

To help create this effect, we used this video from youtube to guide us;

Practicing speed of the clip

Whilst I have been practicing creating incidental music, my team member, Alfie, has been getting used to the different speed effects on premiere pro. This is because we intend to speed up some footage in which when the antagonist (killer) passes behind the jock to make it appear spooky and effective.

Practicing the incidental music

I have been investigating incidental music for the film opening. In order to get a understanding of how to make the incidental music, I created my own to get an idea of what sound to look for and whether creating our own music would be the thing to do for our film opening.

sound effects

My team and I have been searching for a variety of sound effects for the killer when he passes the protagonist in the background. These are some of the selections we have discovered. 

First day of filming

We started filming on the 2nd of january with a couple of our actors. We started later than expected due to quick changing of the cast, but it was an overall success. We filmed 4-5 different shots and the weather held off the rain long enough so we could fit in as much as we could before it got too dark to film.

Planning - Ton's audition

This is tons audition for the role of a thug/jock which was originally casted to Malachi Dempsey-Clark but was then casted to Ton.