Creative Critical Reflection

Final Project

This is it! I hope everyone enjoys it, Kayleigh and I are both very proud of it. All of our hard work has certainly paid off! Tomorrow I will be posting my Critical Reflection, which will pretty much be me talking about our choices, what I learned, and other fun details, so stay tuned!

Thank yo for following me on this journey! Click here for my final product. Feel free to leave any comments below :)

Http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRV8hb1m7VlD8Yvi28snpVA. "The Death Trail." YouTube. YouTube, 09 Apr. 2016. Web. 10 Apr. 2016.

Okay... NOW we're done

Yesterday I was looking at someone else's project and I noticed that they added a production company in the beginning. I loved theirs, it was so clean and crisp which reflected the film opening perfectly. Since we had already finished everything else and still had another 40 seconds we could use, we decided to make one ourselves! We didn't want anything too flashy, just a simple graphic or title would safice. We decided to name the company Bad Bolts. The graphic we created will be seen before the rest of the film, as it usually is in films. Here's what we created: 

It was made through the Adobe Illustrator app. 

We Finished!

Today Kayleigh came over for our final editing session. All we really needed to do was try to fix the wind problem  in the very beginning and no matter how many times I tried to edit the sound through Garage Band it never turned out as we wanted. I tried to modify the volume when the wind was the loudest, and we did make some improvements, but the wind is still very noticeable. We also made the different lighting in the shots match so it does not go from day to night to day to night, and it still has that blue hue we wanted originally. So now the next step is to figure out how to do the Critical Reflection, but other than that:

EDITING

Have you noticed that all of my post headings have been in caps lately? IT'S BECAUSE I'M SO EXCITED!! I've been worried about how this film opening would turn out and since we began editing today I've been so excited and proud about creating and finalizing this project.

Here's our movie thus far, we still have to do some editing which is making sure the exposure in all of the shots are the same (some shots are way darker than others), adding a few sound effects, and adding the opening credits. But... here it is thus far!! If anyone has any suggestions I'd be happy to hear them! Just write in the comment section below :)

FINALLY FINISHED FILMING

Yes!!!! Today we met up to film and we got everything done and timed everything perfectly. Just before the sun went down.

We got there at 6:30 so we had an extra half an hour to get everything organized before the lighting quickly dimmed. During this prep-time we had to make sure we made to car "Blood Proof". To do this we covered the windows with clear wrap and covered the rest of the car with paper towels.

Once we had that covered completely, we had to figure out which splattering-technique would be best. We did a bit of testing; first we dipped a stick into our fresh bottle of fake blood and tried to whip it in the air, but, as shown in this video, it makes a straight like. We're looking for a little more Jackson Pollock flair.

After this we simply decided to use our hands to get the right amount of gush and splatter. 

Once we were done with that we rounded up Jillian and Sebastian to re-film our original dialogue. We began filming and then realized that there was a bunch of shooting sounds coming from the Shooting Range just down the road. So with that, we had to make it work. We still needed to put so much together and had no time to do everything over again any other day. It was now or never. So we simply included the fact that there was a shooting range across the road in the dialogue. We made sebastian say something along the lines of "I'm gonna miss this place...except for that damn shooting range always ruining our dates". We felt this was a simple but effective solution to our gun shots in the far background. 

Once we got our dialogue perfected we continued to the fun part: the murder. First, we got the shot of the window splatter. I was inside the car and Kayleigh filmed the window with the door open (because the tinted windows didn't allow the blood to show) as the blood splattered onto it. 

It took us a few takes to have the perfect amount of blood, but we got her done.

After this was the shot of the killer leaving the scene with blood on her face and the body hanging out of the car. That was a very quick shot since the only thing happening is one person walking away.

We also needed to get an audio of the victims screams/last words. We actually did that last because it got very dark and the mosquitoes were becoming the real killers. 

Today went better than I could have ever imagined, and I'm so glad that we can finally get to editing and finalizing!!!

"Jackson Pollock and His Paintings." Jackson Pollock. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2016.

Let the Credits Roll

Again, since we cannot film until Sunday, we have been trying to get everything else sorted out so when we have our shots we can just edit everything we have together to create two minutes of cinematic brilliance. Just kidding, but not really. With this we decided to create our credits.

   

We wanted a very clean, crisp font for our credits because our main character is going to be portrayed as a clean young woman and then the irony will be shown once the murder scene is shown. They're all four seconds apart, so we can have a uniformed look to it. We decided to include only the actors, and ourselves (the directors/producers). We did this because based on other horror film openings, they usually only include the most important people, including actors with the most influence or screen time, and the makers of the film.

This is the font we will be using for our title, The Death Trail. The font size will gradually get bigger, making it seem like the title is coming towards the camera, and consequentially, towards the viewer. This parallels with how though the killer has struck, she is not done, and is going to kill more victims.

                                     

The title will not be on this plain black screen seen above. That is only because we still need to get the final shots of the opening.  But the picture on the right shows a rough drawing of the final shot with the title in the middle of the screen. One can see "the death trail" in the background, the killers body walking away on the left third, and the knife, dripping with blood, in the middle lower section of the screen. 

Can you hear it now, Mr. Krabs?

Since we've been a little behind with filming, we figured that we should begin finding a free non-copyright audio for our film. We were looking for a suspenseful audio to begin playing when they are in the car. Up until this point in the opening it will all be diagetic sounds because before the music is played, it seems like a regular film about two young lovers, and doesn't give off the idea that something is going to go wrong, until the music is played. This is what will tell the viewers that something's not quite right, which is exactly what we want right before the killer strikes; an element of surprise and suspense.

We chose to use Welcome to HorrorLand, which we found on a website that is all about free non-copyright jingles, songs, and sound effects. You can click on the link above to hear Welcome to HorrorLand, if you'd like.

The suspenseful music really makes all of the difference, because without it the scene doesn't have the same dramatic element.

For example, watch this video twice; first muted, and then with the sound on.

Good stuff right? Gotta love chipmunks, even though it looks more like a groundhog to me... anyway. Do you see the difference with the music and without the music? Without the music, it just looks like a scared little vermin. But once the suspenseful music is added one it feels like there's a whole story as to why this chipmunk is turning around, it also makes the viewer feel like the chipmunk is evil, maybe that's just me though.

This shows how suspenseful music can change the entire atmosphere of a scene. That is our goal with Welcome to HorrorLand. The mood change, the plot twist, the element of surprise. The song we chose was the prefect choice because it did the job by creating the suspense, especially since it builds/crescendos, and it didn't have that cheesy feeling. We didn't just add a cheap noise like *dun dun dunnnnn* It gives it a more professional feeling as well.

Cregets. "Dramatic Chipmunk." YouTube. YouTube, 19 June 2007. Web. 10 Apr. 2016.
"Royalty Free Music." Incompetech. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2016.

Blue isn't too bad.. right?

Okay, so we started editing this week and let's just say, there were a few issues. First of all, since we shot at around dawn we only had around one hour to film before it turned dark. Which is a really short amount of time and on top of that, the lighting is constantly changing. This would have been manageable except for... our opening shot is BLUE.

This isn't that big of a problem since we noticed that the opening monologue is longer than it actually should be, we will be re filming it anyway. We at first thought that this blue hue was awful until we decided we kind of actually like it... So this was a blessing in disguise. If you don't know what color psychology is, it is the study of how colors effects the mind and emotions. This was part of the reason as to why we want to try to re film the dialogue from the beginning on top of the car with this blue hue. Blue represents serenity and loyalty, to find more colors you can visit this art therapy blog. 

We're going to go out to film again on Sunday, hopefully we can get the shots we need to retake while still getting this blue hue we got the first time. 

"Color Psychology: The Psychological Effects of Colors." Art Therapy. N.p., 27 Feb. 2011. Web. 10 Apr. 2016.