Thursday, 29 March 2012
Evaluative Video
Feedback Video To Go With Evaluation from craig gambell on Vimeo.
You will find below my evaluation, please enjoy the video. It took around 3 hours to perfect and a further 4 hours to render/upload.
Tuesday, 13 March 2012
Editing Research... Magic Scene!
Ok well just for fun, I was watching a trailer for an iPhone app that involved demon horror (http://www.demoncam.com) and felt inspired to get some editing knowledge and make my own fight scene. Enjoy!
This was made of raw footage, a video filter, lots of solar flare effects, and some other cool stuff.
This was made of raw footage, a video filter, lots of solar flare effects, and some other cool stuff.
Evaluation
Hello once again, here is my evaluation for the G321 practical (The Eleventh Testament).
First and foremost, I would like to evaluate exactly how my production has used, developed, and even challenged the forms and conventions used in real horror films of the 80's. I have used the demonic-of-horror sub-genre, which incorporates demonic inhabitants and uses them to hook the audience in with fear. This was extremely popular in the 1980's and is starting to make a comeback today with documentary horror films such as Paranormal Activity and Grave Encounters. Conventions of this genre usually use a religious figure, an outlook of spirits and demonic possessions. I have used a priest as the religious figure but also for the demon transformation to give it a twist, although this is also fairly common with religious horror films, and as for spirit life, I have a special effects scene of the demonic priest taking the boy's soul. It would have been stereotypical if I used one of my female actresses to play the part of the 'damzel in distress' so in this respect I challenged how women are represented by using male characters for the powerful and vulnerable roles. If you ask anyone what kind of music they would associate with church and horror, they would usually say something involving the organ, and I used this style of music as the non-diegetic soundtrack. I also noticed that most horror and even other genres that were produced in the 1980's were usually rather slow in pace, so I assumed that this was another convention used and I caught on, that's why my production is fairly slow paced. Another convention that has became so cliche in a sense, is the subconscious fear that we have of the dark. From infants ourselves, we are usually afraid of the dark etc. So I played on this fear and used colour correction to make the inside of the church seem darker.
My media product has 3 types of character: The powerful priest, the vulnerable boy and the girls that are apart of the priest's 'army' so to speak. You can also categorise the two female actresses to be a representation of the stereotypical teenager in the way of which they are dressed. I chose for them to wear normal casual clothes as I wanted to show that they were once 'normal' teenagers and the priest took them just like he does with the boy, who is also casually dressed. The priest is also dressed in a make-shift clerical costume, but this was necessary to show that he is indeed the priest, but also the main character at that time of the film, as he is the only one who stands out in terms of costume. The way that the boy and the two girls are dressed also hints towards the fact that they don't normally go to church, because churchgoers usually dress in their 'best' clothes. This could lead to the assumption that teenagers aren't represented as religious followers.
If my media product were to be distributed it, I would assume that somewhere like "Warner Bro's" would distribute it, as they have a good representation for horror of this type (for example, The Exorcism, Final Destination etc.) Warner Bro's is also an American institution, and I think that my film would be far more successful over in America due to the fact that the character casting would contain actors/actresses with primarily a British accent (there would be dialogue later in the film). American's usually like British horror and one of the reasons is because of the British accent. The British work vice versa also, American movies like Paranormal Activity are also very successful over in the UK.
The target audience from the beginning of my production has been people born in the early 70's because they would have grown up around this style of demonic horror, although it would be expectant that the youth would catch on to my product also, because the whole 80's style horror is still successful today, this is why I chose to use a teenage cast, to bring in a larger target audience. I think the majority of the audience would indeed be female, but males usually prefer movies with faster pace, whereas females usually go for something with more of a background story to it. My product is of moderate slow pace because this appeared to be a convention of 80's horror.
I attracted my audience with things from the location (the church) and a good storyline, but also with other details like special effects (although I only essentially used one, I intended on using more and if i were to continue and make this into a full feature film, I would use more). Addressing the audience was more of a challenge at first; I had to think about how I could involve the audience in my film and keep them hooked aswell as keeping them fearful and emotionally intact with the characters. To do this, I included POV shots to let the character empathise with the characters through their eyes.
I have learnt a lot about each stage of film production, from the planning right up to the editing of the film. I have learnt how a cinematographer would transform the storyboard from paper to camera, I have learnt a vast amount on recording equipment and how expensive it is also, but the two favourite parts that I did were directing the OTS and editing the OTS. It gave me creative control over every scene, although i'm not the greatest cameraman in the world, I still had control over how the shots were to be filmed, and then how I would edit them and incorporate special effects. Throughout the journey of creating this OTS I self-taught myself how to use programs like Sony Vegas Pro, Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe After Effects. Of the programs just mentioned, I would easily say that I prefer working in After Effects, as I am more of a special effects person really and I enjoyed playing around tweaking things, and building the soul removal scene from the ground upwards. While researching other similar styled films, I experimented in After Effects and tried to recreate some of the effects such as the demon warp, magic fighting scenes, and even the soul removal scene. I enjoyed this extensively and have learnt a lot about non-linear editing facilities.
While filming the preliminary task, I had no prior experience to directing or even planning a film, so using the camera and producing the final product was all new to me. If I take a look at the milestone I feel I have progressed, I can now say that I am experience in operating a camera, planning a storyboard, editing the product, producing the product and all of the stages inbetween. I learnt a lot about audience theory, and about camera shots also and how both shot type can actually effect the audience. I guess I knew this slightly before from first hand experience through watching films, but I never knew how it worked and how to even recreate the same style scenes. When I look at the full product, I see how my confidence as a director and an editor have grown substantially. I usually lack confidence and I see it as a huge achievement for me to have been able to plan all of my film, and even work with the acting staff to arrange the scenes. Although I feel I could of done some things better (such as more special effects like the demon warp), I know that due to the resources I had available to me I worked to the best of my ability at the time. I am confident that I could continue to make better OTS's and even short films.
Also, before I forget to mention, the rest of my evaluation is located at the top post in video format. I don't like Prezi so I used After Effects to brighten things up etc. I hope you enjoy. I thought it would be too boring to include this 'essay' in the video so that's why I did it separate. Thanks.
First and foremost, I would like to evaluate exactly how my production has used, developed, and even challenged the forms and conventions used in real horror films of the 80's. I have used the demonic-of-horror sub-genre, which incorporates demonic inhabitants and uses them to hook the audience in with fear. This was extremely popular in the 1980's and is starting to make a comeback today with documentary horror films such as Paranormal Activity and Grave Encounters. Conventions of this genre usually use a religious figure, an outlook of spirits and demonic possessions. I have used a priest as the religious figure but also for the demon transformation to give it a twist, although this is also fairly common with religious horror films, and as for spirit life, I have a special effects scene of the demonic priest taking the boy's soul. It would have been stereotypical if I used one of my female actresses to play the part of the 'damzel in distress' so in this respect I challenged how women are represented by using male characters for the powerful and vulnerable roles. If you ask anyone what kind of music they would associate with church and horror, they would usually say something involving the organ, and I used this style of music as the non-diegetic soundtrack. I also noticed that most horror and even other genres that were produced in the 1980's were usually rather slow in pace, so I assumed that this was another convention used and I caught on, that's why my production is fairly slow paced. Another convention that has became so cliche in a sense, is the subconscious fear that we have of the dark. From infants ourselves, we are usually afraid of the dark etc. So I played on this fear and used colour correction to make the inside of the church seem darker.
My media product has 3 types of character: The powerful priest, the vulnerable boy and the girls that are apart of the priest's 'army' so to speak. You can also categorise the two female actresses to be a representation of the stereotypical teenager in the way of which they are dressed. I chose for them to wear normal casual clothes as I wanted to show that they were once 'normal' teenagers and the priest took them just like he does with the boy, who is also casually dressed. The priest is also dressed in a make-shift clerical costume, but this was necessary to show that he is indeed the priest, but also the main character at that time of the film, as he is the only one who stands out in terms of costume. The way that the boy and the two girls are dressed also hints towards the fact that they don't normally go to church, because churchgoers usually dress in their 'best' clothes. This could lead to the assumption that teenagers aren't represented as religious followers.
If my media product were to be distributed it, I would assume that somewhere like "Warner Bro's" would distribute it, as they have a good representation for horror of this type (for example, The Exorcism, Final Destination etc.) Warner Bro's is also an American institution, and I think that my film would be far more successful over in America due to the fact that the character casting would contain actors/actresses with primarily a British accent (there would be dialogue later in the film). American's usually like British horror and one of the reasons is because of the British accent. The British work vice versa also, American movies like Paranormal Activity are also very successful over in the UK.
The target audience from the beginning of my production has been people born in the early 70's because they would have grown up around this style of demonic horror, although it would be expectant that the youth would catch on to my product also, because the whole 80's style horror is still successful today, this is why I chose to use a teenage cast, to bring in a larger target audience. I think the majority of the audience would indeed be female, but males usually prefer movies with faster pace, whereas females usually go for something with more of a background story to it. My product is of moderate slow pace because this appeared to be a convention of 80's horror.
I attracted my audience with things from the location (the church) and a good storyline, but also with other details like special effects (although I only essentially used one, I intended on using more and if i were to continue and make this into a full feature film, I would use more). Addressing the audience was more of a challenge at first; I had to think about how I could involve the audience in my film and keep them hooked aswell as keeping them fearful and emotionally intact with the characters. To do this, I included POV shots to let the character empathise with the characters through their eyes.
I have learnt a lot about each stage of film production, from the planning right up to the editing of the film. I have learnt how a cinematographer would transform the storyboard from paper to camera, I have learnt a vast amount on recording equipment and how expensive it is also, but the two favourite parts that I did were directing the OTS and editing the OTS. It gave me creative control over every scene, although i'm not the greatest cameraman in the world, I still had control over how the shots were to be filmed, and then how I would edit them and incorporate special effects. Throughout the journey of creating this OTS I self-taught myself how to use programs like Sony Vegas Pro, Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe After Effects. Of the programs just mentioned, I would easily say that I prefer working in After Effects, as I am more of a special effects person really and I enjoyed playing around tweaking things, and building the soul removal scene from the ground upwards. While researching other similar styled films, I experimented in After Effects and tried to recreate some of the effects such as the demon warp, magic fighting scenes, and even the soul removal scene. I enjoyed this extensively and have learnt a lot about non-linear editing facilities.
While filming the preliminary task, I had no prior experience to directing or even planning a film, so using the camera and producing the final product was all new to me. If I take a look at the milestone I feel I have progressed, I can now say that I am experience in operating a camera, planning a storyboard, editing the product, producing the product and all of the stages inbetween. I learnt a lot about audience theory, and about camera shots also and how both shot type can actually effect the audience. I guess I knew this slightly before from first hand experience through watching films, but I never knew how it worked and how to even recreate the same style scenes. When I look at the full product, I see how my confidence as a director and an editor have grown substantially. I usually lack confidence and I see it as a huge achievement for me to have been able to plan all of my film, and even work with the acting staff to arrange the scenes. Although I feel I could of done some things better (such as more special effects like the demon warp), I know that due to the resources I had available to me I worked to the best of my ability at the time. I am confident that I could continue to make better OTS's and even short films.
Also, before I forget to mention, the rest of my evaluation is located at the top post in video format. I don't like Prezi so I used After Effects to brighten things up etc. I hope you enjoy. I thought it would be too boring to include this 'essay' in the video so that's why I did it separate. Thanks.
Monday, 12 March 2012
The Eleventh Testament- Third Production
After having various audience feedback, I have shaped this to suit target audience specifications and this is what I have produced as a result of that, I hope you enjoy it.
Opening Title Sequences- Analysis & How They Inspired Me
For research of my initial idea, I wanted to look at related films, and films in the opposite style to see what the convention was, and how I can follow this somewhat when creating my own OTS.
For this analysis, I decided to take a look at 3 opening title sequences that interested me regarding the style in which they were created. The title seqeunces will be as follows: 127 Hours (Danny Boyle), Poltergeist (Tobe Hooper) and Final Destination 5 (Steven Quale).
From the start, the title sequence uses the screen and splits it three ways to show video, and text for the titles. These segments interchange with eachother at different intervals to show something different on the screen, and they match up to display a single scene to put emphasis on the specific scene. By using three different sections, the footage is paid less attention to consciously and therefore transmits subconsciously, making the audience think back to it later in the film. This is taken advantage of by showing scenes like the tap still dripping after the main character leaves, the bottle overfolowing, the reaching inside the cupboard for the knife and so on. This is all dramatic irony as it lets the audience see later on that the problem of him being trapped could have been minimalised.
The audio is also an essential part of making this title sequence successful, from the diegetic and the non diegetic audio. For example, the main character receives a phone call but it goes to voicemail as he does not answer it, and it turns out to be his relative asking him where he is going. This again is dramatic irony. And as for non-diegetic sound, the backing track makes many reference to hallucinogenic drugs, which later on in the film he is seen to have hallucinations.
The title of the film is displayed at the end of the title sequence, whereas the title credits are displayed during the titling scenes. I liked how this was executed and decided to use this idea in my own film. The music also stops when the OTS is over, I also used this to show the demarcation of the OTS and the actual film in my OTS production.
The producers clip is played at the beginning of the OTS, and I rather liked this idea also, so I put "A Craig Gambell Production" at the beginning of my footage. The only way you can tell that the OTS is over is when the music stops playing, which isn't very conventional for modern day horror, but was a big thing back in the time that Poltergeist was made (1982). It's only scene that is composed of non-textual footage is that of a man (the father) asleep on an armchair with the TV playing something with loud music, and then it cuts and all that is shown on the TV is white noise, this is what demarcates it from the actual film.
I have incorporated the style of text into my production (black and white text in a regular font) and the production part has also been placed at the beginning. Although rather than placing my text on a black background, I have placed it on top of the footage.
Final Destination was created in 2011, and is a modern horror following the concept of the previous quadrilogy. At the end of the film you find out that it is actually a prequel to the first of the Pentalogy which is a smart twist for the franchise. Because this is a recent film, you can expect the OTS to be CGI (conputer generated imagery) with explosions etc which is stereotypical of modern hollywood movies, and this lives up to the expectations of the media. This specific OTS was created by Prolugue http://prologue.com/. With this film actually being mainly sold as a 3d movie, they have used multiple 3d elements such as glass 'flying at the audience' and this is done in a 3d animation software usually.
There are a lot of explosive elements to make up this OTS, and it uses many other modern conventions used in hollywood editing such as time remapping (the slowing down/speeding up of footage of various points). This footage was all created on a computer in post production.
Demarcation of the OTS and main film is apparant when the music changes and when the actual camera footage starts, which was a convention used back in the days of Poltergeist.
Because of the style that this film is in (modern horror), my OTS didn't use any of the conventions introduced in this modern OTS, although I have still used music stopping at the end of my OTS to demarcate it, just like Final Destination 5 did.
For this analysis, I decided to take a look at 3 opening title sequences that interested me regarding the style in which they were created. The title seqeunces will be as follows: 127 Hours (Danny Boyle), Poltergeist (Tobe Hooper) and Final Destination 5 (Steven Quale).
127 Hours
[Unfortunately I could not find a clip of this OTS]
127 Hours uses multiple footage to create the visual feel of a busy scene. There are usually 3 video tracks played simultaneously to create this feel, this shows the rule of thirds. The footage presents itself in a fresh, original way incorporating various thriller conventions including the style of soundtrack, the colour filter and so on.From the start, the title sequence uses the screen and splits it three ways to show video, and text for the titles. These segments interchange with eachother at different intervals to show something different on the screen, and they match up to display a single scene to put emphasis on the specific scene. By using three different sections, the footage is paid less attention to consciously and therefore transmits subconsciously, making the audience think back to it later in the film. This is taken advantage of by showing scenes like the tap still dripping after the main character leaves, the bottle overfolowing, the reaching inside the cupboard for the knife and so on. This is all dramatic irony as it lets the audience see later on that the problem of him being trapped could have been minimalised.
The audio is also an essential part of making this title sequence successful, from the diegetic and the non diegetic audio. For example, the main character receives a phone call but it goes to voicemail as he does not answer it, and it turns out to be his relative asking him where he is going. This again is dramatic irony. And as for non-diegetic sound, the backing track makes many reference to hallucinogenic drugs, which later on in the film he is seen to have hallucinations.
The title of the film is displayed at the end of the title sequence, whereas the title credits are displayed during the titling scenes. I liked how this was executed and decided to use this idea in my own film. The music also stops when the OTS is over, I also used this to show the demarcation of the OTS and the actual film in my OTS production.
Poltergeist
[Unfortunately I could not find a clip of this OTS]
Poltergeist is a spiritual horror that incorporates the theme of children being vulnerable and plays on this to make the audience connect with the infant characters. This title sequence is much shorter than that of 127 hours, but I would still say it makes a successful OTS and it inspired the creation of my own. It puts all of the title text on a plain black background which is typical for horror of the time it was made. The producers clip is played at the beginning of the OTS, and I rather liked this idea also, so I put "A Craig Gambell Production" at the beginning of my footage. The only way you can tell that the OTS is over is when the music stops playing, which isn't very conventional for modern day horror, but was a big thing back in the time that Poltergeist was made (1982). It's only scene that is composed of non-textual footage is that of a man (the father) asleep on an armchair with the TV playing something with loud music, and then it cuts and all that is shown on the TV is white noise, this is what demarcates it from the actual film.
I have incorporated the style of text into my production (black and white text in a regular font) and the production part has also been placed at the beginning. Although rather than placing my text on a black background, I have placed it on top of the footage.
Final Destination 5
Final Destination was created in 2011, and is a modern horror following the concept of the previous quadrilogy. At the end of the film you find out that it is actually a prequel to the first of the Pentalogy which is a smart twist for the franchise. Because this is a recent film, you can expect the OTS to be CGI (conputer generated imagery) with explosions etc which is stereotypical of modern hollywood movies, and this lives up to the expectations of the media. This specific OTS was created by Prolugue http://prologue.com/. With this film actually being mainly sold as a 3d movie, they have used multiple 3d elements such as glass 'flying at the audience' and this is done in a 3d animation software usually.
There are a lot of explosive elements to make up this OTS, and it uses many other modern conventions used in hollywood editing such as time remapping (the slowing down/speeding up of footage of various points). This footage was all created on a computer in post production.
Demarcation of the OTS and main film is apparant when the music changes and when the actual camera footage starts, which was a convention used back in the days of Poltergeist.
Because of the style that this film is in (modern horror), my OTS didn't use any of the conventions introduced in this modern OTS, although I have still used music stopping at the end of my OTS to demarcate it, just like Final Destination 5 did.
Representation Of Age
Thanks for Elisha and Tim acting.
During this lesson, we were discussing the representation of age in the media, and how we could use an older and a younger actor/actress to go against typical media conventions and create an atypical piece. So we came up with this, giving Tim the stereotype of a teenager in the sense of drug abuse, but gave the assumption to the audience that they did indeed belong to Elisha. The audience would think this straight away because of how teenagers are portrayed in modern day media eg. mainstream news.
The last scene was the confrontation, with both Elisha and Tim addressing the audience directly.
The planning, directing and filming of this short piece took that of a lesson (50 minutes).
Sunday, 11 March 2012
The Eleventh Testament- Analysis
The Eleventh Testament- Analysis
From the beginning of this project, I had high expectations primarily with the special effects side of post-production, and after storyboarding each scene I went and gathered all necessary resources making for a prompt and well-organized time to plan schedules for planning, filming, any refilming, and editing.
For my film to work, I figured that I would need to use correct mise en scene, which would have to include the church as the location due to the style in which I filmed in. Also, the costume was rather important; I needed to use a clerical costume for the priest else it would of looked unbelievable. This was a problem at first because I didn't have the funds to purchase costume so using the resources that my acting staff had, we created a costume that looked belivable.
The establishing scene was planned to be prolonged, but due to weather conditions I had to keep this to a minimum so I wouldn't damage the recording equipment. I originally was going to film using my Logitech HD webcam, as I don't have a good camcorder and my webcam records in 1080p (High Definition) but on the day, I borrowed a friends camera in the hope that the quality would be better. Alas it was worse, and the zoom was terrible, this is why in my OTS the zooming is sharp and 'jumpy'.
In the second shot, I wanted to get a shot from the balcony of the church to show the priest entering his church. I had to make changes to the original storyboarding of this scene again due to limitations of the recording equipment.
Then, the third scene was of the priest walking towards the Altar with the camera panning left to right in order to make the audience aware that only one of the characters (Nick) was in a conscious state. This wasn't as obvious as I had hoped due to the poor quality of acting.
Following on from the third scene, the priest arrives at the altar, puts down his bible and takes a moment to read from the page, then picks it up again and walks towards to stairs to address the people in the church, but this was also to give the audience involvement and to make the audience feel like they are also being addressed. While the priest walks towards the steps, the camera blurs. This is intentional and is to show that he is 'morphing' and that he can barely be seen as human. This is accompanied by a POV (point of view) shot from the priest looking at the subjects of the church, and focusing his view when he gets to the boy (Nick). While editing, I applied colour correction to make this scene have a red tint. I did this to show that the priest was not human, and also because red is a semiotic for danger, so in essence this is dramatic irony and subconsciously notifies the audience that danger is approaching.
I did have a shot of the boy getting up from the pew and walking to the front, but I decided not to use it because I wanted to break the continuity and make the audience question how the boy got to the front so fast. This is to give a sense of the paranormal, and to show that the church is being controlled by the demonic priest, as he forced the boy to get up instantly.
Next, I wished to use a POV shot from the boy's point of view, looking at the priest (Ashley) and showing him turn into a demon, like I had demonstrated on a previous example posted on my blog. But due to camera quality, I was not able to apply this effect. The reason is as follows: For the effect to work, the footage needs to be tracked, which cannot be done with bad quality footage as it is hard for the editing facility to distinguish successful track points. So I had to decide that the priest was scary enough, and had more of an organic human 'demon' inside him.
Later in the OTS, there is a POV shot from the priest, with him extending his right arm and tensing his hand. The boy is then meant to looks worried and give a full body shaking motion. This wasn't accomplished again because of the poor acting on his behalf. I still used special effects on this scene while editing to show that his soul is being extracted. This was done using Adobe After Effects, and was fairly hard to do.
The next shot was meant to be the most emotional and I think it was rather successful, but of course could have been made better with sound effects and other such features. in this shot, the boy collapses, and essentially dies. I applied a fade to the end of this scene to show that the boy has collapsed and has been rendered unconscious. This follows with a fade in effect and the camera moving from the corpse of the boy's POV, moving up and focusing again on the priest, whom is looking down on the soulless body of the boy. I applied a blue tint to this shot while editing to show innocence, and peace. But also because blue is associated with the soul in conventional horror.
Finally, the title appears in the top left of the screen with a black outline, and sustains after the footage has faded along with the non-diegetic sound, and then the title cuts. The reason I kept the title on a couple of seconds prior to the faded footage/sound was to show demarkation of the OTS, and to signify to the audience that the main film was about to start and that the OTS has finished.
I had edited each scene in post-production with colour correction and colour curves to bring down the darkness, and to make the light brighter. This made it appear to be more horrific, and seemed to be a convention that I had noticed in many other horror films of this sub-genre, including Poltergeist, The Exorcism Of Emily Rose and other films alike.
For compositing the clips and applying special effects, I used Adobe After Effects. And for rendering the footage I used Sony Vegas Pro 11. I rendered at 8mbps to assure that there was no quality loss.
You will notice that most of the footage is shaky, and this is because I shot it hand held intentionally because I wanted it to symbolize confusion, and fear. However I did use a tripod on the majority of POV shots to give a smooth and natural flow to the movement.
If I could film this again, I would make many things different. I would first of all get a higher resolution camcorder so that I could apply the effects that I predominantly thought were essential for the OTS to be successful. Secondly, I would use a better actor for the boy, as he didn't manage to stay in character very well. Overall I would say that my OTS was successful, the theme was true throughout the scenes and for the most part, it was believable thanks to the acting of the priest (Ashley). The soundtrack also made it more believable and was used in place of the diegetic audio because of the microphone quality and the extensive echo that the church seemed to create. The soundtrack was royalty free. I wish that I could have found some royalty free sound effects also, or even if I could of created my own, but unfortunately I was unable to.
Another thing to mention would be two problems in continuity that were in fact unwanted: The first was the crucifix necklace worn by the priest hanging from his neck to the left in one scene, and then jumping to the right in the next scene. The second was that I noticed that my laptop was visible on one of the pews. Unfortunately by the time I had noticed these errors, I didn't have the time to go and refilm these parts.
From the beginning of this project, I had high expectations primarily with the special effects side of post-production, and after storyboarding each scene I went and gathered all necessary resources making for a prompt and well-organized time to plan schedules for planning, filming, any refilming, and editing.
For my film to work, I figured that I would need to use correct mise en scene, which would have to include the church as the location due to the style in which I filmed in. Also, the costume was rather important; I needed to use a clerical costume for the priest else it would of looked unbelievable. This was a problem at first because I didn't have the funds to purchase costume so using the resources that my acting staff had, we created a costume that looked belivable.
The establishing scene was planned to be prolonged, but due to weather conditions I had to keep this to a minimum so I wouldn't damage the recording equipment. I originally was going to film using my Logitech HD webcam, as I don't have a good camcorder and my webcam records in 1080p (High Definition) but on the day, I borrowed a friends camera in the hope that the quality would be better. Alas it was worse, and the zoom was terrible, this is why in my OTS the zooming is sharp and 'jumpy'.
In the second shot, I wanted to get a shot from the balcony of the church to show the priest entering his church. I had to make changes to the original storyboarding of this scene again due to limitations of the recording equipment.
Then, the third scene was of the priest walking towards the Altar with the camera panning left to right in order to make the audience aware that only one of the characters (Nick) was in a conscious state. This wasn't as obvious as I had hoped due to the poor quality of acting.
Following on from the third scene, the priest arrives at the altar, puts down his bible and takes a moment to read from the page, then picks it up again and walks towards to stairs to address the people in the church, but this was also to give the audience involvement and to make the audience feel like they are also being addressed. While the priest walks towards the steps, the camera blurs. This is intentional and is to show that he is 'morphing' and that he can barely be seen as human. This is accompanied by a POV (point of view) shot from the priest looking at the subjects of the church, and focusing his view when he gets to the boy (Nick). While editing, I applied colour correction to make this scene have a red tint. I did this to show that the priest was not human, and also because red is a semiotic for danger, so in essence this is dramatic irony and subconsciously notifies the audience that danger is approaching.
I did have a shot of the boy getting up from the pew and walking to the front, but I decided not to use it because I wanted to break the continuity and make the audience question how the boy got to the front so fast. This is to give a sense of the paranormal, and to show that the church is being controlled by the demonic priest, as he forced the boy to get up instantly.
Next, I wished to use a POV shot from the boy's point of view, looking at the priest (Ashley) and showing him turn into a demon, like I had demonstrated on a previous example posted on my blog. But due to camera quality, I was not able to apply this effect. The reason is as follows: For the effect to work, the footage needs to be tracked, which cannot be done with bad quality footage as it is hard for the editing facility to distinguish successful track points. So I had to decide that the priest was scary enough, and had more of an organic human 'demon' inside him.
Later in the OTS, there is a POV shot from the priest, with him extending his right arm and tensing his hand. The boy is then meant to looks worried and give a full body shaking motion. This wasn't accomplished again because of the poor acting on his behalf. I still used special effects on this scene while editing to show that his soul is being extracted. This was done using Adobe After Effects, and was fairly hard to do.
The next shot was meant to be the most emotional and I think it was rather successful, but of course could have been made better with sound effects and other such features. in this shot, the boy collapses, and essentially dies. I applied a fade to the end of this scene to show that the boy has collapsed and has been rendered unconscious. This follows with a fade in effect and the camera moving from the corpse of the boy's POV, moving up and focusing again on the priest, whom is looking down on the soulless body of the boy. I applied a blue tint to this shot while editing to show innocence, and peace. But also because blue is associated with the soul in conventional horror.
Finally, the title appears in the top left of the screen with a black outline, and sustains after the footage has faded along with the non-diegetic sound, and then the title cuts. The reason I kept the title on a couple of seconds prior to the faded footage/sound was to show demarkation of the OTS, and to signify to the audience that the main film was about to start and that the OTS has finished.
I had edited each scene in post-production with colour correction and colour curves to bring down the darkness, and to make the light brighter. This made it appear to be more horrific, and seemed to be a convention that I had noticed in many other horror films of this sub-genre, including Poltergeist, The Exorcism Of Emily Rose and other films alike.
For compositing the clips and applying special effects, I used Adobe After Effects. And for rendering the footage I used Sony Vegas Pro 11. I rendered at 8mbps to assure that there was no quality loss.
You will notice that most of the footage is shaky, and this is because I shot it hand held intentionally because I wanted it to symbolize confusion, and fear. However I did use a tripod on the majority of POV shots to give a smooth and natural flow to the movement.
If I could film this again, I would make many things different. I would first of all get a higher resolution camcorder so that I could apply the effects that I predominantly thought were essential for the OTS to be successful. Secondly, I would use a better actor for the boy, as he didn't manage to stay in character very well. Overall I would say that my OTS was successful, the theme was true throughout the scenes and for the most part, it was believable thanks to the acting of the priest (Ashley). The soundtrack also made it more believable and was used in place of the diegetic audio because of the microphone quality and the extensive echo that the church seemed to create. The soundtrack was royalty free. I wish that I could have found some royalty free sound effects also, or even if I could of created my own, but unfortunately I was unable to.
Another thing to mention would be two problems in continuity that were in fact unwanted: The first was the crucifix necklace worn by the priest hanging from his neck to the left in one scene, and then jumping to the right in the next scene. The second was that I noticed that my laptop was visible on one of the pews. Unfortunately by the time I had noticed these errors, I didn't have the time to go and refilm these parts.
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