Unit 21- Film editing production blog

Day 1
Today we were told to come up with ideas for a murder mystery TV show. We were each set with the task of creating 3 ideas for when we were put into groups. The classroom was to be split in half so I already had a good idea of who I wanted to be grouped with. In this short amount of time to come up with these ideas, I only managed to come up with two. This may affect me later on when we are placed in groups as it may lead to me not having enough to share with the rest of the team. However when making these ideas I chose to focus on different things. In my first one I mainly discussed things from a narrative standpoint where as in my 2nd idea I focused more on characters.

Here is a screenshot of my ideas.

Day 2
On day day we get into our groups and we start discussing about what our ideas could be. We all listen to each other’s idea and we start to jot all of the ideas down. We have gone for a Cluedo type plot with a group of friends. We are using a main detective that has killed the victim and him and his sidekick are trying to cover up the murder. The group of friends try and solve the murder whist the fake detective is trying to hide it. Over the lesson we all slowly bring together different ideas together and also making a small character development and also our roles within the scenes.

This is one of the first little mind maps that we have created for all of the character roles. This includes different roles that we are going to use. It includes all of the characters that we are going to use for the scene and also the alibis that our characters have attached to them. We have tried to add In all of the different traits and attitudes of our characters so that we get a small idea of what our characters should be like them we are filming it.

This is the piece of the initial ideas that we have created. This includes some of the job roles that have been assigned and also some of the ideas that we used to mould our final idea together. These include everyone’s idea for the actual series.

Day 3

Today we assigned our job roles for the pre-production. Me and Leon took it upon ourselves to do the script and we decided to go with my characters as I appeared to be the only one with fleshed our character designs. We also managed to take the idea of a house party gone wrong before the other group as both teams were planning to until Sujata had to intervene and allow us to have the idea.. We have created a temporary name for the film which is ‘One-way ticket’. This name may change throughout all of the pre-production work if necessary. The whole plot and some of the red herrings have been included in this basic script. This script shows where and when our characters will be making their appearances. Finally we created a Snapchat group-chat with everyone to keep in touch with all the pre production.

Day 4

Me Bradley and Leon have created a joint google docs document for the script. This is so me and Leon can edit simultaneously whilst Bradley can look at it for the storyboard hes meant to do. Me and Leon later finished the rest of the script and made a few creative changed. One change we made was to add 2 more characters and change some of the names. We changed Gary Mista to Jay Mista, This is because we had Lewis in mind to play him and we felt as if his look didn't match the name. We changed Neil Ghirga  to Kyle Hugelee in order to reflect the characters troublesome personality more. We got rid of George Jovens character as we felt it didn't add much to the narrative and instead replaced him with John Pier who is more of a comedic character to add some comic relief to an already dark story. He is also key to the narrative as we made him the one to be the reason they cant turn to the police and have to turn to Leon (detective). We also added Jack Ofeltraude who is meant to a be a regular guy who no one would suspect. This makes it so everyone is a suspect with the obvious red herring being Kyle. After this we casted our actors. 

Day 5
Today I left Leon to finish the script as I did the location scouting and risk assessments which was easy to do as they were the same locations I had previously done for my short film. I was done with it pretty quickly so I moved onto scheduling everyone's availability for the half term to film. Me, Lewis and Bradley went around our group and asked what days they could do.

Turns out our schedules collided too much to film over the holidays so we agreed to film on the first Friday back and get it all done. At this point in time we didn't consider and thus we had no idea if they could agree to that time. I later asked three of my friends to start along it. They all agreed and a date was set for the Friday after half term.

Day 6
When we got back from the half term we talked about filming on Friday and we all agreed that we'd meet at the train station after lunch and head to my house to get both scenes filmed. It was also this lesson where we agreed on our scenes. We decided to film scene two the party/ body discovery as they would work well together and is useful for linear editing styles. We also decided on our scene 7 as we planned to incorporate flashbacks for the non linear style of editing. We decided to film the flashback for scene 7 on Thursday at college to get it out the way as it is short and we only needed 3 cast members. This same day I double checked with my 3 additional actors if Friday was still good for them. Laura was still readily available and she was fine to do it. Brad had a job interview and said he'd be available later on which I said it was fine. However I knew we would have to film on another day as well because Brad was playing Bruce which is vital for scene 7. At this point i thought it'd be best to purely focus on the party scene on Friday then move onto the rest the following Friday. When I was getting the train home I was with my friend Thomas. He then agreed to be an extra in our party scene which I appreciated. I later messaged James to see if he was still OK to play John for Friday and he said he didn't really want to. I though this was a shame because it meant we'd have to go with someone else when I only really had him in mind. Because John is such a crucial character to the narrative and we needed to find a replacement otherwise it'd be unlikely we could film anything important on Friday.

Day 7
This morning during Sujata's lesson our group filmed the flashback sequence. The call sheet for this scene had Lewis Brad and Leon to film as this scene is important for building on the relationships for their characters. However, Lewis didn't come in for an unknown reason despite reassuring us the day before. Me and Leon had to improvise and decided to use Bradley's character Kyle instead as he was the next best thing. We managed to film it but I am still left thinking it was less impactful not having the character of Jay there as its meant to go with the last scene where Jay and Bruce figures it out. However filming went well with Brad, Bradley and Leon and we filmed it using multi camera with both Brad's and Leon's camera. For multi camera to work well we needed to ensure both cameras were set to the right apertures and settings which were a 18MP resolution along with a shutter speed of 30 – 1/4000 a second to capture naturalistic shots for it. After we finished filming I spoke to Brad about his Job interview and he told me he wouldn't be done by 4. This was bad because we were all aiming to be done by 5. I told Brad not to come but instead we'd film everything without him and do the rest next Friday. He ensured me his schedule would be clear next Friday which was good but it meant we would have a lot more to cram the next shoot. Me and Leon also discussed who we could replace James with. I suggested Thomas as he was already coming to be an extra and Leon agreed. I later messaged Thomas and he was happy to do it.

Day 8
Today we were mainly planning to film the party scene. At 12:30 everyone but Will and Jamie met at the train station and headed towards my house. Will sent me a message saying he couldn't make it which meant that I'd would have to take up the role of second camera man which I was more than happy to do because I didn't know what Will could do with a camera. When we got there we all got changed and got set up for the party scene. I figured we could do the whole party without Brad as it suits his character to be unnoticed as he is meant to be a nerd. It took us a while to get filming because Freddie kept talking to Laura a lot. However after around 20 minutes we began filming. It took us longer than expected to film as Freddie didn't know any of his lines. Once we go it done we then filmed everything we could without Brad for both scenes which really wasn't a lot. We all agreed to do the same time next week however Laura and Freddie had filmed their bits so they weren't needed. This meant that next week we could primarily focus on scene 7.

Day 9
Exactly a week after the last shoot we met back up at the train station. Thomas and Will were getting a lift straight there and Laura and Freddie weren't needed. This time also Brad was with us. When we got my house we started filming straight away and got the morning after scene done straight away. We discovered quite a big problem while filming with multi camera and that was Leon and Will kept accidentally recording each-other. We decided that most of this clips could just be zoomed in during post production but we did have to do some re-shoots just in case. After we did the morning after scene, we got straight onto scene 7 which was filmed with ease except from Brad messing up his monologue. Another slight issue we had was when me and Bradley were caught in the background of the chase scene which was a really good take but now unusable which required a re-shoot which turned out they didn't do one because we were short on time.

After this we shot some mini clips for the trailer and and title sequence and were done for the day. The only character who didn't get one of these intros was my character Jack but that was because I was filming them.

Day 10
Today we returned to our normal time table and returned to Andy's lesson where I began to edit the party scene. In Sujata's lesson we were reminded that our scenes had to be maximum 3 minutes each was was hard because we had filmed too much footage. this meant we'd have to cut a lot of the clips for our scenes. I saw this as a win win situation as this meant there was less editing for the scenes and we could use these unused clips for the title sequence and trailer which I thought would add more diversity for both the trailer and title sequence. However this means we failed to follow the brief as we did film more than 3 minutes but it could all be cut down with editing. Anyway after we were reminded of this I went ahead and continued to edit the party scene although I now knew I couldn't use any of the morning after footage as otherwise it would be too long. This was a big shame because the morning after is when the body was discovered which is crucial to the narrative.

Day 11
I finished editing my party scene.

This is what my workstation looked after I had finished.I started by putting all the clips together in order without any unnecessary footage. I then added 3 different songs over the 3 key moments of the scene to match the atmosphere of the clips and to show a passage of time through the scene. I chose to add Return Of the Mack by Mack Morrison for the initial party part. This is to hint at Leon's return into Peters life as he enters the party uninvited and show the distrust between the characters. The next song I used was Elton Johns Im Stile Standing for the fight part of the scene. This song is upbeat and matched the pace of the fight. It also represents Leon's unwilling to leave his friends behind after his arrival to the party . The final song I used was Kiss From a Rose by Seal for the closing moments. This is to help shift the mood to calm after the fight and also to help show the passage of time to the end of the night.

Here I added a fade out of Return of The Mack while simultaneously fading in I'm Still Standing to help create a sound bridge between the two clips and also to have the music seem more naturalistic to the scene rather than just cutting it. I also added 3 punch SFX to add the sounds to the fight over the music. This creates more meaning to the fight by having the sounds clearer and creates more meaning behind each hit. I also added another fade in with Kiss From a Rose whilst the clips fade from black to the next bit of the scene to further show a passage of time.

Before darken

After Darken

Here I split this clip and added a fade to black transition in the gap. After I darkened the 2nd half of the clip to match it with the transition. This finalises the clip to Thomas getting darker as he approaches something. This adds further suspense as the darkness shrouds Thomas'character gets closer to his target and adds mystery behind his actions.

I closed this scene with a fade to white transition into an establishing shot of the house. I also faded out the music. This all brings the scene to a nice close as it shows that its now morning and the party is finished.

After I finished my Party scene, I assembled my scene 7 ready for editing the next day.

Day 12
I finished editing my scene 7.

This is a screenshot of my whole workstation after I had finished. I assembled my clips first then added 3 songs over it. A suspenseful song to help build up for the reveal of the killers identity over the initial bag openings. An upbeat song for the chase and Roundabout by Yes for the ending to leave it with a cliff hanger. Again I realised that we had filmed too much but this was easily cut down. Instead of having Leon go through all the bags, I had him go straight to Bradley's purse as he was in the same position in both clips. This saved me a lot of times as it cut the scene down by almost a full minute and it wasn't too important to have the other bags kept in.

The song I chose to use for the opening of this scene has very distinct piano keys to which I created jump cuts here to match the song. It's so each piano key there is a jump cut. Not only does this speed up the scene but also adds some flashy visuals to an otherwise slow sequence.

Here I increased the volume of the music in order to heighten the drama after the mystery of Neil's bag is introduced to the narrative.