Dear Moderator

Dear Moderator,

This blog belongs to Shaun Anderson and I worked with Chantelle Short and Elliott Chyi to create an opening sequence to a film of the horror genre, lasting approximately 3 minutes including titles. You can use the pages I have created at the top of my blod to navigate my research, planning, planning, construction and evaluation. I used the website Wix.com to present my evaluation and this is best viewed using CHROME internet browser as Firefox takes a while to load up the wix. I hope you enjoy my Wix.

Regards, Shaun Anderson

Name of our Film - Hidden

Our team settled on the name, Hidden for our opening sequence to a horror. We decided on this title because out of all the titles we thought of, we found this the most fitting because the synopsis of our film is something hidden in the forest. The title is also quite luring and may attract audiences' attention because of the single word, Hidden, which is associated with darkness and they would assume it would be a horror so would be immediately interested.

This is the title of our film in our opening sequence. It is appropriate for Horror as it is dark and clear. It is named "Shaun Anderson's Hidden" because the film we studied for our opening sequence was 1982 horror flick, "John Carpenter's The Thing" which was directed by John Carpenter. Because I was the director, it was only fitting to have my name in the title.

Our Jobs (Who was doing what?) - Construction

• Craig & Elliott both created the logo and also showed how the logo was made using Word.
• Chantelle took the Recce Shots, which is where we planned on filming.
• I was left responsible for all editing of our opening sequence. This includes making the first and second rough cut and also the Final cut.
• Elliott was left the job of making the soundtrack for our sequence. After not finding a suitable sound for our horror opening, we decided to find a royalty free soundtrack and use this instead.
• All of our group took part in the prelim task, focusing on camera angles.
• Me, Elliott and Craig took part in a video showing several different editing techniques.
• Chantelle was responsible for make-up used in the film and some mise-en-scene including props and clothing.
• Chantelle filmed our Animatic and done voice-over with Elliott editing it. We were unsuccessful in matching the audio with the video so there was no voice-over.

Our Jobs (Who was doing what?) - Planning

For the planning of our opening sequence, we decided to allocate different jobs for each other.

• Chantelle & Elliott were responsible for making the animatic.
•  Craig was responsible for making the Institution Research (he successfully did this before leaving College)
• Chantelle and I made the props list (the main items we wanted to use for our sequence) but from the list , we only used the glasses, shoe, fake blood and the bin bag. The others were left out due to timing issues.
• I made the the improvements to the 2nd rough cut document, with the help of Chantelle.
• We all contributed to the creation of the Storyboard for our sequence with Chantelle and I explaining to Craig what to write and Elliott what to draw.
• We also all played a part in making the mind map of our initial ideas. We all brainstormed different ideas including names for our horror film, what subgenre it would be (e.g. supernatural, slasher) and what the opening sequence would be about.
• Chantelle was given the job of making the call sheet

      

Animatic (Without Audio)

Storyboard

The story board hidden from ecss1

Improvements for Filming Second Rough Cut

Plan for filming our 2nd rough cut from ecss1

Working on our sequence (Group Photo)

            A group photo of me, Chantelle and Elliott while working on our opening sequence.

Editing the Opening Sequence

This is a photo of me diting the second rough cut for our horror opening sequence.

Making the Animatic

This is a screenshot of the animatic being edited using the software, Final Cut.

HIDDEN - The Final Cut

This is our Final Cut to our opening sequence to a horror.

Hidden Wix Website

Hidden Wix

this is the website to our evaluation questions for our opening sequence.

Thoughts on Final Cut

These are my personal thoughts to my groups final cut:

We thought the choice of music was very relevant and fits in well with the sequence, however, we felt like we could have made the music ourselves to get more marks.

We are aware that the opening sequence is over a minute past the maximum expectancy. I tried cutting parts from the film and making scenes shorter, and I managed to take out a minute but that was all.

I felt like we could have improved the mise-en-scene and camera shots as some of the clothes our character was meant to wear ended up being scrapped because we couldn't get them in time for filming. We could have been more creative and added more camera shots from different angles to decrease the chance of continuous takes.

I felt like the editing went well as we used a unique transition from the sequence to the title of the film.

Overall, I think even though there were some problems with filming and the sequence was not 100% what we hoped, I think our sequence was well edited and put together making an acceptable attempt at an opening sequence to a horror film.

Hidden - Rough Cut 2

This is the second rough cut to our opening sequence to horror film, Hidden.

Editing Techniques

This video shows six different editing techniques our group done.

This includes:

• Match on action
• Graphic match
• Shot reverse shot
• Jump cut
• Cut zoom out
• Eye line match

Prelim Task

This is a prelim task we done at the beginning of the year which includes match on action, shot reverse shots and 180 degree angle.

Soundtrack

The production of our soundtrack from ecss1

This is how we found the soundtrack to our opening sequence. We tried finding royalty free music on the website recommended by the college blog, however we didn't find one that fit into our film. I decided to do some research and eventually found a website, incompetech, which I found the soundtrack "Decay" which suited our opening sequence best as it gives a scary and eerie tone to the sequence.

This is an image of me editing our opening sequence due in on Friday 22nd March

Plans for 2nd Rough Cut

Plan for filming our 2nd rough cut from ecss1

Problems filming and 2nd rough cut

Our group was scheduled to film on Sunday afternoon, we filmed almost everything, we just need a few more shots doing as we had to cut our filming short because it started to rain and snow.

Because of this, I will have to start editing our second rough cut with the footage we currently have. We hope to complete filming by Tuesday or Wednesday, that way we can start editing with everything we have and hopefully meet the deadline of the final cut.

Filming

Our group is scheduled to film the rest of our film tomorrow, that way we have a week to edit for our final cut. This could however have problems as we may not finish filming and we may have t go back and do re-filming which could result in us missing the deadline.

Editing Rough Cut

This screenshot shows the finishing touches of editing the first rough cut.

Call Sheet

AS MEDIA - CALLSHEET from ecss1

Make-up Used

Makeup we used for our filming from ecss1

Props List

Props list from ecss1

These are the list props which we planned to use for our opening sequence. In our rough cut, we used all props except a watch, tie, trousers and a mobile phone. This was because of time management and a lack of correct mise-en-scene.

Recce Shots

Recce shots from ecss1

These shots are from scenes where we filmed our opening sequence. Some were not seen in the film as we did not have time to film there. However, they should be in there by the final edit.

First Rough Cut

This is our first rough cut which was compressed and uploaded on YouTube on the deadline day, Friday 8th March. In this first rough cut, we have included music, credits and editing techniques. There were so problems when editing so it will be improved over the coming weeks.

Making the Logo

All Rise Production from ecss1

Company Logo

Arp from ecss1

This is the final logo for "All Rise Production" created by Craig and Elliott.

Primary Audience Research - Horror Survey

Primary audience research – horror survey from ecss1

This is the results of the questionnaire in where I asked around 40 people to fill in questions concerning the Horror film genre.

Institution Research

Tickets and market from ecss1

This post is about how good sales have been for Horror, what the most popular Horror films are and who distributes Horror films.

Audience Research (BBFC Film Ratings)

Bbfc film ratings from ecss1

This post shows the ratings of film and what my film would be rated.

Initial Ideas - Mind Map

Mind map from ecss1

This post shows our initial ideas for our opening sequence of a horror film.

9 Frame Analysis - Scream

This post shows my 9 frame analysis showing 9 key frames from the opening sequence to slasher film, Scream.

Opening Sequence Analysis

This post shows my analysis for the opening sequence of Psychological Horror film, Cube.

The Thing - Timeline

The Thing from ecss1

This post shows a timeline for the opening sequence of Horror film, The Thing.

Brief History of Horror

Horror Conventions

Horror Film Genre Convention from ecss1

Brief

Create a two minute opening sequence of a thriller/horror/film noire.