Second day of editing Silent Temptation: Adding transitions & titles

Today's lesson was a double and so we decided to add transitions so that the clips flowed into each other more, we haven't completely finished this yet so next lesson we will hopefully finish this up.

We also decided to add titles with the name of our film noir, some of people who helped make the film and the amount of hours between the scenes before the titles and the scenes after the titles.

We chose the font type in the middle 'Zapfino', however with the style of title we picked it would not let us change the font type for the writing to the one we liked and we couldn't keep the one that it was because it was too modern and wouldn't fit in with the context of film noir. So, we searched it on google to see if there was another way to change it on iMovie, (bottom picture) but it mentioned that some fonts for certain titles could not be changed. So, then we tried typing it into a writing document in the font we liked and from there tried copying and pasting it into the iMovie title text box, but this did not work either. In the end, we gave up with the title style that we liked as it became obvious there was no way to change it and chose a title style that we liked as well where we could change the font to the one we wanted.

Finally, we could start creating the titles we needed and these were:

Name of our film noir.

Names of the some of the people who helped make the opening scene.

Time change between the two different scenes.

Here you can see the titles and transitions we have added to our opening scene.

First day of editing Silent Temptation: Trimming clips & adding filters

Today, we started editing our raw footage.

And in this lesson we deleted all the clips that we didn't want so that we were left with the ones we needed, from here we started trimming the clips so that they started and stopped where we wanted them to, and finally we added a black and white filter over the top of the clips all the way through as this is a typical convention of film noir, however with the scenes that have been filmed on Elm Hill we wanted it to look a bit darker so that it looked like nighttime but after a long look around the software we couldn't find anything that would help us do that, so we decided to change the timing so that it would be set in the early morning at 5am.

This is image is an example of what the rest of the opening scene now looks like after the first lesson.

We are very close to our final edit of the rough draft which we will show to a focus group so that they can tell us if there is anything to improve, to add or to get rid of. 

To Do - First Cut

Done / Currently doing / Not done

• Add and trim clips
• Finish adding transitions 
• Add productions studios 
• Sort out music clips
• Foley sounds we need - Gunshot, Footsteps, Heavy Breathing, Heartbeat, Jingle for Production Studios.

When we finish these few steps we will be ready to have a focus group to get feedback on it etc.

Strengths: As I have done some editing previously in GCSE stage, editing is a fairly strong point for me, however because we are using the newest software which is different to the one the school has we are having to teach ourselves and learn new ways of editing so it does come with some challenges.

Weaknesses: Making a final decision on some things is proving difficult because if we cannot decide on something we'll agree to sort it out later, but it would make quicker progress if we decided on something and got it out of the way because we could always change it later if we preferred something else.

Update: We have decided not to have the heartbeat sound anymore.

Cinematography

Cinematography from emlouiise

Final preparation for filming and the final day of filiming

For our final day of filming, Sophie copied and wrote down the script and camera angles we are going to use from the post we created a couple of lessons back, which you can find here. This is so we had something we could refer to when filming so that we and the actors knew what we needed to do so that we got everything.

After Sophie did this, she sent the picture above to me on iMessage to check that it included everything we needed to do and so that she hadn't missed anything, I confirmed this for her.

We're planning to get to my sister-in-law Allison's shop by 4.45pm on Friday, I sent this to Danny to let him know and asked him to pass this information on to Zach, I double checked to make sure he had.

Update: As this scene we were filming in the shop is meant to be the day before, so we decided that a different blouse would be appropriate to wear as the femme fatale will have changed. So I wore the black pencil skirt that we'd borrowed from our friend and the other blouse that we were choosing between before we picked the cream one.

The blouse I wore with the black pencil skirt for our second day of filming.

I also decided to wear red lipstick with my outfit as this is another typical convention for a femme fatale in a film noir.

Danny and Zach were both wearing the same suits as there was need for them to change, because you will cannot really notice that they're still wearing the same suit and as they are men it's not as necessary or normal for them to change outfits everyday. To see their outfits ~click here~

The final outfits

Today we filmed at Elm Hill and in the next lessons we will be able to start editing the footage we have, Sophie has the same software on her MacBook at home as what we use on the Mac's at school so we will also be able to edit our work at her house outside of school, and bring her MacBook to lessons to keep updating so we have more time to work on it.
The boys both wore suits:

Left to Right: Zach who plays our villain/killer, and to the right in this picture is Danny our anti-hero

Here, is my outfit (femme fatale) I am wearing the coat that I mentioned in the previous post because of the extreme cold weather conditions, we were lucky it  fit in with our femme fatale look.

The final props and filming update

Filming: The final filming date we decided on is Thursday 22nd to film the outside scenes on Elm Hill, and we've arranged to do this in the afternoon as me and Sophie have double media that afternoon so we could leave the lessons to go up the city and film because both of our actors could make it. We have arranged to film the scenes inside Camilla Brides on Friday 24th.

Originally, we were going to ask the drama department if we could borrow some hats for the boys as they are a typical convention for film noirs, but from previous experience we learned the drama department like you to ask quite a bit beforehand to borrow their props unless you are a drama student, which neither me nor Sophie are. 

We were also going to use a fake pistol gun from my grandad but after much discussion between me and Sophie, and Ms. Moore we agreed that it would be much safer if we didn't use a gun on the streets where another member of the public could see it, just in case anyone reported us. So, we have just changed the camera angle of how this shot will be taken so that it looks like Zach is pulling out a gun but you do not see what he is holding, so the audience will just guess what it is.

Another problem we faced was the friend we originally asked if we could borrow her skirt for the femme fatale's outfit now can't let us borrow it, so we asked another friend who agreed that we could.

For the femme fatale's outfit we also needed to decide on an appropriate blouse for her outfit, we had three options to choose between.

Blouse number 1

Blouse number 2

Blouse number 3

We got rid of option number 2 because it looked too modern with the stud design around the collar so it didn't fit in with the context. At first, I was a bit skeptical about the third option because it has no sleeves and I would be running outside in the cold weather, so it didn't seem appropriate health wise, but me and Sophie agreed on a black coat which fit in with the conventions that I could wear so we went with the third option as it looked more vintage.

Detailed timeline of what we need to do

done // currently doing // to do //

time - management

you have 6 weeks left for productions

you need to plan time carefully:

complete a detailed timeline to ensure you meet the deadline - here is an example; 

Week beginning 6th January -  filming / Planning shoots / capture of photo images for phot storyboards / Uploads of footage / evidence of this added to blog

Week beginning 13th January - final week for getting all footage shot and uploaded / editing and creation of raw footage / editing to complete the first' Cut'/ creating studio & production idents/screens

Week beginning 20th January - editing images - to produce first cuts ready for feedback

Week beginning 27th January -first  focus group work (collect feedback from within the group & HY/MO) / re-editing / planning and completion of any reshoots / planning construction of sound

Week beginning 3rd February - construction of sound / titles / final edits of film OTS

Week beginning 10th February - exhibition and distribution of 'first cut' of final films shared on digital/social networks for the purpose of focus group feedback - use surveys/ questionnaires and allow time for feedback / work on Blogs to ensure all the above is evidenced: talking head, reflective note, production plans, slideshares.....

Week beginning 17th February = Half term - complete focus group research / complete Blogs / plan final improvements to productions in response to the feedback

Deadline for completed Research & Planning Blogs and First Drafts of Productions is the 28th February (Friday after half term)

Organising filming

Firstly, me and Sophie decided to sort out props, location, moodboard and sound for the opening scene of our Film Noir, Sophie decided to take on this task. She also took on the job of uploading a post about the script and allocating tasks to people. You can find the locations, props etc by clicking on this link. And the link to the script etc is here.

We have started a Facebook chat between both me and Sophie and our other two actors (Danny and Zach). This will just make it easier to communicate, and decide when and where we will be filming, what they need to bring and who they will be playing. Originally one of our actors could not film on the afternoon we had decided, but we have resolved this by all agreeing to do it on Saturday 25th.

The boys agreeing to be actors for our film.

Next, we needed to sort out my costume for the femme fatale role, we needed to borrow a black midi skirt to fit in with the context of when our Film Noir is set and to stick with the typical conventions, it just so happens that one of our friends Gemma has one so we nicely asked her if we would be able to borrow it for filming and she said we could.

Asking Gemma if we could borrow her skirt.

Update: Danny has now been able to rearrange his original plans so that we can film the scene at Elm Hill on the afternoon of Wednesday 22nd. We have also sorted what the boys will need to bring to the filming scene on Wednesday.

Production name for Silent Temptation

Non-linear Productions

^^^^ This is our choice of name for our own production company, as non-linear is when things don't follow in a certain order. This makes our productions sounds like they are unique, fresh and exciting.

Below is the logo I have designed for mine and Sophie's production studios:

In this draft the 'L' isn't straight at the bottom and we will remove the line between the bottom of the 'L' and 'P' so that it all flows into one, this is only a draft and these alterations will be made for the real thing. We will also create some little jingle of music in the background of this.

Deciding on a name for our Film Noir

It took me and Sophie a while to decide on three names that we liked the sound of for our Film Noir, to do this we used a thesaurus online and searched the words 'violence' and 'lust' and then chose one from each list and put them together. Above is some examples of titles of other films that inspired us to do this. However, we could only narrow it down to three names, which are;

• Brutal Desire 
• Bloodthirsty Weakness
• Silent Temptation

To help choose the title for our film we have decided to make a survey on surveymonkey.com this is so our classmates can help us choose on the best name that they think fits the story of our film.

Click here to take survey

Results:

The majority vote was Silent Temptation so this is our final decision, and the chosen name for our Film Noir.