'Survival' Final Sequence

Screenshots of my Final Film- 'Survival'

This screenshot is of the scene where the hands are crawling along the floor, which is placed in-between Seth leaving Elly, and Elly being left alone scared. I did this because I think it helps build tension, and gives the audience an incentive that something bad will happen, because the feeling that the character is being chased/watched. The part that is circled in red, is the Effects Controls. I used the effect 'Solarize' because I felt that it made this part look really freaky and scary. I did this for the feet one as well, just so the audience can feel the tension building.

This is the scene where Elly has been left by herself, as Seth has gone to help his best friend, the part that is circled in red, is the volume controls, and as you can see by the lines, the volume starts off high, then decreases, this is because I was experimenting trying to boost the sound of the twigs snapping, it didn't work as well, but then I came up with the idea to copy the piece of audio where all the twigs are snapping, thats what is circled in blue. I put the copies in, in Audio 3,4 and 5, just to emphasize the 'scary' sound of the twigs snapping. The part circled in green is the actual scene, and used the effect 'Solarize' on this too, but at a lower level, I just wanted some parts of it to look negative and distorted, to highlight her fear.

This is when Seth is finding it hard to cope after Elly has disappeared. The part in red shows the effects and levels I used, the effect I did use was 'Colour Emboss' and as you can see from the purple area, this is the impact it gave. I think this works really well as when it is running, it captures Seth's devastation, frustration and confusion very well. It also brings the colour out so that helps the impact too.

This scene is when the music properly comes in, when it first comes in, (When Seth & Luke can't find Elly) it is just a simple guitar riff, the second scene, (When Seth is frustrated and hits the tree) its still the guitars with an accompanying basic drum beat, but in the scene above this is when the Intro is in the breakdown, this part of the song is the reason why I chose the whole song in the first place, as it is a perfect chase song. The original volume controls were much higher than this, but you was unable to hear the dialog, so I decreased it slightly.

The section circled in red shows you the effects I used, I used black and white to let the audience know that it was in the past, so you knew it was a flashback, for the other effect, 'Roughened Edges' I got the idea from like an Old Victorian Film, I did this to also highlight the fact that these images were in the past but when Seth was reflecting on all the happy times he shared with his girlfriend Elly. On all three flashbacks, I also edited the speed and duration, two of them were sped up, the other two reduced, just to create effect.

This was the creation of my final title, after experimenting with the fonts, I finally decided on the one titled 'mark' as it had a horror film feel to it, and its bold, which was exactly what I was looking for, I adjusted the size to 100 and arranged it where I wanted, I was going to put it in the bottom right hand corner like the rest of the titles, but in the end decided to put it in the middle, as it would be able to be seen easier by the audience, and it also shows the urgency and gives an impact.

Production Diary

Thursday 18th November:
Before I started on my final sequence, there was a few things I had to do to prepare for when it came to filming. I started off my drawing up my Storyboards, I drew on a post stick note and stuck it down on the paper, underneath I wrote what scene it was, who was in it and what shot I would be using. This was very helpful on the day of the filming as I knew what to do. After I had taken pictures of my Storyboards and uploaded them to my blog, I created my scripts, these were to help my actors, and myself, so I knew which shot to use and when it came into place. In total, about three scenes had dialog but it was only around six lines in total each scene. After the scripts were printed and in my folder with my storyboards, I began to work on my blog, I wrote out my production schedule, I copied and pasted the script onto my blog, I did a shot list, Asset list. As well as all of this, I experimented with different font styles and required sound effects. Lastly, I put up a Youtube link of the music I wanted to have in my film, its an Intro by my friends band who I am in very close contact with, so for obvious reasons, I had to ask for permission to use it, I spoke to the lead singer and he sent me an email:


"Hey Sophie,

You may use our song 'With a Pinch of Salt - Part I' with your project.

Gary Broughton - After The Ordeal"

Saturday 20th November:

Today I began filming, my original idea was to film the flashbacks first, as the actors would not be covered in face-paint and fake blood, but because I had to do a photoshoot on the same day, I had not had time to get some of the assets I needed, like the ice creams, so the flashbacks had to be changed, we still used one of the flashback ideas, as all we needed was swings. So instead of starting off with the flashbacks, I decided to start by filming a scene where Luke and Seth are scared and hiding in a makeshift shelter. I ended up scrapping this idea as it didn't really tie in with my film.  After that I continued through and filmed the rest of it in the original order, some of the dialog scenes had to be filmed a couple of times, especially the scene where Luke and Seth came running back to find Elly has gone, this took a few takes because I was trying to keep the camera as still as possible. Also the actors made a couple of mistakes with the dialog and when to run in. After this I filmed the final three scenes, the build up to the chase, the chase and finally when Seth finds Elly dead. I would say the hardest scene to film was the last one, as I wanted to try to capture Seth's grief and emotion as best as I could. After the main bulk of film was done, I took the actors back to my house to get them looking happy and normal to go back to film the flashbacks. Filming the flashbacks was quite easy and it didn't take long, I started off experimenting, because originally I wanted Seth and Elly to be laughing whilst sitting on the bench, but it was too difficult to make them laugh, so I substituted it to Seth tickling Elly, then I filmed the swing one, and lastly when they are walking hand in hand. After I had filmed all of it I waited until Monday until I could edit.

Monday 22nd November:

On a Monday I have a double lesson of media, so this was a perfect opportunity to begin editing. In the first lesson, I connected the camera up to the computer and began capturing it scene by scene, just to make it easier on myself, as I would be able to drag the clips into the timeline in order, after they were all captured, I put them all in order in the timeline and ran it through. After break time,  I went back to the beginning to start cutting it all down, and pausing it when I needed to. It took me the rest of the lesson to cut it all down so that their was no more bits I didn't need, at the end of the lesson I ran it through one more time and made a few more cuts. 

Thursday 25th November:

With everything cut down and in place, I began the main stage of my editing, I started off by editing the flashbacks, I had put these in last as I wasn't sure where to put them, after I decided where, I had a look at the Video effects and experimented with a few, after testing a few out, I decided on putting a black and white theme with a 'Roughened Edges' transition too. These effects gave a great feel to it, to show that they were flashbacks. After these were done, I continued on editing but covered some Speed/Duration edits. I slowed down the opening running scene as I felt like it looked rushed and too fast, so I decreased the percentage slowly. I also changed the Speed on the flashbacks, the bench and walking flashback were increased, but the last one was slowed down to create effect. After this was done the lesson was almost over but I had enough time to add a few titles in. I started off using one of my experimenting fonts titled '[ank]*' I liked it at first, but I felt like it wasn't bold or dramatic enough so I changed it to another one I experimented with titled 'mark' this gave a definite horror film feel to it. 

Monday 29th November:

In this double period, I got a lot of work done, I continued through editing, I finished putting in  all the titles and then watched it through, but I felt like something was missing, my teacher helped me a little bit by saying that maybe we need something to fill in the blanks, to present more tension, especially when Elly is left by herself. So I got two people from my year to come over Hesketh Park with me, I started off with Charliiee on her hands and needs crawling along the floor, through leaves, but I had the camera just on her hands, digging her nails into the ground and giving each movement some force. I then filmed Charliiee's feet, walking along through leaves. Finally, I got Lici's hand coming round the tree trunk, she was wearing black gloves which gave the ending a massive impact. I took the clips back to the class and began editing, I put them in between the gaps that needed filling, to give the whole film more urgency. I then added an effect to all of them, on the feet and hands I used a slightly negative effect, and a transition called 'Turbulent Displace' which made the clip slightly wobbly and distorted, to make it look more freaky. I put the tree trunk clip right at the end, and just put a basic black and white theme on it, with 'Turbulent Displace' also on it too. After I had added these in, I continued adding more Video Transitions, on the ones that needed tension. The first one I did was when Elly went missing, I put a video effect on titled 'Solarize, which highlighted her fear. The second one I did was when Seth is frustrated that he cant find Elly, and hits the tree, I put a video effect on called 'Colour Emboss', this was just to capture his confusion and devastation. For one of the scenes, when he finds Elly, the filming for some reason had become quite dark, so I tried to lighten it with the 'Brightness and Contrast' effect, I made it look lighter, and slightly fake, to kind of relate to his relief that he has found her, but also the sadness that she is dead. I also began to edit in my music, as I didn't want to use the whole song, I had to cut it down so that it still flowed properly. I had to time it right as well.


Thursday 2nd December:
We had no lesson on this day because of the snow, the academy was closed.


Monday 6th December:
On this day,  I was determined to get it all finished, to start off in the lesson, I felt that the beginning scenes, up to Elly's disappearance was too quiet, and it needed something to help build tension, so I looked on the 'Sound FX' folder on my desktop, and had a listen through some of the clips, I decided eventually on the 'Heartbeat' FX. I put it in three times, so that it flowed, when it first comes in, at the beginning, its a normal paced heartbeat, and is this way for the first two scenes (Running into the bush and Luke needing help) when the scene changes to Elly being by herself, it speeds up a bit, then when Luke and Seth come running back, I sped the clip up enormously, to something like 130% this builds tension for the audience. After I had done this, I made sure that my song for the ending flowed and sounded okay, and that it fitted in with my emotional ending, which it did, I then fixed the Volume Controls as some of the dialog was louder than the rest, I also turned the music's volume down a little bit as you couldn't hear the dialog parts as well as you should. To finish it all off I perfected the final title, to make it disappear when the music ends. I then exported it and put it on youtube for me to embed on my blog.