Importance of Editing

Editing is the final step in the creation of a film. It involves putting all the video files togethor into a seamless and continuous story. During this time the director will often have input into his creative vision of how everything will come together. Sometimes, certain scenes will have been shot in different ways, angles or styles, and dialogue may vary between them.

This is also the point when special effects would be added. In recent years, special effects have developed extremely and an almost realistic image can often be generated by computer and added as an insert into the shot. Films such as Avatar (2009) was created almost entirely using green screens and computer generated image (CGI).

Minor effects such as lens flares, slow motion or image inserts can all be done using cheap or free software and therefore amateur film makers have a much wider variety of options than in the past.

Now, the market is so densely populated by films that have unnecessarily used special effects, it is surprising to see a new film that is using real props or models instead of CGI, which is a fresh breathe in film production.

Importance of Sound

Sound, diegetic and nondiegetic, is crucial to show the emotions of a scene without showing a character's face. It is also a significant part of horror movies as tension can easily be created and dropped with rapidly increasing crescendo of a high pitched tone. This can also be used to scare the audience by going against the normal outcome of having a jump scare at the end of the pitch increase and instead wait until the calm after it has ended before having a scare.

Music is also very influential to how the audience will feel. Romantic scenes and sad scenes will often have appropriate music that tells the audience what the theme of this scene will be and also heightens the overall effect of the scene.

The background sound, however, must not be overpowering of the other audio and mustn't ruin the effect by being too loud or too quiet.

23rd January

Today we met up to continue the interior shots we began filming 2 on Tuesday.

Importance of Lighting

Lighting is an underrated technique that is always considered almost every shot during production. The aim of lighting is to seem as natural as possible whilst creating a fitting atmosphere or exaggerating the emotion of the situation.

Natural lighting is necessary for external shots that are actually filmed inside a studio. They will position large studio lights in the direction that it would naturally occur using cut outs to have shadows appear. This can be used to reflect the emotion of a character too; rain whilst they are upset or thunder whilst they are angry.

Shadows are an important element of most horror films and use it as a technique to build tension. Shadows can conceal a character's identity or hide a threat which can then be used to suddenly scare the audience.

21st January

Finally after all the Christmas holidays we arranged today to meet up to begin filming. We only did interior shots today as the camera that we used had a dodgy battery and therefore we couldn't actually take it outside. Hopefully we'll have this fixed before next time.

Importance of Mise en Scene

Mise en Scene describes everything that you can see in each shot and the angle at which you see it. This includes the settings and surroundings of the shots, the props, the costumes and even some dialogue can be put under this category.

The costume and props are used to tell the audience what each character's role is at first glance. They will often include big hints towards someone's role if it is necessary in understanding the scene such as a doctor's scrubs or stethoscope even though in reality they wouldn't wear it 24/7. This gives the audience an idea of what the scene is about and helps them understand the plot.

Camera angle and empty space in shot help more psychologically to create an uncomfortable tension in the viewer. This can work amazing with horror or thriller movies to create tension using a really simple technique.

Production logo research

When researching production logos, some big similarities were shown throughout all the images.
Typically they will use:

• Black on white
• Contrasting bright colours
• Very simplistic design
• Big text
• Commonly a black background

All of these things are obviously used to catch the user's attention and the simplistic design means that the logo doesn't  need to be on screen for too long for it to be embedded in the viewer's memory. The black background can fit almost any colour on it so it is commonly used, it also means that it can be used at the start of any genre as it won't ruin tension or laughter.

This was the outcome of our brainstorm: