14/12/2011 - Sound

As we have had some issues with filming due to weather and members of the group and our actresses having exams we have been unable to film consistently in the past few weeks. In the meantime, we have focused on researching the sound and music that we will use in our film trailer. We used the microphone to record the sounds that we created by connecting it into the camera to save these noises. We used the dead cat to enhance the sound picked up by the microphone and an extendable holder so we can change the distance of the microphone from what it was picking up.

Firstly, we recreated the sound of footsteps for our main character, Lily, as she is initially walking back at a regular pace and then speeds up to a rapid movement as she is running away from her attacker. In the video, you will notice that we recorded one of the members of our group walking along a bed of leaves and grass which really brings out the crunchiness of the leaves and produces natural footstep noises. However, when recording the sound of the microphone being tapped can be heard therefore we cannot use this sound clip.
                                               
            

 Video Clip 1: Attempt at recording footsteps on grass and leaves.  As mentioned previously, we found this clip to be unsuccessful because of the sound of the microphone knocking which would distract the audience listening to the trailer.

Video Clip 2: Second attempt to recreate footsteps, closer up and pace of walking picks up. We found that this re-recording of the sound that we were trying to create was more successful but did not create enough of a realistic impact that we wanted.

Video Clip 3: Picking up leaving and crumpling them.

Our final attempt was the most successful as we were able to control the speed of the crumpling sound being made. It was easier and more efficient to use this method.

The YouTube video that I have included shows a similar sound to the noise of footsteps on leaves that we created by crumpling them. When researching how to make realistic sound effects we found this video and decided that this would be the appropriate method to produce natural sounding footsteps.

05/12/2011 - Adding Text to the Trailer

When watching the trailer to a film you will notice that text often appears throughout it e.g. the title of the film, what critics say or clues about the movie. As this is only a rough edit and we have no fully researched what kind of text is used in a film trailer we decided to include stars (rating) and the phrase 'A Modern Cat and Mouse Game' to entice the audience. The purpose of using text is to break up the clips and speed up the trailer without it seeming rushed but also remaining relevant. 

We wanted to show a star rating in the middle of the trailer to give the appearance of it being a 'must-see' at the cinema but we had issues trying to find the appropriate stars to use. To overcome this we used an image of the correct stars and cropped it suit our trailer. However, another problem arose when Photoshop would not allow us to insert this image into MoviePlus. To overcome this situation we attempted to see if their was a star symbol from a Word Document that we could use instead but there was not. As a result we just used the '*' on the keyboard and when we resized it, it looked professional and will be ideal to use.

For the text in our trailer we used an effect to make the writing glow before it fully appears in the trailer. The effect of using this makes the text seem eery and and uncertain which will hopefully create tension for the audience. It is relevant to the genre of film that we are making, a thriller, but we are still in the process of researching how other film trailers use text in theirs. 

12/12/2011 - Third Shots - Editing trial clips

Here is the intial attempt at editing our existing clips for our film trailer. We are aware that there is no sound for the film as of yet because we want to focus on perfecting the filming and especially the use of light in the opening scene. We used large torches to shine in directions surrounding our actress however, at some points it is evident of our unnatural source of light so we will reshoot this scene.

02/12/2011 - Film Title

Below is the mind map that we have produced containing many film titles that we have suggested for the film trailer that we are making. It shows the process in which we came up with the names as we drew them directly from the centre and they are mainly single titles with some branching to more than one word. As a group, we would prefer to use one word to name the film as we feel that it would give more of an effect as it is simple and would be much more memorable; without giving too much away.

To find some of these words we used an online thesaurus and typed in relevant words to our film trailer which is a thriller about someone being taken. So we looked up synonyms for these words and added them to our mind map so that we built up a bank of potential film titles to choose from.

We are yet to decide on a name for our film title but I feel that creating a mind map has helped us to think about the perfect name for our film trailer. We will hopefully ask for other peoples' opinions on which title they prefer and feel is the most effective.

06/12/2011

As a group we narrowed down the choices of titles from the mind map and decided on 6 titles that we liked by picking two each. From this we crossed out two which we felt were irrelevant and not effective enough to use as the film title. With the final 4, we asked 20 people of a similar age group to us which word they liked the best and thought would be appropriate for our film trailer. The simple tally chart method proved that 'Seized' was the most popular, so we settled for this film title as it has a sharp sound to the word and because it would be memorable.