First edit for our film opening

We wanted to make our film opening different, unique and stand out against the rest. So alongside the 2 minute film opening, we decided to include a short trailer before the actual film opening started.

We included short clips of several different shots to create a trailer and used fast transitions in between each shot. Each shot lasts 0.2 seconds each and once we had inserted all the clips we wanted and edited it the trailer was 12 seconds long.

We also used the music on imovie in the background but we are still unsure about this music and we will probably change it later on in the editing process.

Below is the rough edit to the trailer of our film opening...




This is just a rough version as we want to add a few more clips to the trailer and change the music as we now want something faster to fit in with the fast transitions.One of our main purposes for the trailer was to make it unique but to also grab the viewers eye and attention so that it will make them want to watch the actual film.

Fourth day of filming

On 10/11/09 we continued to film and it was an exhausting day as we were filming from the end of school up until 9 30 at night! But it was all worth it as we filmed many scenes and they were all filmed to our satisfaction.

Firstly, we headed to the cinema again for the second time during the filming process to finish filming all the scenes we needed at this location. During the week we uploaded what we had filmed so far onto the macs and realised that in the lift scene we had missed out a close up of Elles face in the lift to show her facial expression. Unfortunately, when we went back to the lift we previously used it was 'out of order' ! This messed up our plans slightly as we could not film this shot, so we sat in Morrisons waiting for Billy to arrive to film the other scenes we had planned.

Once Billy had arrived, we went back to the Cineworld underground car park to begin filming. Our initial idea at this point of the filming was to film Billy running directly behind Elle, but then we referred back to the bridge scene and took into account the fact that they were running opposite ways and realised that they can not be running the same way as it will not make sense and confuse the viewer. So, we inserted a new shot of Billy running down a ramp to the underground car park which will make them appear from different directions. We filmed this shot from a high angle aerial shot which was filmed by Elle sitting on a platform, Sophie running from behind Billy so it will appear shaky and unstable, a high angle side view and other different side views and one of Billy running towards the camera from a front view.

Following this, we filmed Elle walking down the stairs of the cinema as if she was running down the stairs of the bridge and this will follow the running across the bridge scene. We filmed this in different ways; a front view of Elle running towards the camera and then a pan shot of her running out the door on the right, from behind Elle to create the shaky effect and finally a canted angle of her running down the stairs.

Then, we filmed a side view of Elle running out of the same door through the car park and passing the music box which is sitting and playing on a pole. We also filmed this scene with an extreme close up of the music box and Elle in the background so the music box is the main focus of the shot as it is significant and tells the reader that Billy, the stalker is near.

We found a spooky alleyway we liked and filmed a long shot from behind Elle of her walking down the alleyway, seeing the music box and walking up to it, slamming it shut and walking off. We then filmed in the actual car park a scene where Billy and Elle bump into each other in the centre. As Elle was running away from Billy and not towards him, we could not have them meeting face to face. So, we filmed Elle running away from Billy then stopping in the middle of the car park and turning round to see whether Billy is following her and faces the camera, but then Billy comes up from behind her and she bumps into him and she slowly turns round to discover who he is. During editting, we will involve a strobe light in fast motion at the point where Elle turns round to discover Billy is behind her. This shot was a mid shotof both of them and portrayed their facial expressions clearly.

Then, we realised the time and we had to make our way back to school for a ucas meeting so we told Billy to meet at Sophie's house after the meeting so that we could continue filming. At Sophie's we filmed the newspaper scene again with Billy circling the date and filling in the numbers in the sudoku section. All this was still filmed with the red light effect. We tried two colours for the writing on the newspaper; a red pen so that it will fit in with the continuity of the red light effect and a thick black pen so that it would appear more prominent. We will decide which one looks better whilst uploading and editting.

In our made newspaper, Billy wrote in the crossword, 'Who's next', this shot will fade into the first shot we filmed which was of Sophie, Billy's next victim walking past whilst Billy is sitting on a bench. The audience will then become aware of Billy's next victim and we showed this in an implicit way. Earlier in the filming process, we filmed fake blood dripping off a saw and so we decided to film more following this scene. So, we used the rest of the fake blood and tilted the saw so that it poured on top of the ballerina in the newspaper and it slowly dripped onto the picture. We wanted the blood to fall straight onto the ballerina, but it did not happen the way we wanted so we told Billy to dip his finger in the blood and cross out the ballerina girl. This action reflects the idea of the stalker man planning to kill a ballerina girl.

We wanted the audience to become more familiar with Billy's character so we filmed him pacing up and down the den knocking things as if he was angry and frustrated that he has not caught his victim. Sophie's shed was full of stuff and so it was quite cramped and as we had to keep the continuity of the red light in the den, Emma had to sit on top of a pile of stuff whilst shining the red light whilst also ensuring she was not in the shot which was quite funny. We wanted to convey Billy's frustration so we told him to smash a beer bottle, but we did not manage to film it successfully as it fell quicker than we expected and we did not have enough time to film the transition from Billy's face and the smash all in one shot. It also made a lot of mess and we wasted a lot of time trying to clean it up in the dark at nine at night! We then filmed a low angle shot of Billy typing on the typewriter so you could see his arms and face in the shot so that it is clear to the viewer that it is in fact the stalker man typing up the girl's death story. We decided to film this at a low angle to show his importance as a main character and to also show his power over the ballerina girl.

Then, we filmed from Sophie's extension roof which gave a perfect view of the shed as it was directly opposite. We filmed an ariel shot of the den and as the shed door was quite hard to open, we had a brick holding it open then had Billy kicking it out of the way and then slamming the door shut. This also adds to his angry character. Then, we filmed an establishing shot of the houses across the field next to Sophie's house and it was really effective as it was pitch black and only the lights in the houses were on.

On this day of filming, we filmed so much footage and now the only scene we have left to film is a scene at Bodens studio which we have arranged to take place soon.

Third day of filming

Following the typewriter scene, we realised that we had not filmed all the parts we wanted to type on the typewriter. As myself and Billy were unable to attend this filming session, Sophie, Elle and Emma still managed by themselves.

So, today on 08/11/09 they filmed extreme close ups of words coming up from the typewriter that we had not included before. Sophie typed this as Billy was unable to attend. However, it dod not matter who was typing it because the camera was just focusing on the paper. They realised that everything had to be typed on the same piece of paper to show the continuity.This was quite a challenge especially for Sophie who was typing it as she could not really see what she was typing as it was in the dark it all became a bit frustrating.

This days filming was rather short and they only managed to film a short amount.

Second day of filming

On 28/10/09, we continued filming our two minute film opening. Our first stop was Cineworld in Enfield as they have an underground car park alongside a lift and stairs. We chose this location as it was dark as it was underground and was also dingey and spooky. The idea of using the lift was to show continuity in the journey home as when Elle steps into the lift she goes up, runs out the lift and runs immediately onto the Enfield Town bridge.

For the lift shot, we filmed an extreme close up of Elle's finger pressing the button, her walking into the lift and the doors closing in on her. We encountered a few problems at this stage because we had to ensure the lift did not go up but as the lift led up to the cinema the public wanted to use it and so this shot took a long time to film. We also filmed a point of view shot from Elle's perspective inside the lift with her looking at the music box on the floor which was placed outside the lift. At this point, she realises the stalker man is following her and has flashbacks, this part will be shown in sepia effect. The importance of the point of view shot at this point of the scene is so that the audience can understand Elles feelings as they are watching from her viewpoint. The last shot we filmed for this scene was a pan shot of Elle running out of the lift. We realised that this shot was immensely important as it links to the scene where she runs across the bridge which will follow there after during the editting process.

The next shot we planned to film was of Elle walking down the set of stairs after running across the bridge. But once we had set up the equipment we realised that we could not film this shot at this moment due to the fact that there was a big window which was allowing a lot of light in seen as it was around mid afternoon. This would affect the continuity of our film so we decided to film this part another time which was quite a dissapointment.

We then travelled to Sophie's house to film the typwriter and newspaper scenes, the stalker man winding up the music box and coming out of the car and an establishing shot of Sophie's house.



Firstly, we filmed Billy getting out of the car holding the music box from many different angles.This shot will follow after the blend of the two shots of him slamming the box and Elle dancing and shows the beginning of him following her. We had planned to film this scene from a front view but we then realised that the camera and tripod would be seen in the reflection of the car window. So, we filmed this shot from a side view of Billy coming out of the car, an extreme close up of his feet stepping out of the car and walking off and the final shot was filmed from a window upstairs to produce a high angle shot.

The next shot we filmed was an over the shoulder shot of Billy in the car winding up and slamming down the music box and this was achieved by filming from the back seat. Also filmed from the back seat we filmed a gradual zoom and and extreme close up of the spinning ballerina in the music box. The final shot inside the car was of the music box but focusing on the mirror inside it so that you could see the stalker man's eyes. The reason for this will become clearer later on in the film opening as his eyes are also included at the end.

Next, we filmed an establishing shot of Sophie's house to show the stalker mans plotting and planning place. We filmed the establishing shot at an canted angle swooping up to reflect the stalker man's character that he is not normal and rather psychotic.

The last place in Sophie's house was her shed which was pitch black and was where we were going to film the typewriter and newspaper scenes. The only light source we had was a red light which was created by a torch being shone over a top trumps box, the reason for the red light is to reinforce the thriller/horror genre and bring about ideas of blood and danger. We then filmed a shot of a saw with fake blood dripping from it to scare the audience slightly and to make them think about what else is going to happen in this den. We created our own newspaper with our names in the headline to show the credits and an article regarding a murder as the newspaper prop is relevant to our film. We moved the red light across the article to show each part separately and then filmed Billy slamming a cup of tea on the article and beginning to type on the typewriter.

On the typewriter, we filmed extreme close ups of "The Music Box" typed on the typewriter with the red light as a light source. We then zoomed out from this to reveal to the audience that it is the stalker man who is typing this and not the victim.

After two days of filming we have around 15 minutes of raw footage and we still have a lot more scenes to film. We are relying on the editting in order to shorten this to our two minute time limit, we have only had two days of filming and I am already looking forward to editting!