Filming & Editing the Main Exercise - 'Watch Your Back'

Today, Tuesday 23rd March, we filmed our main exercise in the subway under the roundabout by the Jubilee Clock, Weymouth. The brief was to film an opening sequence to a new fiction film to last around 2 minutes long. We chose to produce the opening to a horror/thriller film, consisting of a girl being followed down a subway by her ex-boyfriend who is seeking revenge.

The weather today was the first problem we had as it was drizzling and quite foggy, but this will hopefully add to the effect of the film as a pathetic fallacy, setting a dark and gloomy feel to our film. We overcame this problem by using an umbrella to cover the camera equipment when we were filming outside of the subway, but most of the time we were covered from the rain by the subway roof. Another problem was that as we were filming in a public place there was quite a lot of people which disrupted our filming so we had to keep stopping and waiting for them to walk past, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Despite interruptions, we managed to film everything we needed to in about 2 and a half hours and we did not have to go back and re-film anything.

We left college at half four, with a few changes of plan as Amy was ill and couldn't come and film, so we asked her to tell her friend who was supposed to be acting that we would use my friend James to take his part as it would be easier for him to get there as he lives a lot closer, he's studying Drama at college and he was willing to do it. After we left college we went to James' house to film the flashbacks which show the girl and boy fighting and arguing, explaining why he wants revenge and chases her down the subway. After we finished filming the flashbacks indoors we got the bus to the subway and started filming there. Earlier in the day I had called the local police station and got a reference number in case they were called as our opening sequence includes mild violence and screaming, so it was good that we had done that to make sure we were allowed to film there so we didn't have to worry.

We did various shots of the girl walking down the subway with the hooded male following her, and we added in an over the shoulder shot of the male looking down at the girl walking towards the subway which I think would be effective as it is further away and shows the point of view of the guy. This also hides the identity of the male for fe moments longer which i think adds suspense and mystery to the opening sequence. There may be a continuity problem, though, as it was getting dark as we filmed so it may be darker at the end of our opening sequence compared to the first shots of the girl entering the subway. This may be problematic as it is an issue of continuity if the lighting changes dramatically in our short sequence, but it may also work in our favour to add to the sinister ending of our opening sequence.

Overall, I think our filming went well and we did stick to our storyboards, apart from adding in a few shots that we think will work when editing it. We couldn't film the last shot of the moon as it was too foggy and we couldn't see it, so we shot Miaa's (our actress') hand grabbing a railing and then slipping down with a high pitched scream in the background. Then after there would be a shot of the empty subway, highlighting the eerie and sinister event that just occurred.

We edited the film on Windows Movie Maker and then added in the titles on Adobe Premiere Pro. We used effects like highlighting flashbacks in grey to make sure the reader understands it is just a flashback to avoid continuity problems. With Movie Maker we also blended the shots in together so as not to make each shot jump quickly to another and this adds to the continuity of it. We made sure that each shot leads on to the other correctly, with characters in the places they should be, having not changed their position etc. Adobe Premiere allowed us to use a black screen at the beginning on our opening sequence which blended into the establishing shot of the seafront on a drizzly, dark day. This transition makes the film look more professional as the company title first comes up reading : 'an Absent Friends Production'. We then put in the name of the director and then the names of the actors starring in our opening sequence. Then we added in the name of the Producer and Editor and finally the name of the film - 'Watch Your Back' in larger white letters more central to the screen. We put this in at an appropriate point when the male, hooded character starts to follow the girl down the subway.

At the beginning of the opening sequence there are just ambient sounds, diagetic noises of the road of the girl walking down the subway silently. The music only starts when you see the hooded male walk down the steps of the subway, and the tempo increases and builds up, adding suspense to the scene. The non-diegetic music only kicks in when he appears round the wall of the subway and into view, stalking the unaware female. We chose to make sure the music properly kicks in at the right point to add to the effect of the opening sequence and to the mis-en-scene. Ambient noises create and eerie feeling at the end of the opening sequence when there is a pan of the empty subway and this editing that cuts from the shot of the hand slipping off the railing with the girl screaming to an abandoned and creepy underpass would help signify the end of the opening credits and the beginning to the film, with the opening bit of action over, leaving the audience with a mystery and making them more interested and engaged in the film and finding out about the plot.

Screen Shot of Editing 1 - Adding titles to our film

Screen Shot of Editing 2 - Fading black to establishing shot

Screen Shot of Editing 3 - Fading between shots of girl walking