Sound Deconstruction: Se7en

The sound I will be deconstructing is the non diegetic music from the opening sequence of 'Se7en'.

• The sound is parallel to the unsettling images shown onscreen, reinforcing the psychological horror genre.
• There is a high pitched, fast paced beat in the background that is present throughout the entire sound and is one of the most regular elements of the sound.
• Throughout the sequence, a distorted squealing sound can be heard that is grating and will shock the audience listening.
• Static can also be heard at various points during the sequence, which makes the music sound more disjointed and unsettling.
• Before the music noticeably intensifies at 1:13, echoing synth notes can be heard. These sound like high pitched vocalising, which juxtaposes with the other harsh distorted noises present and creates a jarring effect.
• At 1:13, electric guitar riffs are added to the music, which then intensifies as the sounds get louder and faster.
• More electric guitar riffs can be heard towards the end of the sequence, which build in volume in a crescendo and give the music a frantic, disjointed feel.

This deconstruction is useful as we can use this as a reference when we create our final soundtrack for our film opening. This sequence uses shocking, distorted sounds to shock and unsettle the audience, which we can incorporate into our own soundtrack to make it more successful.

Opening Titles: American Horror Story

 0:09 Actor
Zachary Quinto

0:16 Actor: Joseph Fiennes

0:24 Actor

Sarah Paulson

0:33 Actor

Evan peters

Continued:

Flashback shots: Bath

• The third set of flashback shots are in the killer's bath.
• These are simply a series of close up shots of shallow water in the bath, as well as silhouettes of the killer's hands and feet in the water.
• I felt that some less gory flash back shots were necessary, in order for the gorier flashback shots to have a bigger impact.

• Overall, I feel that these shots were successful, as the content is not particularly macabre, and this will allow for the shots containing wounds to have more impact.

Editing Ideas

Letterbox Frame

• To create this effect I made a template in the style of 'letterbox'
• In order for it to work I had to make the video section green because when I select the green-screen option it will make the centre section transparent
• This will reveal the footage underneath creating the letterbox look
• This will create a cinematic effect

How I did it:

•  Firstly I created a letterbox template and saved it to my desktop.
• I then dragged it from my desktop onto my footage.

• Once I had dragged it onto my footage, a selection box appeared.
• I then selected green screen.
• Once this has been selected my footage is now in the style of a letterbox frame.

With Letterbox                                                                         Without Letterbox

• Overall I am quite pleased with this effect on the footage.
• I feel that by using the letterbox framing it adds more drama to the scene. Which will look good in the long run when we create the final opening sequence.
• As well as this it makes the scene feel more professional and gives off a cinematic look.

Brief Trial

• In this short sequence I wanted to try and incorporate many of the ideas I have already looked at and bring them together.
• Using previous footage and some flashback footage that Ellen had shot, I combined the two to create a short sequence to provide as a mock up for the final film opening. 
• I used the hands and the flicking back to the blood drenched shots to provide the audience a visual of the 'Killer' recalling his past memories of past victim(s).
• As well as creating this scene I tried to work a credit into the sequence to form an idea of how the final sequence will look.
• I used one of the fonts I had looked at in my previous post where I came up with many possibilities of fonts and layouts I could use.

- - -

• Overall I'm not impressed with the outcome of this sequence.
• One reason for this is the credits. I feel that the credits don't tie in very well and are out of place. Maybe to improve I could overlay it over the footage, however I feel that this won't work either as the footage is likely to overpower the font.
• As well as this the font has been designed to only be used on a black background.
• Though I do like the juxtaposition between the neat and clean journal to the messy and blood drenched body parts.
• I feel that to improve, I could work on the timings of the footage and the order in which they come on.

Mise en Scene: Jars

• To reflect on our killer's obsessive nature, we want their basement to be full of 'souvenirs' from their victims.
• One souvenir that the killer will take from each victim is a jar of their blood.
• Several of these needed to be created to place on the shelves of the killer's basement.
• I used water and acrylic paint to create a red liquid that would be visible in low key lighting.

• As our killer also keeps body parts from their victims, I placed dried fruit in the jars, as it resembles human flesh or intestines.
• Extreme close up shots are required for the 'flesh' to be visible.
• Overall, I feel that more jars must be created for the basement to be effective as a whole.

Soundtrack Test

• As our group struggled to find an un-copyrighted track that would be suitable for our opening sequence, we felt that composing our own track would have better results.
• I have created a basic soundtrack test, using Garageband, which will be developed further after more editing has been done.
• I felt that it would be best for our opening if the track started off slow and quiet and grew louder as the tension in the sequence builds.
• This short soundtrack test includes the quiet beginning and the louder ending.
• I also included white noise sound effects (created by scraping the microphone) that will be synchronous with the flashbacks in our opening.

Overall, I feel that this track must be developed further in order to be effective.  However, this cannot be done until a greater amount of editing has been completed, as it is important that the soundtrack is synchronous with the sequence.

Film Title

Title: 'Young Blood'

We're going to be using the title of 'young blood' for our film opening as we agreed as a group that it would be the most effective and relevant for us to use considering our choice of a psychological horror genre film and what clips will be included in the film opening.

Even though our survey came back as our target audience liking a different title but we didn't feel that this was as good as our chosen title for our film opening. Although 'young blood' was one of the titles that our target audience did still show an interest in this title so we still think it would be a good title to use, especially since it still gained a few votes on our survey.

• the use of young blood implies the film will be a horror.
• it will appeal to our target audience as they are young as well.
• it was still popular among our target audience so will be effective.
• it doesn't reveal entirely what our film/film opening will be about.
• it is appropriate for our film genre of a psychological horror.

We believe this title will be good and effective as it doesn't entirely reveal to the audience what the entire film would be about and so keeps a sense of mystery for the audience to try and figure out as the sequence goes on. It is also relevant to out film and film opening for what we are filming and so will be a good title to use.

Evaluation of Reshoot

Too Dark

• When re-shooting the scenes I found that when I was filming them at the time they weren't too dark however when reviewing my footage I found that they were way more darker than I had anticipated.
• There were also some shots when filming where I had noticed that it was too dark on the camera screen so I tried to fix it either by changing the settings or manually enhancing them.

Reflector 

No Reflector                                                                 Reflector

• When filming after I had noticed that the shots were way too dark to be seen I have an idea to use a make-shift reflector. 
• I remember Ellen's mask she made was tin foil on the opposite side to the face she had created. 
• When filming we placed the tin foil mask just below the frame which reflected the street lights onto the subject's face.
• This illuminated our subject's face and allowed more light in the frame.
• I feel that we might have to reshoot a couple more shots again due to quite a few being too dark.

Two Lightings

Shade                                                                                    Tungsten

• When shooting I realised that I hadn't changed my camera settings once again. 
• The lighting settings had been on shade which gave the shots an red tinge to them where as I wanted to film in Tungsten which can be seen above.
• This means there are two different different colourings to our footage which when edited won't have that continuative, steady flow which I had hoped for.

Improved Bridge Shots

• When reviewing and comparing the Bridge shots had been heavily improved since that last shoot.
• This is mainly due to the different lighting. This time we shot at sunset which gave the frame a rich colour whereas last time was very cold and dull.
• As well as adding a rich colour it created shadows adding more depth to the shot and more detail.
• Last time I used a straight on view of the bridge which didn't look right as the camera was slighting skewed which didn't make the shot look right.
• When reshooting I opted for a more angle view by filming from the left side of the bridge. I felt this angle worked better for this scene.

Better Shots of Killer

First Shoot                                                                                         Reshoot

.

• Last time when we filmed the Killer the shots were of a very poor quality. They tended to all be blurry and not very well positioned.
• This time with the camera settings changed and after playing around with some different angles, the shots have vastly improved.
• As well as this last time I felt when reviewing the first shoot our Killer was far too close to our Victim for it to be believable so this time when filming I tried to keep the distance between them greater.

Macro Lens

First Shoot                                                                                       Reshoot

• Last time when I shot this dropping of the Victim's item I had pointed out that it was too blurry and out of focus to be used due to the use of macro lens not being focused properly.
• However when reshooting again I managed to get the item more in focus however couldn't keep steady to make the shot decent enough to use.
• As well as keeping steady which ruined it, it was also the lighting ruined the shot. In this shot my camera was still on 'Shade' where as it should have been on 'Tungsten' to get rid of the orange tinge to the shot. 

Grain

• Like before in the first shoot, I had the same issue with grain due to the lighting being awful once again.
• Ideally when filming I want to be using an ISO of 800 or less to avoid grain in the footage. 
• However due to our storyline being set at night where are Victim is being followed home I need to use an high ISO in order to capture some picture.
• If I was to use anything lesser than ISO 3200, you would not be able to see anything in the footage.
• If I was to reshoot again, which I feel is needed, I might need to find some way to get more light into the frame.
• This might be using reflectors or finding a way to set up a light source.

Clearer Image Quality

• Whereas a lot of the shots had not improved due to the poor lighting. The shots that were filmed at sunset had significantly improved since last time due to changing the settings 
• By changing the settings of 1280x720 50 fps to 1920x1080 24fps it has significantly improved the quality of the picture.

Conclusion

• Overall when reviewing and comparing the reshoot to the first shoot there was a dramatic improvement.
• The main improvement was being able to get the clearer picture that I had hoped for in the first shoot and didn't achieve.
• However there were still a lot of problems with the reshoot. The scenes where it is darker will need to be reshot either with a light source. Yet I feel that this will still not work so I will have to consider using a different time of day to reshoot and see which will work the best.
• After two shoots of filming this scene from the film opening I feel that when editing this I will need to reconsider the time length of this scene and condense it down to fewer scenes as I feel this part of the sequence is not the strongest visually.

Killer's Lair Sketch

Killer's Lair

For this location we will be using a garage owned by Charlotte in our group and it will include little mise-en-scene as we want the audience to be focused on the minimal amount of things that are already in the room.

In the room we will have pictures of the killer's victims that have been killed and are going to be killed, so this will consist of images of the victims dead, alive and being stalked.

There will also be jar on shelves in the room that will contain body parts of the killer's victims to show what the killer does with them.

Killer's mask

• In American Horror Story, the masks that the killers wear are often very gruesome and attention grabbing.
•  This reflects on the characters' insanity, as they are not attempting to hide.
• These are very effective, however, our killer needs to hide their identity, and so I feel that their mask would need to be much subtler.

• Another type of mask that is commonly used is a clown mask.  This has been used in both The Dark Knight and Sherlock (BBC).

• These masks are effective as the smile on the clown's face juxtaposes with the violent acts of the villain.
• However, I feel that our killer would need an even subtler mask.

• Also in American Horror Story, one character wears a human like mask, of a 'pretty girl'.
• I feel that this would be effective for our killer, as they are striving to be pretty.

• For our killer's mask, we decided that it should be humanlike, as the killer is striving to be beautiful, rather than to be something else altogether. 
• We also decided to combine a human-like face with the mask the character 'bloodyface' in American Horror Story wears: a mask made from the skin of their victims.
• By having a mask like this, our killer can hide their identity in a way that doesn't draw too much attention, whilst having the facial features that they desire.

Typography Manipulation.

Typography: Adoble Photoshop CS6.

This week I decided to try and mnipulate different fonts of text to try and make them have different effects on them in adoble photoshop CS6.

Typography: Title.

I used photoshop CS6 to play around with what we could do with our title's typography for our film opening. 

For the some of them I used a property of satin and made the boldness of the actual red colour mode bold and more faded to see what it would look like. On one of them I also changed the position of the effect so that it wasnt covering the whole of the text, so some of the original black text was still there.

I also did some basic effects like putting a jagged edge round some of the text and putting borders of a different colour on some and changed the colour of the text to a different one and putting a gradient on it as well.

I also put a back shadow on one to make it look like that text is more 3D but no actually being 3D. I also used an effect where you put another colour onto the text and make it speckled by turing the colour's effect onto disappear and so it doesn't cover the whole of the text but makes it look like it is speckled or splattered with the colour.

Evaluation.
Overall I think the text I have created were good but quite basic so they could be developed more to actually changing the shape of the text itself. This would give the text a more developed and professional look and may also be more parallel with our film opening and it's genre of a psychological horror.

Shooting Script: Stalking Scenes

Date:

Saturday 11th January

Meeting Point:

• Bridge in Bexley @ 4.30 pm
• 30 mins for prep
• Start shooting at sunset.

People:

• Ellen - actor/props
• Ellie - actor
• Charlotte - filming/directing 

Equipment needed for shoot:

• Tripod
• Macro Lens
• Camera
• Steadicam

Props Required:

• Bus Pass/Wallet
• Killer's Mask

Aim of Shoot:

• Film the stalking scene on bridge, down streets and down the dark alley way.

Mise En Scene: Journal

Maps

• Like before when I experimented with editing the journal I used tracing paper in which I traced a map of the Victim's area.
• I used coloured felt-tip pens to show the routes in which the Victim use either to go to school, to a friend's house, to a bus stop etc.
• This time I created two maps which will enabled more different shots.
• When taking these pictures I used a macro lens to enable a clearer and more defined shot.
• When filming the maps there will be shots of the camera following routes and writing on the map.

• The maps aren't very neat however this doesn't quite matter as they will be shown very briefly not allowing the viewer to look at it for long
• The shots used in the opening scene will be extreme close ups and close ups throughout.
• Like last time I will use very soft tungsten light in order to create the atmosphere the Killer is at their desk looking through and adding to their Journal
• Overall I think the maps here will be fine to work with for the film opening
• My only problem is that the coloured routes might be too colourful yet this can be adjusted in the editing process.

Remaking Killer's notebook

Previously, the killer's notebook I made was too small.  I have now created a larger one, which has a more effective appearance, as a larger book can store more information.

• Again, I used a piece of string to hold the notebook shut, as this suggests that the book is full of information (an extreme amount of recorded information shows that the killer is obsessive).
• I stuck black tape on the cover and spine of the book, to show that it is falling apart with age.
• I slipped loose pieces of paper into the book, also indicators of the book being full of information.
• I also slipped pieces of corrugated cardboard in between the pages, to make it appear thicker and harder to close.

Overall, I feel that this larger book is much more effective than the smaller book, as its size allows for more information to be stored in it, and the more recorded information there is, the more obsessive the killer appears.  The features I included that I didn't with the smaller book (cardboard between the pages, tape on the cover) also contributed to a more effective result, as it is much clearer how full of information the book is.

Basement mise en scene

• The killer's basement has a wall covered in photographs of past kills and plans for future kills.  I had already begun to create this wall, but I have expanded it, as the larger it is, the clearer their psychopathic nature is to the audience.

• I used the photographs of one of the killer's victims, Cara.
• I also made notes on pieces of notebook paper, which include observations that our killer made when stalking Cara.

• I stuck the pictures together with masking tape in a fashion that was not particularly neat, as I wanted the finished wall to have a 'home made' appearance.

• I added smudges of blood to show that the killer put this part of the wall together shortly after the murder.
• I also used charcoal to make notes around the images, and to censor certain body parts that the killer found unappealing.

• Overall, I feel that the complete wall is effective, as it clearly conveys that there have been many past killings.
• Although some features, such as the fake blood, appear unrealistic, the basement will be in low key lighting and the unrealistic result will not be as obvious.

Recording Sounds

I experimented with recording sounds to add to our footage during the editing process to emphasise particular sounds that may not be audible in the footage. I recorded these sounds with household items on my phone.




I created this sound by taking a knife out of my cutlery drawer and scraping it against the metal inside of the drawer as I did so. This sound could be used in a scene where our antagonist sharpens his tools, or removes them from their hiding place. I recorded this sound in my kitchen, so there was some noticeable background noise that interfered with the recording and so it was not very effective.



I recorded myself turning the pages in a notebook to create this sound, which would be used in a scene where our antagonist looks through his diary that contains photos and information about past victims. This recording was the most successful as there is no background noise interfering with the sound and it sounds authentic.




The last sound was created by rustling the branches of my Christmas tree, as every time I tried to record bushes and trees in an outdoors setting there was natural background noise that interfered with the recording. This sound would be used in the stalking scenes of our opening, where the antagonist follows her victims before she kills them. The tree I used was ineffective as it made a different sound to bushes and foliage being moved around and rustled, so this recording was not successful. There is also background noise as I recorded this in my living room and there were other people present.

Evaluation
The recordings are not of the best quality because:

• My phone was the only device I had that could record audio
• There is background noise in two of the recordings
• They might not sound authentic

To improve, next time I should ensure that there is as little background noise present as possible so the sound in the recordings is not distracted from. I should also find another device that records sound in a higher quality.

Shooting Script and Evaluation

Date of filming: 2nd January 2014
Locations: Bexley Village, the bridge on the A2

3 pm: Meet at Bexley War Memorial and begin prep for filming e.g. preparing mise-en-scene on the actors

• Mise-en-scene included the stalker's costume and props (all black clothing and rucksack) and the victim's costume (coat, jeans and boots)

4 pm: Begin filming stalking scenes around Bexley Village and bridge

• Shoot establishing shots, POV shots, mid shots, over the shoulder shots 

 

For reference, this is the scene from the storyboard that we plan to film:

5 pm: Finish filming


Evaluation of filming
This session did not go as well as we expected because we lost the light quickly and it became too dark to film successfully, which means we will have to reshoot and reconsider what time we start filming in the future. There were also inconsistencies in the shots and difficulty with camera settings, which will be changed for the next time we shoot.

On the other hand, the session was beneficial to us as we were able to see which camera angles would work the best in these scenes and will be able to use them in the reshoot. Our actor and mise-en-scene were also prepared quickly which will be useful in future filming sessions. After this session, we now have to reconsider how long it will take us to film the rest of our opening and also how early we should begin preparing and shooting in the future.

Making a Noose.

Mise-en-Scene: Noose.

For our film opening we would be needing a noose in which the killer uses to hang their victims in their lair. 

1. For this I went and brought around 3 metres of rope from a building shop and looked up a tutorial of how to make a noose online and found a well explained video on youtube on how to do so.

 2. Firstly I made the rope into a loose 'S' shape with a long amount of rope on each end.

3. Next I made the 'S' shape closer together and pinched it in the middle making sure I had all of the loops held together.

4. Then I took one end of the rope and wrapped it around the rope 13 times to make sure the loop was secure.

5. Afterwards I had a smaller loop one end and a short length of rope. I put the short length of rope through the small loop and pulled on one side of the larger loop to secure this end.

5. Finally I pulled the other side of the large loop to make it bigger and more presentable to finish.

Evaluation.

I thought that this piece of mise-en-scene was quite effective as because it wasn't too thick it allowed it to look like anyone could have made it instead of it looking too pre-made. I also tried doing this with a much thicker piece of rope but it was very difficult to manipulate and actually make into a noose and so was not as successful or effective than the other, thinner piece of rope. I think we could use this in our film opening in small short clips of it hanging in the killer's lair, swinging and it being still as well to show that it is and has been used by the killer.