Filming Starts Today

I started my first few scenes of filming today I got the scenes of the killer getting ready to go outside and go on the "hunt". I just filmed those inside scenes today as I plan to film my scenes in chunks day by day so I can spend lots of time one once scene. From this I can make sure that re-shoots won't be necessary as I will film everything I need and more for the day. For example today during filming I made sure to get more establishing shots and other shots that while not completely relating to what I was filming could be used later for inserts during the editing process.

From today I also decided to roll back on my idea of doing the opening editing all through my phone's camera app. I will get most of my clips individually and I will edit it all in Davinci resolve. So any audio editing will also be done on that editing software. I'll continue my filming on Tuesday to get the outdoor scenes for that day. 

Scheduling Issues

Who Would've Thought

So due to a global pandemic my schedule has changed quite a bit. Now that filming needs to be pushed back. I need to make some changes to the film and the filming schedule. Without the extra people that I needed I now have to change up the way I will film certain scenes.

Starting now filming will begin soon probably in a few days, once I can rethink how to shoot my new scenes. But without the people I was gonna have on set with me and as actors it will be harder to film but it will still be possible to get everything that I need for the opening. 

Hopefully I won't have to cut anything out. And if all goes well I will film before Monday and I'll get it all done in a day and in time for editing. The CCR will come after the edit and I admit I will be cutting it a bit short with the time but it will be possible for me to do.

As of now i'll have to leave it at the murderer trying to only break into one house instead of multiple houses as I was originally going to do.

Filming Begins Soon

Filming Schedule

I plan to start the filming of my opening on Tuesday March 17th. The times are pretty messy and most likely subject to change while filming.

At 2:30pm I meet up with the crew at our first filming location which is at my house. From there we film the first scenes in the house and then the scenes of the killer walking around the neighborhood.

Next we will have to drive to my friends home so we can film the scene where the killer pretends to break in.

After that we will return to my house to finish filming and get the scene where the killer is watching a YouTube video about the murder that he committed. This scene will be filmed on a different camera.

This should all take place in between 2:30pm to around 8pm if we are able to pace ourselves appropriately.

Learning New Things

Video Tutorials on Video Tutorials

In preparation for the creation of my opening I decided to look at some video tutorials for editing. Mostly helpful things that will add some extra visual flair that I want. To me editing is very important but not in the sense of how flashy it is but in the correct usage of editing.

This video details how to create a VHS filter for Davinci Resolve. Which is the editing software that I will be using to make any types of edits for my opening. Auditory and Visually. The video gives everything I need to make it look like my opening is older if that Is what I want. Although I think that decision will be made after filming is done. I do think the effect would add to grit of my opening but I will only add it if needed.

This video was a good start that helped me to learn more about the general basics of how to use and animate text in Davinci Resolve. I do not plan on using the default transitions as shown in the video as I want something a bit cooler and less plain than the pre-made text effects.

And now that I have some knowledge on the basics of text editing in Davinci Resolve I looked at this tutorial for some more in depth information. Out of the text effects shown in the video I liked the last two and I plan on using them in my opening. The neon effect I really liked because it grabs your attention and makes sense to be used in my opening as the film is going to be internet concentric so it makes sense for the text to glow. The next text effect would be the writing effect. But i'd want to change it up to look more like typing than something being handwritten.

Location Scouting

Location Scouting

Location scouting for me was pretty easy. I only needed a few places to record this whole thing. I just had to be able to make it all seem like the opening takes place within more places than the very few locations that I am shooting in. And that should not be that hard as long as I am able to block scenes well and use my locations wisely.

I'll use my garage to as the place where i'll record where the killer sets up his gear to go out with. I'll have to make it look a lot more organized and clean as I'm trying to give off the vibe that the killer is the neat freak and control freak.

I will be using my house as a big shooting location as I will also be using it as one of the houses that the killer tires to break into and eventually does break in to.

This will be where the final shot takes place. Now keep in mind for none of these images is the lighting scheme final. I plan on all of them looking very different to how these scouting pictures look. This is the place where the killer will enter the house someone will call out if anyone is there and it will cut off there.

This is the place where i'll have the killer being on the hunt as he passes by someone walking their dog. (The dog in the picture will be the dog in the opening). This also is where a lot of the killer wandering around is going to be. As I like the safe suburban feel of the neighborhood and how it contrasts well with the danger that I'm trying to portray.

Here is a picture of my friends house. This is one of the houses that I will have the killer try to break in to. Thank you my good friend Hubert for taking this picture and letting me use his home for a fake break in attempt.

Creative Critical Reflection

What to do about that CCR

After the recent presentation on the CCR in class it got me thinking about the presentation of my CCR. And it is making think about what I can do to make the CCR as interesting as possible while also being able to say what I need to say in the shortest amount of time possible. Now that doesn't mean less information. It means less fluff and only the important details will stay.

My goal is to stay under 7 minutes while providing all necessary information in a fun and interesting way. Because not even the most boring person on the planet would enjoy watching me stare at a low resolution laptop camera for 10 minutes, it's putting me to sleep thinking about it.

I plan to achieve this with an interesting premise and style for my CCR. I was thinking, hey why don't I make the CCR in the same format as my opening that would make sense. So I plan on doing this. The premise: I'm in a dark room with a light shining on me and I have a bag over my head, i'm being recorded, and basically interrogated. I'll have someone pull the bag off of my head and immediately from there I will start talking about my CCR. I think it would be kind of interesting and funny if I were in that position for the CCR. It is definitely more interesting that looking into a laptop camera.

Being held hostage could explain why I am going to be talking so quick and explaining my CCR in a hurry. It'll all add to the presentation of the CCR. But as of now I have not finished my project so I do not know what I will even be saying. I do plan on writing a "script" and by that I mean I will just write an outline of what my main points will be for the CCR questions. 

Research

Blair Witch Project and Lake Mungo

For research on my opening, I decided to watch Lake Mungo and the Blair Witch Project (1999). Both films are very similar in a style both were documentaries, although Blair Witch Project was more on the line of a found footage film, just being about the making of a documentary. I will examine what works well for these films and see how they could work well in my opening.

Blair Witch Project

Blair Witch goes for the exact same look as I want for my opening. And it perfectly captures it too. The movie does feel very real, as it claims to be. And I think that it's amateur looking filmmaking sells that idea. Never for a second does it feel overly produced and that lends it to the movie really looking and feeling like footage that was found on some dead missing people. The low quality and bad shot composition are what sold it for me.  That is something that I would use in my opening to make it feel more real.

I feel that this clip from the movie shows what I explained.

Lake Mungo

Lake mungo is yet another example of a film that tries it's best to emulate real life. The film never does anything at the beginning to show that it could be somehow faked. Instead of relying on the amateur style to sell that it is real. The documentary instead tries to make itself seem just as produced as any other documentary out there so then nothing seems off. It using all the typical characteristics of the documentary sells the idea quickly. The film's director even just gave actors slim outlines of the script so when he interviewed them for the fake documentary they could give off real improvised responses.

This Ryan Hollinger analysis talks more in-depth 

Pre-Production: Sound and Music?

What is the Plan for the Sound and Music?

I thought about this after the group discussion. A lot of my group members brought up what type of music that they plan on using in their film opening. At first this concerned me because it felt like I was somehow behind but then I realized that I didn't need music. Considering the gritty realistic vibe that I am going for non-diegetic music would not work well, I mean I am trying to make the opening feel real so adding in music for dramatic effect would clash with the presentation that I am going for.

Sound design will be important for me. To keep up the realism I do plan on using almost all the audio solely from my phone. And if I do add any other sounds in the editing process I will make absolute sure that they sound like they were captured from the phone. Because again having overproduced sound that is too high quality can ruin the presentation of the opening. So from how it looks now there will be little sound design and no music. I am fine with this decision though as they are purposeful and do add to the opening in a positive way.

I will use Davici resolve to edit the opening, as it is the program that I have been using to edit my projects throughout the year so I am familiar with how to edit sound and video quite well with it. To continue on the subject of editing I have an odd way on how I plan to edit the opening together. I don't know if it will work but if it does it will be great. So basically phones have this feature that when you are recording a video there is a way to pause the the video while recording. Essentially with this feature I would be able to edit how the opening flows all from the phone camera. I really want this to work because to me this is how I would imagine the killer to have edited his video. I don't think that this killer recorded a bunch of separate clips of his adventure to murder someone and then went home and neatly edited them together. No, it has to be messier than that, it needs to feel more improvised, and with that feature on the phone it can feel that way. For this to happen that means that I will have to record the whole opening in a day and in one long run basically getting all of my shots in one long segmented take, but if I can do this all before my phone dies I am sure that it will turn out good.

That pause button is what stops the recording, pressing it again continues the recording.

For the recording I might turn down the recording resolution of my camera or put some kind of filter over it to make it look more rough.

Group Discussion

What I Learned From the Group Discussion

The recent group discussion that we had recently really helped me out and calmed me down too. Through the group discussion I realized that compared to my peers that I am still on pace with the project. That really helped to calm me down as it was good to know that I wasn't insanely behind everyone else and that I was instead right on target. 

It was also a big help to see how other people and what other people are doing for their projects, seeing their ideas and thought process behind their ideas helped shape the way I thought about my project. In my group a lot of the people had their actors and general set and character design nailed down. To me that showed how I was lacking in those aspects so I plan on finalizing that during this week. 

The group meeting was also helpful to see feedback on my project. It was reassuring to see the reactions people had to my project. I liked how from the first blog post on my page they were able to identify that it was horror which is good as you always want your genre to be noticeable. The group was also able to give me some good ideas as for what I should add into my opening. One was a recommendation to the channel Rob Gavagan. A horror you-tuber that goes over content similar to my opening and could be good grounds for research. Another really good recommendation was to make the killer in my opening this neat freak/control freak. I thought that was a more interesting idea what what I originally wanted which was just some generic character design for someone fitting that description, it was just going to be some guy who is messy and wears a lot of black and that now seems pretty boring compared to the new idea.

I am planning on taking a lot of inspiration from the opening of American psycho to put that control freak aspect into my opening. This works out great as American psycho deals with the same subject matter but in a different way.

Rob Gavagan: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYxrnDjNQZIs_aAcdhqSveg

Props! And Various Other Things!

What will I need for this opening?

So I was doing some exploring around my garage for a hammer as I originally wanted to have that be the weapon that will be used by the murderer. But I ended up finding something better.

I found this thing! I thought it screamed creepy murder weapon so I decided to replace the hammer with whatever this rusty pickaxe.

Another prop. I plan to use this bag for the backpack that the killer will be wearing throughout the opening.

Now thinking of some props and essentials that I do not yet have I have quite a few. Now I don't think I would do well in the role of the killer, even though you would basically never see me I feel that it would be noticeable that a not so scary person was behind the camera. For this role I plan of having my friend play the role, as he weighs more than I do and is taller than me and I feel that his presence will translate well to video. At the end I plan on being "Arthur Lancaster" the person you never see but you hear. I think I could do the role well, all I have is one line so it's simple enough. And I could get my friend Elizabeth the be the person walking the dog by the killer. I'll have her walk my dog Selena by the killer and say hi.

Picture of the Selena!! (Really an excuse to put a picture of my dog here but a valid excuse)

For the costume design I will go for all black. Maybe black pants or jeans for the killer and a big black jacket. I want to give off the vibe that the killer is not trying to be seen at night so the all black would make sense. I think i'd want to find a pair of messed up and damaged sneakers for the killer to wear just to have that little detail that this person does not care about much.

As for the set locations I will use my house for a good few of them (place killer breaks into, Garage as the place where the killer is in the beginning), my neighborhood, as well as my friends neighborhoods and homes. As part of the opening is the killer trying to break into different homes, I will use my friends homes. Because there is no way I would be able to ask my neighbors if I could pretend to look like I'm trying to break into their homes. So i'll use two of my friends houses for that.