Producing the Short Film: Final Cut of PULSE

Producing the Short Film: Continuity Error

When playing back our content once we had imported the scenes to the editing package in the correct order, I noticed a major continuity error. In the clip below you can see that as she approaches the bottom of the stairs the victim turns the light off.

Whereas in the scene that it quickly cuts to next the light is back on.

Now that I was confident in using the editing package, I quickly fixed this error by cutting some of the end of the first clip so that in the transition to the next scene there is no alteration in the lighting. 

Producing the Short Film: Practicing Editing Techniques

Previously, I had never used premiere elements 9 as an editing package before so I was initially quite apprehensive to use it as the vast amount of features and technicalities were quite daunting. Therefore, before I edited my film for my coursework, Lucy and I edited a short introductory film for our school  teachers band that was shown to the school before they performed at a charity. This enabled me to try out a number of the features that premiere elements offers. Once I was ready to edit my PULSE film I was a lot more confident in which effects worked well and also how to apply them easily to the footage. Below is the school concert video that I created whilst practising the editing techniques of premiere elements 9.

Producing the Short Film: Ident and Credits

When discussing with Lucy the possible options of how to portray our ident we both liked the idea of paper cuttings or a typewriter. I collected the relevant letters out of existing newspapers and it looked similar to the image below. However, we both agreed that this style didn't quite fit the genre we were aiming for and wouldn't work well with the accompanying music.

We also disregarded the concept of having  typewriting letters because although achievable (see below) again it didn't symbolise the brand identity or style of our production company.

So I decided to create my own template of our ident on Paint. I thought that bold lettering would reflect the genre of horror that we were aiming for. Also, by using solely black and white tones and contrasting between the two this would capture the audiences attention. 

It then occured to me that at the end of the ident we could include the recording of a broken camera effect (see below) as this could be our recognisable statement before each film. However, when I had created the broken camera effect, by simply filming a TV screen with no signal, I realised that this would fit best as the end scene in our film to leave it on cliffhanger and Lucy agreed.

The images beneath explain how I created the ident and credits of the film.

Producing the Short Film: Music

As Lucy and I decided that we would feature no dialogue within the film - the  copyright free music included would play a key role in building suspense and tension throughout.

The first example of music that we used was to accompany our ident of 'EXPOSED Productions' at the beginning.We chose the song Bump In The Night, taken from the royalty free music website Incompetech. This is a form of non-diagetic sound as the music was played over the ident scene and the beat coincided with the letters of 'EXPOSED productions' dropping.  We were able to create this effect by using the editing package premiere elements 9.It was also fitted in well with the eerie, horror genre that we intended to create. 

The second feature of music within the film is diagetic. It is the song playing in the background in the scene where the victim is getting ready in her bedroom. Again this a copyright free song as it was played by our friend's band. Below is a video of them playing the whole song.

If you watch the clip below you can clearly see that we cut the music quite near the start of the song and so it is only the introduction that is heard and recognised. I believe that this is the right song to use as its upbeat tempo is juxtaposed the rest of the music that features throughout.

In the two scenes below I decided to include the same royalty free music. This allowed for continuity and enabled the audience to recognise the sound and so the tension built up during the scenes. The song is The Hive and was also taken from the Incompetech website. Originally the song accompanied only the credits but when we watched the film back I realised that the train scene was quite long. I had the option of either cutting out some of the footage or adding some form of sound on top of it. By cutting it we would have lost some of the tension and suspense build up and so by inserting this song over the footage was definitely the best course of action. Also the tempo of the music increases throughout and as it reaches its climax towards the end of the scene the film cuts to the next train scene and the music comes to an abrupt stop. This brings the audience back to a momentarily relaxed and comfortable state when watching the film.

Producing the Short Film: Problems with Filming

Storyboard

Although we did keep to the majority of our storyboard we realised that we had two much content for an approx 5 mins film for it to look professional. Therefore, we eliminated the scenes of meeting friends in the park as it perhaps over complicated the plot and by keeping it to two main characters with one following the other it would not only be easier but also more effective.

Main Narrative

The first problem that Lucy and I had is that we disagreed over which point of view shot should feature in our film (see video above). We asked the opinions of our teachers and classmates and concluded that the shot that I favoured would be featured.

Chase scene attempt 1

Chase scene attempt 2

When we watched the footage back of our first attempt at filming the chase seen we faced a major problem. It was too dark for the camera to detect any of the action. We had to change cameras in order to film the scene to a decent standard. Luckily, once we addressed the problem the footage from the second attempt at filming the chase scene was of much better quality and suitable to use.

The only problem with the telephone box scene is that Lucy and I realised it didn't really fit in well with our sequence and so we made the decision not to include it within the film. This meant that our final sequence flowed better and we had more control over the time frames.

Producing the Short Film: Main Narrative

Here are some photographs of us at the scenes of the main narratives -  hard at work. 

Shown below is a short video of all the establishing shot takes that Lucy and I filmed. From these takes we chose the footage that we believed was best.

Here is a compilation of the bedroom scenes that we recorded. They are not in the same order that the feature within the film.

Below is the footage of the scenes on the stairs that we captured. We used all of these shots in our final film.

Shown beneath are various pan shots at the train station. We only featured one of these shots in the final film and the video of that shot is also shown below.

These are the paranoid shots that we filmed after getting off the train. Again, we chose the clip that we thought worked best and edited it as part of our final film.

This is the telephone shot that we initially disregarded as it took away some of the tension built up and wasn't essential for the scene. Also, we were conscious of the length of our film and so we both agreed to cut this shot out completely.

Here is a short video of all of the chase scenes that we filmed. We included all of these within the final cut and alternated between the various shots and angles.