post production - last few days

 Last few days of editing

Looking at the last few days of editing, there were only a few small changes to the concept and idea. We didn't make any choices that were too dramatic or changed the idea in an extreme way. For example towards the end of the opening sequence when our main actor turns and screams, we decided to add a dog whining (sound effect) so that there is a reason to him turning around. Originally it was going to be that he heard footsteps and that the camera lunges towards him and we are left wondering  what happened to him. The most clear and powerful way that we created tension (in my opinion) is through the ending of our opening sequence. When we finished editing we decided that the scene would end with our actor screaming and the screen going blank. The creepy music would still play for a few seconds and then end. The tension was massively created there as the audience are left wondering what happened to our actor and the dog (whether they are alive or not)

Based off of our opening scene I feel like we successfully followed the stereotypical conventions of  a horror and were able to grip our audiences into questioning everything. The sequence ends on a cliff hanger and the audience are left wondering what was in the woods, who did it, and why etc. The audience are engaged as something has made this grown man scream. They would have to keep on watching to know what happened. I feel that our choices of editing were quick and snappy which meant that it kept the narrative moving at all our points. Quick cuts and popcorn editing was one of our successful points as we were able to see all aspects of our actors point of view as well as the location.

Looking at the titles and what we decided to keep we ended up using only a few titles as we didn't want to cramp our whole opening scene with titles as it took away from the sequence. Originally we tried to put quite a few titles, but it meant that no one actually got to read the titles properly and it felt too rushed. We only added in the important titles such as the 

- the investor group (The panic group)

- the studio (exorcist studios)

- the director (Tom Goss)

- the (directors) movie

- the main actor 1, 2 and 3 

That was it as we wanted to keep the titles at a minimum but give the basic information of the opening sequence. Now looking at sound (we kept it quite basic). We used free music from youtube and converted it into an MP3. I tried to research creepy music that reflected the atmosphere of the film. It ended up really enforcing and helping our scene and was a successful decision. We only did one use of a sound effect which was the dog whining. But apart from that we just doubled up the clearer bits of sound from the external mic and start to increase and decrease the volume of certain parts of the clip. Some of the issues that arose was that we had match the volume and make it sound natural. For example I had to start decreasing the background music so that we could hear the sound from our actor speaking. We also thought the background sound was too loud at the beginning so we had to cross fade the sound and blending it together so it faded in getting louder. The soundtrack that we used was a slow paint and violin start which started to get louder and faster as the scene goes on. We wanted something that emphasized the intensity and creepiness of the scene. 

Lastly looking at effects and anything we used. We didn't use any as we wanted to keep it to a minimum. There was also no reason to as we wanted to keep it naturalistic. The main idea of this was that something like this could happen to anyone. So we wanted to keep this as real as possible so the audience would fear it. It felt more scary if it was real. In general at times I wish we had checked when we were filming the lighting of each clip. Sometimes the clips and shots were too bright, so it didn't reflect that gloomy mood and atmosphere we were going for in the beginning. Overall tho it was realistic and communicated the key themes and ideas of our opening title sequence.