Editing: Day Three.

Today we added the titles to our film using DaFont. We had to decide when would be the perfect time to add the titles to create the most impact.

For example when the door closes or when she puts her keys down on the table.

We also created our own movie title for our film company 'MRM films' at the beginning.

After we had done all of this we started playing around with filters, we added a bleached filter as the beginning to make it feel more eerie and bleak.

Editing: Day Two

Now that we had the shell of our film done, we moved on to adding the sound, Millie wasn't in so me and Rachel started editing the sound. We started by detaching some of the audio from our footage of wildlife (birds tweeting etc.)  and putting over the bits that we filmed in the park. It was much better than just silence because it created a sense of 'calm before the storm' which added to the suspense.


We then added other sound effects which we found in Final Cut Pro such as a dripping tap and a knock on the door. We had to find the ones that fitted perfectly with the footage, so this involved us looking through quite a few different ones.

Once we had added these effects we decided that there was something missing, we decided that there needed to be some music in the house. We started looking for the right music but it was difficult to find music that fit in well, finally we found rights free classical music that started slowly and built up, we believed that this added to the tension of the opening.

After we added the music we realised that it didn't look quite right, we wanted to look like it was coming from a radio but we didn't have the right footage. We decided to film some extra footage at school, luckily I had the same red nail polish on that Lola had had on and we found a surface simular to that in the house. We added the footage and it fit perfectly with the other footage

Editing: Day One.

The first day of editing involved uploading all the footage off the SD card and on to Final Cut Pro. In this first editing session we were learning the ropes of the software so it was a bit slow as to be expected.

We started by looking through all the footage and choosing the best bits to use. We put all the basic scenes in to chronological order and then added any extra bits that we thought looked good and were aesthetically pleasing.

By the end of this session we had the skeleton of our film finished.

Maximazing production values on a low budget.

We intend to make an Independent film, as a newly founded independent British film production company, we would have to work on a low budget typical of independent films. However we wanted to maintain high production values throughout.


Ed Burns (also known as 'independent Ed'), is a filmmaker known for making low budget films with high production values.

He had very modest ambitions for his first film, 'The Brothers McMullen' and had a small budget of $25,000. The film ended up grossing $10,246,600 which was a huge success, it also won the 1995 Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance festival.


Ed Burns has made films since then with budget more than half of that of his first Indie film.
One of his most recent films 'The Newlyweds' had a budget of $9000.
Burns advises young filmmakers to make use of the cheapest tools they can find.


“You guys have access to cameras that cost under $3,000. Why not just go make your movie? And it’s up to you to fight the good fight, market the hell out of your film and use Facebook and Twitter and email blasts and do all of the things indie rock bands have been doing for the last 10 years,”




This is how we intend to market our film. Alternatively to expensive advertising campaigns, we would maximise our available social media resources such Facebook and Twitter, to gain exposure through word of mouth. We would also make a website for teaser videos for our film.






Filmmaker Joshua Caldwell made his feature film Layover for just $6000; he cast his friends, borrowed a Canon 5D, and now it's competing for the New American Cinema award at SIFF.
This is similar to our methods of filming, we hired high quality cameras to ensure high production values, we used an up and coming actress who's rates would be lower than a big name. We used tripods and steady cams to ensure that our footage looked professional, while still keeping the feel of an independent film.

Naming our thriller.

Neither Me, Millie and Rachel really had any clue of what to name out film. We wanted to name it something that fitted in with the genre of thriller but would also stand out.

It had to be relevant to our film but I also wanted it to be quite ambiguous.

Some ideas we had were:
The Dark Past
Remember Me
Mother Dearest
Black Roses
Thirteen

We thought that 'The Dark Past' and 'Mother Dearest' sounded to much like cheesey horror films so we decided against them.

'Black Roses' and 'Thirteen' were too confusing and irrelevant to our film.

We really liked the name 'Remember Me' as it is quite ambiguous and the meaning will only become clear to the audience when watching the film. It is relevant to the film because it is about a girl slowly remembering the awful things that happened to her, this makes the name eerie and spooky. It doesn't give away too much and will leave any potential audience members wandering what the film is about, drawing them in. It also fits into the genre of thriller and therefore will attract fans of the genre.

Filming our thriller.

After some deliberation, we all decided the most convenient day to film our thriller was Tuesday the 16th of February, as we were all available on this day.

Filming Time Line

10:20 AM: Meet at the school gates.

10:30 AM: Pick up all the filming equipment from the media room.

We then left school and walked to the bus stop to meet our actress Lola.

10.40 AM: LOLA AVIVA CALL TIME 

Once we had met Lola we walked to first filming location (heath extension)

10:50 AM: Arrive at Heath extension and set up filming equipment. 

This was relatively easy as Nuray had shown us in the lesson how to set up the equipment, the only issue was that the floor was quite muddy which meant that setting up the tripod was slightly difficult. 

11 AM: Begin filming. 

We started with the shots of Lola sitting on the bench smoking, we did the establishing shot using the tripod so we could do a wide shot of her. After we had done all the shots we needed with the tripod, we then began to use the steady cam to do the tracking shots of Lola leaving the park and walking back to the house. After we had done that we packed away the filming equipment ready to move on to the next location.

11:45 AM: Walk to the next filming location.

This is when we came across our first issue; Tom, who's house was our next filming location, was not answering his phone despite agreeing to let us film at his house and despite us checking with him the night before if it was still okay, we later found out that he was still asleep at this point. This meant that we had to think on our feet and come up with a new idea, Millie decided to call our friend Isobel who lived 5 minutes away from where we were and who had a very nice house and bathroom. She thankfully agreed to let us film in her house so we headed there and set up all our equipment.

12 AM: Begin filming at house.

We started with the shots of Lola walking though the front door, up the stairs and into the bathroom, we filmed all these shots with the steadycam. We then set up the tripod in the bathroom to film the rest of the shots that we needed. 

Our next hurdle had arrived: we were filming using the mirror that I had brought from my house, the next thing we needed to do was crack it, so me and Millie took it outside to do so. However, instead of cracking the whole thing smashed into hundreds of tiny pieces. This meant that we re filmed all the scenes of Lola in the bathroom mirror instead, but we could not smash it. In the end this actually looked better and far more subtly scary then it had before, as we made the mum out of focus behind her which was really creepy.

We were done with all the filming by 2:30 PM, we had filmed all the shots on the shot list and quite a few extra ones to add to the mise-en-scene.

Personally I was really happy with how the whole day went, it proved to me how well we worked together as a team especially with all the problems we faced. I think we dealt with everything really well and efficiently, and i'm exited to begin the editing process.

The Oscars.

The oscars happened tonight at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood. I watched the live television broadcast on BBC 1 and it was interesting to what films were nominated and which films won the awards.


The big event of the night was the award for 'Best Actor', this was such a big deal because Leonardo Dicaprio was a favourite to win the award. Leo has been nominated to win Best Actor six times with no success, being very close each time but only just missing out. The fact that he hasn't won one before had become an internet joke, with many memes being made about it, this is why there was such controvarcy surrounding the award, and why there was huge celebrations once he had won the award. He was certainly deservant of it, here is a clip of his performance.



Brie Larson won the award for 'Best Actress' for her role in the film 'Room'. I was happy to hear this because I have watched this film recently and I think she was very deservant of this award. Here's a clip of her performance.



The film that won the 'Best Picture' was 'Spotlight' Tom McCarthy's film on how the Boston Globe uncovered the massive scandal of child molestation and cover-up within the local Catholic Archdiocese. This is the best award you can win in a night and it was a very split year so it could have easily gone to the other contender. “This film gave a voice to survivors and this Oscar amplifies that voice, which we hope will become a choir that will resonate all the way to the Vatican,” said “Spotlight” producer Michael Sugar onstage at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.