Hear No Evil

So now that we have our rough cut finished, you may ask “what’s next”? Ha, I was wondering the same thing. Well it’s time to actually edit our film, which is quite frankly one of the most important stages of filmmaking. The quality of editing as a whole can either make or break our film, so it’s extremely vital that I work super hard at this stage to ensure that our film reaches its full potential and resembles our initial envision for it as close as possible. I will be taking on the role as the editor for our film, so some things I will have to complete include:

• cutting clips
• color correcting
• create title slide
• insert title credits
• insert sound effects
• transitions
• ensure smoothness and flow all together

My partner Hannah will be in charge of sound, so until she records the sounds we need, I will be busy completing the tasks above. After she gets all of the sound recorded, I will upload them into iMovie and will insert them where appropriate. One of the most important sounds we need are the knocking noises, and I will have to edit them further in iMovie to create the illusion that they’re getting louder each time. These sounds as well as all of the other sounds are vital in order to create the suspense and fear needed to make our movie scary. I am looking forward to being editor because I enjoy editing and having the creative capability to make this thing come together. I’m excited to see how it will turn out!

1. What is the setting (time and place)? How can you tell?

The time is at night due to the dark surroundings and the place is located at an abandoned trailer and an empty dirt road. 

2. Who are the characters? How can you tell?

The leading female who has an attachment to a supernatural being because throughout the opening it is solely focused on the girl.

3. What is the movie going to be about? How can you tell?

The movie is going to be about a cult member being haunted by what they summoned because in the opening it shows the lead character coming out of a house with a black robe and hood then dealing with supernatural occurrences.

4. What genre is the film? How can you tell? 

The genre is a horror film because there are elements regarding the genre such as low key lighting, a supernatural being, and perhaps being part of a cult.

5. To what extent is it readable as a film opening?

The film opening is readable as an opening to a horror film because it does not reveal too much information regarding the plot and brings in the audience.

6. Overall, how might the clarity of meaning in the video be improved?

The clarity can be improved by providing more scenes regarding the cult action because it was unclear to me whether or not the female was a part of it whereas my partner thought she was and introduced the idea of adding more scenes regarding that aspect.

How much continuity does the video have? Can it be improved anywhere and how?

In our video I wore the same outfit for all 3 days of shooting to ensure that it all looks like it was filmed at the same time. We filmed at night for each day of filming, however after looking at the rough cut we noticed that the clock in my car shows slightly different times in each of the shots, which kind of puts a block in the continuity in that sense. We could improve by changing the time on my car so it matches up with each shot. We are also adding sound effects in some scenes to fill in empty sounds that could become more engaging and suspenseful.

To what extent is the video readable within your chosen genre? Can you tell it’s a horror/thriller/comedy/coming-of-age etc.? How can this area be improved?

Our movie is identifiable as a horror film because we used dark lighting and shot at night to create a creepy atmosphere. Our costuming represents the meaning behind the plot and establishes that Evelyn is in a cult. The demon with the pointed hood represents that the entity / spirit has some sort of connection with the main character, and serves as the source of fear in the film.

To what extent is the video readable as a film opening? Can you understand that it’s an opening? Why or why not? What can you do to make it more readable?

Our rough cut is readable as a film opening because it is establishing a character through the shots of her leaving the abandoned building all the way through until she gets home. It automatically creates mystery and constitutes questions that the audience may have. This automatically hooks viewers in because they will want to keep watching the film to find answers to their questions. We will make it more readable by using less cuts towards the end to make it more suspenseful and come off as a film opening and not a trailer. We will also add a title sequence at the end.

In order to get the best possible shots for each scene, we filmed each shot several times until we were completely satisfied with it. Because of this, it ended up taking us three consecutive nights to get everything filmed in time for the rough cut. Even though it took way longer than expected, we still had so much fun filming. At times it was hard for me to be serious because I kept laughing during some scenes, which I knew would be hard for me going into this since that’s just my personality. Since we reshot lots of scenes, we ended up having quite a few bloopers, so enjoy!

Above is our rough cut. All / most of our final shots are put together in order without edits. It’s a little hard for Hannah and I to watch since we know it will look completely different in the end, but it’s good to know that we achieved what we wanted in each shot. There’s one part where I see the demon in my backup camera and I look back and it’s not there, and I feel that those two shots need either a shot in between or something different because it just doesn’t look right to me. Most of the other shots are final so we may just have to film a couple extra shots this week to help with the flow of the plot. All of the sound in the rough cut will be replaced with voiceovers and sounds we record in postproduction / editing stage, so ignore all of the background noise in the shots.

While filming, we ended up changing how some of the scenes played out. It was hard to portray what we were envisioning, and getting the right shots for each scene took way longer than we had originally thought. We ended up cutting my friend Julie’s role since we only had two robes instead of three. Hannah’s sister took on the role of the demon because my sister ended up unable to film, however she stepped up on the last day because Hannah’s sister got sick. Since our window of filming at night was so short and filming took longer than expected, we ended up filming three nights instead of two. I had to make sure I wore the same exact outfit, and tried to get my hair and makeup to look as close as possible as it looked the previous days. After seeing the rough cut, I realized I did a pretty good job because you would never have noticed it was shot on three separate days, so I commend us for being able to achieve continuity.

Lighting: After we started filming, we instantly realized that we have to play around with the lighting to get it just right. Since we were filming at night, it was hard to have everything on screen to show up. We had the idea to pull up a couple of our cars facing the building with their headlight brights on, which was the best decision we made. It created enough light to illuminate the location and the characters in the first scene. We ended up using one of my big camping lanterns with 3 brightness settings to use behind the camera to achieve exactly what we were wanting lighting wise.

Location: We ended up last minute having to change filming locations since the motel was no longer an option. We ended up using my camper to film the indoor scenes which actually worked out pretty great. Because of this, all of the filming locations were on my property which was super convenient. As for the scene where we see the demon in the road, we ended up asking my neighbor for permission to film on his driveway since it looked like an actual road. Thankfully we got the cult meeting shots we needed on the first night since the old house on my property is coming down tomorrow!

Technology: My iPhone 11 ended up working out great for filming. We used the wide-angled camera for pretty much 95% of the shots, so it enabled us to capture more setting / background in each scene. We did realize after shooting that some of the shots looked a little grainy / soft due to filming at night. We could’ve reshot the scenes that look like this however we really liked how they turned out so we’re planning on fixing the quality during editing.

Above is our film pitch, better late than never. We briefly discussed why we chose to use New Line Cinema to produce our film, as well as why a large production company will be beneficial in the success of our movie.

Stage 3 has finally come to an end, so I thought I’d do a quick recap on what we’ve accomplished these past few weeks and what we’re planning on doing this coming week.

What we’ve accomplished:

• We finalized our modes of production, distribution and exhibition and chose which companies we want to side with
• We created our script
• We drew out a storyboard representing the main shots of our opening sequence
• We chose our filming locations, which will be held at an abandoned house on my property as well as an old motel
• Casting: we chose my sister Emily to play as the demon, I will play as Evelyn, and Hannah’s sister and our friend Julie will play as the two cult members that pass by
• Discussed the mise-en-scene elements of our film that we wish to achieve, including lighting and costuming
• We decided on filming with my iPhone as well as use iMovie to edit

This coming week will be an important one. We talked about our shooting schedule, and decided that we are going to film Saturday night at both the house and the motel, and if needed we may film some on the Friday night beforehand. That means that we will have to gather our costuming and light sources within the next few days to ensure that we’re fully prepped for filming on the weekend. I’m super excited to put our visions into action and see it come to life!

The look, feel, and sound of a movie as well as its mine-en-scene is very important in regards to what makes it unique. For our film, we want it to feel suspenseful and have a dark side to it. We are doing our filming at night, so that will allow for us to achieve the low-key lighting and darkness that is found in majority of horror films. The only lighting sources we will be using are car headlights and ring-lights that we will hold by my phone during shooting. Our costuming will have a neutral and muted color palette, and the robes we will be using as the cult robes are all black with pointed hoods which will create mystery. We want to construct a lighting setup that will allow for our characters to be seen but will keep it dark enough so that it still feels like it’s nighttime. An example of this natural night lighting can be seen in the screenshot below. The characters are defined and can be seen in the street, but the lighting is still dark with natural moonlight and gives off a spooky nighttime feel.

For the scene where Evelyn sees the demon in the road, we want to use the car headlights to our advantage to create a silhouette of the demon without truly giving its identity away. The image below would be an ideal shot to achieve what we’re wanting.