The Watch

In our lesson yesterday we was given the task to get into groups of three or two and each have a turn filming, performing and directing three different scenarios. I worked with Aquila and Helen.

Here are the three scenarios:

1) To sit down on a chair and look at your watch

2) To write something down on a piece of paper, then screw it up and throw it into the bin.

3) trip over with books in your hand and the books have to slide across the floor.

I directed the first option 'The Watch.' Simon said that we could choose a genre to do, so I thought I would try and challenge myself by doing a horror. Helen filmed the footage and Aquila was the one who acted in my scenario.

I came up with the idea that the character could be running in the 'woods' and the rests against the tree, sliding down slightly (to add the sitting part in) and then checks her watch.

When me, Aquila and Helen had a rough idea on what we each had to film, we got on with filming. Luckily I was able to film mine first, to get it all over and done with.

At the time I thought I got enough shots, but when looking back onto the footage to edit there were very few shots of close ups.

From this task I was able to learn that when shooting get as many shots as possible, because the ones you think you won't use might be vital in helping telling the storyline. However I'm very happy with my shots and Helen did a great job with the camera work. Aquila was very easy to direct and she was able to perform what I suggested as an idea.

When we filmed Helen suggested to get a few minutes of the atmosphere to put underneath the track, just incase I needed it. I put the atmosphere track underneath my footage and it made a big difference. The sound was even and it helped with the quieter parts of my footage.

When I finished editing my footage, I noticed that because we filmed out in where the sun effected the shot that all my footage ended up a little bit overexposed. I tried to darken each footage a little bit, but it didn't make a difference, so I decided to go through some of Final Cut Pro's effects. I found one called 'Bleach Bypass' and found that this helped with the overexposure but also created a type of bright dream like footage. It reminded me of flash back/victims stories of murders in CSI, which was great because I wanted to create the story where this person was running away from someone.

When I thought I completed my edit it didn't feel much of a horror, just someone running and then looking at their watch as they stop for a minute. One of my shots I got Aquila to look back as she was running, but when I viewed it back it made sense why she did that but it didn't create enough suspense, which is key to a horror movie. I decided to look for sound effects and found one of a branch breaking, I decided to add this effect in just before she looks, as if to give the character a reason to looks back. By adding this small sound effect made such a difference and definitely creates more of a tension at the beginning.

Here is my finished video, 'The Watch.'