Locked In- Final Cut

Pre Production



We created these photos for props as Polaroids of each character. We made them by taking pictures of each character and then printing the pictures on to photography paper. By having these, the characters are visually introduced. This shot is     generic to a scientific experiment so we decided to include it.

This is the news paper advert for the experient that is to follow throughout the film. The information that we wrote on the advert is specifically written so that the details connect to other things in  the opening sequence. One of the details is '£50/ per day' which links to the voice over saying that it was 'easy money' and that was the characters reason for signing up. The name 'Halow Lane' was chosen to be symbolic that the 'experiment' will be a dark experience. The articles around the advert were chosen specifically from real life past articles related to a scientific experient.
 

I planned out a character list - Myself and Isabella feature in the production as characters so we had to decide on an 'actor name' as our real names would come up in the titles for our specific tasks that we were responsible for as the creators of the film. So, for a more realistic approach we didn't want the actors and creators to have the same names.

 

We had a schedule for filming to make sure that all of the rooms, actors and resources would be available on the dates that we needed them. The crew and cast of our production would agree on a time that was appropriate for us all. Our media teachers also must have given us permission to proceed with filming when we asked to.

quietonset productions logo

As a group we came up with the name for our production company quite quickly. We felt 'Quiet On Set' was relevant to our filming task as it a common phrase used during production. We then came up with the concept of a finger on lips to emphasize the 'quiet' aspect of the name. We used Getty Images to find several images of our concept. We chose the image on the left as it was simple and a close up of the lips which would make it easier to edit. 

I then used photoshop to manipulate the image. I adjusted the colour levels first to make the image black and white then i used the drop tool to select the grey colour to fill the rest of the image. I then selected the image and pasted it into a 16:9 inch window (so that it would be the same dimensions as the footage on imovie). We decided to not include the name of the production company on the logo as we felt it would be too conventional and unoriginal- we were also including the name of the production company within one of the shots so we felt it would be too repetitive.

Audience Feedback

I also showed our opening to a few family members to get their opinion on it and one said "I want to know what's going to happen next" and another said "where's the rest?". They were both within the age range of our target audience so this was a good sign! We must be on the right track...

Audience Feedback on Locked In (rough cut)

Overall we felt we had received really positive feedback and were really happy with the response from the rest of the class. 


What the audience liked:

* The voiceover because it helped set the dark tone
* Smooth tracking shots
* The soundtrack creates a creepy atmosphere
* The title at the end creates an edgy feel as it comes into focus along with the shaky effect
* The ambiguous experimenter 

What the audience felt we could improve on:

                                                                                                                                                                        
- Be more dramatic with the titles. (we thought about speeding them up to give the end more impact)

- Reminds people of a trailer. (we thought fading to black contributed to this so we decided to cut to black instead. We also thought it was to do with the fact that we hadn't added in credits yet.)
- Too much soundtrack. (we thought about taking away some of the synth within the soundtrack because there are quite a few synth effects which possibly makes it sound slightly overwhelming!)
-The framing of the shot where Aisha bursts through the doors towards the end is unequal and also looks unrealistic as she's meant to be running in a hurry but she just stops halfway through the shot and then carries on. (we are going to reshoot this shot)
-The titles at the end go on for too long. (we are going to speed it up and cut to black)

Locked In (rough cut)

Product Research: The Experiment (2010)

'The Experiment' is closely related to the storyline of our film whereby a group of participants take part in a highly unethical psychological experiment. What we took from this trailer was the idea to include a close up of the newspaper advertisement for the experiment. We thought this was a good shot to include because it sets the tone and puts the context across. It also creates a slightly disturbing atmosphere and a tense, unnerving start to the film. We all jumped on the idea to make this our initial shot which we think works well because it starts off as a close up but the ad is then swiftly swiped away by one of the characters to reveal that it was stuck on the fridge. This is accompanied by a sharp sound effect to represent the dark and dangerous experimenter which becomes apparent throughout the sequence.

Shot from 'The Experiment'

Opening shot from our film 'Locked In'

Sound Research

                                    

                           Hard Candy (2005)

We decided to include a voiceover in our opening sequence so when we were discussing the sound, we agreed that we didn't want to have anything that was too overwhelming or rich sounding to draw the focus away from the narration. This trailer for the film 'Hard Candy' grabbed my attention as it is exactly the sound we were looking for. It includes ambience made up of sound effects rather than an instrumental and the sharp sounds help to achieve a creepy, dangerous feel and dark mood. Dynamics and texture builds up throughout particularly towards the end which definitely made me feel more on edge so this is something we incorporated into our own soundtrack. After watching the trailer a few times I decided to watch the clip without any sound and found that the sound really does set the mood, enhance the visuals and gives it that thriller factor so with that in mind we hope our own soundtrack will be able to achieve this.

Day Two Filming

On our second day of filming we moved location from Grace's house to a meeting room in school. We decided on this location as it had white walls and bright lighting which was perfect to fit with the clinical effect that we are aiming to achieve. These shots are of a horizontal track of polaroid pictures, one device we have used to introduce the characters. We used a track to enable a steady camera movement rather than a hand held camera which was likely to look shakey. We first tried to use to mini tracks, this is like a tripod on wheels. This wasn't successful because of the bumps in the carpet on the floor that we were filming on and because the wheels were going in different directions. Using the mini tracks also made the shots wonky because the camera wasn't balanced, we had to find a different way of filming this shot. We later tried two pole tracks on a smoother floor (in the corridoor of school) which was much smoother and steady. After a succesful track shot we took the footage from the camera and on to a laptop to edit it.

Storyboarding

 Our idea for our opening sequence was to film a sequence of close ups to create ambiguity but also imply certain things about each character in the same way that 'se7en' does.

 Our initial storyboard contained a wide shot showing our lead protagonist pulling the ad off the fridge between shots 3 and 4. We decided to remove this as we found that the close up of the ad being removed from the fridge added conventional mystery as the audience, at this point, do not know who removed the ad and also enabled us to add a creative title onto the shot.

 We also decided to include match cuts within our sequence do suggest relationships between people and locations.Shot 8 matchcuts from the lead protagonists feet walking out of her house to Ben walking into the waiting room of the lab suggesting that our main character is also going to the waiting room.
We also used match cuts for shots 20 and 21. The different tracking shots fade into eachother to show that the people in the polaroids are the people who are waiting in the waiting room.

Day 1 filming

 We shot frames 2-8, 12 & 17 on day 1 at a friend's house. We used a mixture of different techniques and equipment to achieve the different shots; We used the tracks, the tripod and handheld.

 

Product Research - Rebecca

Rebecca is one of Hitchcock's many thriller masterpieces that stars academy award winning actors Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine and marked Hichcock's US debut. The film follows the story of a young woman (Fontaine) who works as a paid companion to a weathly Mrs Van Hopper. On a trip to Monte Carlo with her employer she meets an aristocratic widower named Maxim De Winter (Olivier) and falls in love with him. He then proposes to her and takes her to his country house in Manderley where the new Mrs De Winter is haunted by the lingering memory of Maxim's deceased wife.



The film opens with the credits fading in and out of the foreground whilst scenes of a misty, dark wood play in the background. The fading credits introduce the theme of a haunting presence and could represent the fading then reappearence of the memory of Rebecca which disrupts the happiness of the new Mrs. De Winter with her new husband.

The mise-en-scene of the opening scene is very dark and misty and various wide shots reveal bare trees and a gothic looking wood. The non-diegetic music that plays along with the opening credits acts as an overture, introducing the different themes of the film. A heavy orchestral piece plays, remeniscent of a 1930s waltz- implying wealth and romance in the narrative. The waltz-like music is then contrasted by the low pitched flute and piano piece suggesting a disruption to the happiness and romance that the waltzy music suggests. The music then fades into a very quiet drawn out flute sound and minor piano chords creating a sense of suspense as a wide shot shows dark clouds blowing over the moon.

Hand held camera is then used to track down a mysterious looking path which has been consumed by overgrowth creating the illusion that someone is walking through the wood. A voice of a woman is heard as a non-diegetic voice over, she seems to be reminiscing about her previous experiences in the present location.



Editing Process