Thursday + Friday 17/18 January

On these days we completed our opening and front cover.

We finished the contrast of the shots, although the 3 shots were the girl puts her shoe on were incredibly overexposed and we spent ages on them but unfortunately were unable to match them to the rest.

We also re-recorded our news broadcast for the end as it wasn't long enough and it needed to fit throughout the last pan. So although it detracts a little from the creepy-ness of his wall of girls it would be stranger if it suddenly faded up during the pan as if our villain had miraculously just tuned into the news report about himself.

We also took our cover shots:


We decided this shot looked a little strange because of his facial expression and also because of the fire bucket.

This photo is too blurry, but although we liked the composition all the others which were clear had a big red fire extinguisher in the background

W decided to use this image (put onto a Polaroid outline) because its very striking and it shows he sort of leads a double life and that there are lots of secrets.

We had 3 possible ideas for our title which were 'The Butcher', 'The Anaesthetist' and 'The Silencer' but in the end we went with 'The Anaesthetis't and a generally more medical and methodical killing style for our villain.

Alix

Tuesday 15th December

We think that we have nearly completed finished our opening, minor adjustments such as fine tuning the contrast, and editing to the music more we will do if we have time.

Today we decided on a definite rough plan for our cover:


We also decided that our final pan needed some sort ofd sound, so we decided to have a news report playing in the background as if our villain is listening to the radio, here is a rough first draught of it:

'And the search continues for the young girl who went missing from north london last saturday. The police fear that Amy Willis (this is where he is crossing 'Amy' out) is the latest victim of [insert villain's nickname here]. (Then as we pan to the new girl it says) The police warn any females in the area to not travel alone. (Then it starts to fade out on:) They believe that...

We have decided that the villain is going to have a nickname - as in the sort the press would give him for example 'Jack the Ripper' - i think that it should be related to the drugs somehow for example 'the anesthetist', and his nickname will almost also be the title.

Alix

Contrast

We've realised that adjusting the colouring, contrast and lighting so it looks the same throughout our sequence is going to be fairly time consuming. For continuity purposes, the colouring and contrast is going to need to be basically the same, and since we shot on different days, a lot of our shots look quite different. We've decided to make all the shots a sort of bluey colour and we'll put quite a bit of contrast on each of them. So, we'll have to spend quite a bit of time making it all the same.

Angelie

Effects

We feel that it isn;t anchored enough that she has been heavily drugged and we ar eplanning to use the following effects to emphasis this. Firstly, on the camera there is the "trail" effect, which makes the image lag with movement, meaning there is a delay on the speed of the shot. Aspects of the previous frame are left in the shot to create the effect of heavily delayed reactions. Secondly, and also on the camera, is the "slow shutter speed" effect. This has a strength of 1-4, and we found 2 the most effective. This uses less frames and also blurs when action is captured, therefore creating a delay and the effect of impaired vision.
In the editing suite there are several video effects which can be used to slightly alter or adjust specific shots. The blur and soften tools can be used to make objects less distinguishable in shot, as if a person cannot focus on them properly.

LIAM

Thursday 17th December

We have planned to shoot our poloroid photos tomorrow lunch time at the back of the great hall, so far 3 girls (and Alix obviously) are definitely coming, and we only have 1 or 2 more to ask. They will be in the white dresses and will be gagged (the back ground will be dark and therefor mysterious so you don;t know where he keeps him - therefore not giving away his where abouts yet in the film)

Targets

• Bring white dress + poloroid camera in - Alix
• Bring material for gag in

Alix

Wednesday 12th November

We captured our shots and we started editing it together, and it has started coming together. The main problem is the contrast between the shots, obviously as they come from many different days the lighting conditions are incredibly varied, but we are going to experiment with contrast.

Shots to shoot on Saturday

• More running shots of Alix
• Shots of Nick walking towards the camera
• More action matches between Alix and Nick
• POVs

We realised we need a lot more POVs to show just how drugged she is, particularly because even though Alix felt like she was acting very frantically + drugged, it didn't come across that way on camera.

Alix

Tuesday 4th December

Today we had 2 hours and we watched and captured out good shots and then started to put a rough cut together. One problem was the colours of the shots - it chages constantly from bluey to sunny, but we can easily overcome this by using contrast.
There was also another problem; we have to shoot some tighter framed shots because it jumps from POVs to ELS/LSs - and we thougth we could use this for effect but it just doesn't look right, so we will have to create some more shots in our re-shoot.

We also realised that for the poloroid photos the picture of his 'new' girl that he puts up can't really be tied up because then that doesn't leave much open for the rest of the film - i.e. he has already caught her so why didn't he just kill her (or 'cross her out') when he did lara.
However, if we used photos of all the girls just doing ordinary things (e.g. walking down the road) - as if he was stalking them, we wouldn't be able to anchor the white dress he uses for all his victims.
So we decided it would pan across to a photo of Lara doing something normal, and over the top he would put a photo of her gagged and then he would cross it out, then he would put up a photo of the new girl doing something normal. Therefore each girl has 2 photos, one from before they are caught and one from after.

Targets met from last meeting: Alix is getting poloroid film tonight

Targets set: Look further into contrast to change colouring of shots

Alix

Inspiration: Shrooms

Although this was a trailer it was very inspirational for our scene. Firstly, the setting is much the same as ours - a forest. There is also a central theme of drugs in each sequence, although in our scene it is forced upon the victim, whereas in Shrooms it is each characters choice. We both wanted to create the effect of blurred or distorted vision, and in this trailer the use of trails and slow motion create this. Disortion of time and space is also created by the use of intentionally jump cuts. One of the most inspirational shots to use is the low level side track of the forest floor. This is almost exactly the same type of shot we wish to shoot as it shows the scene well and in our case we can show the direction the character is running. There is also a good use of fades to black to connote time passing which we will use in the scene and the flashes of white between shots is also very disturbing to the viewer and helps to create suspense. There is also a low level shot of the forest floor, which lingers long enough for a charcters shoe to come into shot and step on the floor. The shot here is extremely close to the foot which almost makes it indistinguishable which is similar to what we hope to ahcieve with some of these shots. This shot will almost act as an insert, allwoing us to cut up the shot types and therefore engage the audience and not let them get bored.

Liam