Editing sound on Premiere Pro

This was a useful video I found whilst researching how to edit sound on Premier Pro. I wanted to edit the sound in order to get rid of unwanted noise in the same scene as dialogue. This meant that I couldn't just turn the volume for the whole clip down, but fade out at the parts I didn't want. This video was very helpful as it explains how to use key frames in order to fade sound in and out where needed. This meant that I could get rid of noise in my video to make it more professional.

First Draft Review and Feedback

My first draft went well and in the most part I stuck to my storyboard, only changing a couple of slides and taking a few out where necessary. Although the draft made sense, it is not yet complete as it is missing more of the story and the cliffhanger ending. In my next draft I will and more to the part of the trailer that I have already done in order to make it easier to understand. I will also try to finish the whole trailer so that in my third draft I can focus on fixing and improving smaller and more subtle aspects of my trailer, and re-film parts where necessary. I may change some of the sound so that music is playing in the first part of the trailer as well as the second. I will also need to change the spelling on my title "Vengeance" as in my first draft I spelled it "Vengance".  

My teachers gave me some feedback for my first draft of my trailer and this is what they said...

"A lack of research is shown in your product. You could have got a desk and out it in the green room, put papers and an iPad to create verisimilitude and green screen the background to a news scene. Do the books in the classroom really look good? The cabinet in the media office would be more convincing. More thought needs to be put into the small details."

I will consider this when filming my second draft and plan my time more wisely so that I don't have to rush certain scenes. I will go back and re shoot the news and classroom scenes so that the environment is more realistic.

FIRST DRAFT

Recording The Voice Over

My research showed that I needed to have a voice over in my trailer as it is a very popular convention of the genre. I have chosen to have my main actress narrating a part of the trailer to give the audience more of an insight into the story. Luckily I take Music Technology at college, and so I have access to the recording studio and have the knowledge of how to record voice. I booked a studio session and went in with my actress and the script. Here is the script:

Dana- I keep having this dream. Someone, something is following me. Every night when I'm asleep I see it, I see her, I see death. Sometimes my dreams become reality, and sometimes, they come back to haunt me.

As you can see this gives a quick back story as to what lead up to the events int he trailer and re-enforces the themes of the horror film.

Here is a quick overview of how I went about recording the voice over -
1.Set up the microphone so that it was the correct height for the actress to sit comfortably.
2. Set levels. This gave the actress a chance to practice through the script within the studio environment while I set the levels. This involved getting the right volume so that the voice is not too quiet, but also not so loud that it distorts.
3. Routed the sound to a recording program on the computer so that I could have a digital copy of the audio to take with me to the edit suite.

I then took the voice over and added it to

Cast List

Cast member 1 - Lyndsey Cairns - College girl

I chose Lyndsey to play the role of the college girl mostly because she shares the same free lessons at college as me and Dana, making it easy to find a time to film where all three of us were available. I also had an idea in mind about what I wanted this character to look like, and I wanted her to have blonde hair so I also chose Lyndsey as she fits the the character's appearance well. She has also done small parts of acting for me in the past for AS Film, so I knew that she had experience and was not shy in front of the camera.





Cast member 2 - Dana Buckby - Main protagonist and antagonist.

I chose Dana to be the main character for 3 reasons. Firstly I have used her as an actress before in my AS Film, so I know she is a good and competent actress. Secondly she lives close to me and close to the locations so transport will not be an issue. Lastly she is available at the same times as me as we work on the same day so we had the same free days.

Dana was not planned to play the antagonist, however on the day we were filming my other actress let me down so she suggested that we film her dressed as the antagonist just so that I could put a first draft together, however I had constructed the costume so that you could not see the antagonists face, and so when I edited it together you could not tell it was the same actress. I decided therefore that it would be easier to use the shots I had already filmed than re-shoot using another actress, as it would have looked basically the same anyway.



Cast member 3 - Kelsey Foster - Newsreader

I chose Kelsey for the newsreader scene mostly because of her voice. She is from the south of England and so has a more formal accent typical of a news reader. She speaks clearly and you can hear what she is saying. She also shares my free lessons at college, making it easy for us to set a time to film. She also has a formal appearance (e.g. no facial piercings or un-natural hair colour) typical of a newsreader, making her the perfect actress for the role.

Costumes

Choosing costumes is an important part of the pre-production as the character needs to have an appropriate costume to have the desired effect on the audience. The costume can change how the audience perceive the character, and in something as short as a film trailer, first impressions are very important.

I chose the costume for the main character to be jeans, a t-shirt and a smart/casual coat. I think that this fairly ordinary costume helps you to relate to the character, as she is not specifically tied to a certain group of young people. I decided that she should wear a "wolverine" t-shirt as this is very popular with young people. The red on the t-shirt along with the dark colour of the jacket are conventional of the genre, with red representing blood and danger, and the dark coat representing the darkness of the genre. Her hair is in an ordinary style so that the audience is not distracted by it, and it is not in the way of her face so that facial expressions can be seen more clearly.

With this character I decided that a white jumper with "love" written on it would help set her apart from the main character. The message on it and the fact that it is white connotes purity, and helps the audience to associate her as a good character. It also matches with her hair colour and makes her come across as a positive character. The glasses help to make her look intelligent. This is important to her character as she is the one who helps the protagonist and has a lot of knowledge of the evil entity and how to overcome it.

The costume used for the antagonist took the most time to prepare. I decided on dark shades with little or no colour to make her blend in to the scene more, making her look as though she is part of the creepy setting. I decided that covering her face would  make her seem more mysterious, and hiding her identity means that the audience cannot categorise or make assumptions about her, making her more creepy. I chose the lacy design of the scarf and dress as this is conventional of horror films, with the old fashion style giving the character an odd quality.

This is the costume for the newsreader character. It consists of a white blouse and a black suit jacket. I decided on this outfit as you only see the top part of the actress so the trousers didn't matter. I chose this as they are smart and they are typical of a news reader as seen in the image. They are plain and fit in with the professional image of a formal news presenter.

The Camera

For my filming I used a Canon Legria HFR506. This camera records in 1080p HD and has optical image stabilizer technology which reduces camera shake, which is good for hand held scenes. It has 57X advanced zoom and records in two formats: MP4 and AVCHD, which gives you more options for the editing stage. It also allows you to watch your footage back to see if the clip you filmed came out as you had intended. I enjoyed working with this camera, however I did encounter some issues. When I first put my SD card in the camera, it would not recognize it, and therefore I could not record onto it. I had to Google the issue and found out that I had to go into the settings to initialize the card. After I did this it recorded fine. I also could not find the white balance option on the camera, meaning that my clips took on an orange hue. I will try to resolve this issue in post production, and research how to change this before I film again.