Editing

We are currently in an ongoing process of editing our opening title sequence. We are all working very well together to carefully edit our political thriller. None of us have used Adobe Premier Pro before, therefore we are all learning as we go along. This is very helpful as we are helping each other and learning new things constantly. Some parts of editing are difficult and we have had to face a few problems like intercutting different parts with different sounds and trying to match up the voices. However we have learnt a lot and been able to overcome problems such as these by asking for help and using our intuition to work it out. Moreover, we realised after the London shoot that the ticket we zoomed in on said 'child' rather than adult which obviously breaks the realism. Hannah and I have been trying to be technical and edit the shot so the 'child' is blurred out. We are struggling with this but with the use of the internet and the teachers, we will be able to do it. This process is very helpful and will not only help us with our media next year, but will help with our editing skills for the future.

Titles

We are getting to the point in our opening title sequence where we're almost ready to put in the titles, however we were a little stuck on the order so I have decided to look over and revise it.

I have looked at various opening title sequences and analysed the order in which the titles appear, the order is usually:

• __________Presents
• A __________ Production
• *Actors name*
• *Actors name*
• Film Title
• Music by _________
• Editing by _________
• Produced by ________
• Written by ________
• Directed by________

The main one I look looked at was 'Panic Room' as this gave me an accurate idea of how titles are meant to be and in what order they should appear. I am glad I went back and revised this because before looking at the order, I would've thought that the film title would go at the end, however it's more in the middle. This has helped me as I now remember a lot more about opening title sequences and especially the titles.

Questionaire

Whilst finishing off editing and shooting the last few bits of our opening title sequence, we have put together a questionaire that we will each post on social networking sites after we have finished our opening title sequence to get feedback from our work.

The first draft of our questionaire includes these questions:

1. From our opening sequence, does it make you want to watch the rest of the film?

2. Does the opening title sequence make sense?

3. Do the camera angles work and do they create realism?

4. Are the transitions smooth?

5. Is the sound track suitable?

6. Does it have thriller elements within?

7. Is the storyline presented well?

8. Is the lighting contributing to the suspense and ambiguity?

9. Are the props in the film realistic?

10. Did the characters work well within the opening of the film?

11. Is the whole production easy to understand, or is it complex?

12. Do you think the locations chosen are suitable within the opening title sequence?

13. Are the titles easy to read and do they last for a long enough amount of time?

 From this questionaire we will elaborate and keep thinking of appropriate questions for sort of feedback we want and this will help us when writing our evaluation because we will know whether we have attracted our target audience and so on.

Filming; Shoot 4

Yesterday, February the 14th, Jacob and I went to London to film with Callum Carroll. We found this trip to London very successful and after editing it, are very pleased with the outcome. We prefer it much more than the last draft.

1 Thing that went well:

• We got every shot we intended, making sure we didn't make the same mistake of the shots being too short. 

1 Problem we came across:

•  We couldn't get a good view of the houses of parliament without viewing it from the bridge only which wasn't helpful as Callum was meant to be right outside and waiting for the Prime Minister. However, overall I am very happy with how our project is coming along.

Here are some of the pictures whilst filming:

Rough Cut

This is our rough cut of our opening title sequence. As you can see we don't have the beginning shots in yet and we don't have non-diegetic sound such as music but we will be continuing work on it over this half term to meet the deadline for the final draft on Friday the 1st.

Peer Assessment / New Storyboard

Our work was shown to the class and peer assessed, from this is was evident that we had a lot to change in order to make our opening title sequence good. There were so many faults we found with it that we decided to change the location and many other things. For example, we've decided not to show the interview now, and instead have it on the radio whilst the man who wants to kill the Prime Minister is doing things like reading the paper on the economical collapse and assembling a gun etc.

We need to keep in mind many things like holding the shots for longer so we can edit them if needed. This is because we found that our current draft is too quick.

In order to grasp the concept of our new ideas we have made another storyboard to follow.

 1. This shows the radio being turned on and the Prime Minister's interview will be playing aloud. Next will be a title.
2. There will be an establishing shot of the murderer sitting on the edge of his bed reading the paper and then a close up of the article which will be a political crisis
3. The murderer planning to kill the PM, scratches a picture of the PM's face out and then closes the newspaper angrily
4. He then gets out his diary and reads it (The diary will explain his motives to kill the PM) and after that he will pack his briefcase, ready for 'work'
5.The next shot will be him telling his wife he's going to work and walking out the house with his briefcase, followed by another title
6. There will be a shot of the murderer approaching the gates of his house to leave and then another title
7. He will then purchase a ticket for London and wait for the train 
8. There will be a shot of him sitting on the train and a close up of his face with him stroking his chin, our aim is to make this bit mysterious and intense
9. We will have a close up of him tapping his foot to connote his impatience and after that another title
10.Next there will be a close up of the 'westminister' train station sign to give the audience an idea of where he is, and this will be followed by a shot of him in amongst a busy crowd
11. There will be a shot of iconic landmarks etc like the London eye, Big Ben and things like red tour buses and black cabs to portray the horror of him being free to roam around London being as dangerous as he is, and then next another title.
12. Then there will be an establishing shot of the houses of parliament and a shot of Callum (The man wanting to murder the PM) from behind watching the houses of parliament as if he has another ulterior motive than wanting to visit it as a tourist attraction
13. One of the last shots will be him looking at his watch as if waiting/anticipating something significant to happen.

Overall, I am happy with the new storyboard as I'm not happy with our current draft and I think starting again will make it a lot better. Aswell as this I feel I am able to justify what shots we have chosen to film and why, whereas before I couldn't really justify some of the shots, I just put them in to fill a gap.

Changing and Developing our Political Thriller

After attempting to put together and edit our opening title sequence, we came across two problems. The first problem is that we don't think it will be long enough to fit 2 minutes and the second problem is that many of our shots don't look as good as we wanted them too.

Resolution:
-We have decided to do a re shoot at Jacob's house and things we need to focus on are:

• The panning of alcohol bottles needs to be smoother
• Callum's head has to be in the shot completely as it has been cut off in our original shot
• Various shots need to be held for longer

-We have decided to go to London to shoot Callum amongst an iconic setting because this presents the horror of unstable people roaming around without anyone knowing the dangerous motives they hold. Moreover, we want to film an establishing shot from behind him of him standing outside the houses of parliament. I feel this will make his intentions clearer and help the audience understand that he wants to murder the Prime Minister.

-Whilst taking the tube to London, I also think it will be a good idea to film Callum on the train, within a crowded area of people, indicating the difficulty to differentiate aesthetically his danger. I want him to be tapping his foot and looking at his watch to connote his impatience.