The film we are submitting for the awards ceremony on Friday is our week 6 horror, Viral. If you think Viral deserves an award, please vote! Here it is once more for your convenience:
WEEK 7 MAKING OF VIDEO!!!
Storyboards (Drawn by James Moore)
Alyssia Slade: Actress
I REALLY ENJOY ACTING, AND THIS WEEK I LOVED PLAYING THE SAD GHOSTLY CHARACTER
I cannot believe that we have already reached the end of the Media Production Project this year, it feels like we are only just beginning to get the point. Part of me is really glad that it’s almost over, mostly because of the stress, however the other part of me is crying out to make more films. I definitely will continue to make films, having to make a film a week in the limits we have had just highlights how I really have no excuse now.
Bridge scene between me and Elliot
When I first read the script this week, I will admit I wasn’t sold on the story at all, but then I re-read it, quite a bit, and then I began to really feel like the Young Woman that I was cast as, I could really see her emotions. So by the time it came to filming on Monday morning I was ready to go and play her. I think filming when you are acting is relatively easy, and certainly not as stressful as Directing or Cinematography, well at least in the case of these small projects that we have been working on. Once again this week our filming was rushed, we spent far too long filming the beginning scene, therefore when it came to walking to the bridge for the final scenes we decided to abandon our dodgy tripod to save on time and effort. We still managed to get all of the shots that we wanted, which is always a bonus.
Editing was again a simple task this week, and whilst editing we managed not to run into many issues, until exporting where it took us an hour and a half to finally export it and even then there were problems with the file, but I guess we can’t have too much luck with editing.
I think that this film definitely could have benefited from more dialogue between my ghostly character, and Elliot’s grieving character, this was also suggested to us in the debrief by Rod. When I was watching the film back on Friday I felt slightly awkward, mostly because of the silence throughout the film, maybe a piece of music would have helped us to enhance the mood slightly. Overall I am happy with the way that we managed to deal with this serious subject, and I’m proud that we seem to have done it justice. However if I were ever to redo this film, I would definitely make more of the relationship between the Ghost and the Griever, as at times I don’t think it was necessarily clear that they were in love.
ELLIOT MCINTOSH: ACTOR
THERE WAS NOT JUST THE RISK OF ME STUPIDLY HARMING MYSELF, BUT ALSO WITH THOSE BENEATH THE BRIDGE WHO MUST OF THOUGHT THAT SOMETHING SERIOUS WAS ABOUT TO OCCUR…
Cheer up!
Again this week I was acting, but compared to previous weeks it was more challenging considering the theme we were dealing with. One of the main obstacles I thought was conveying the grief through facial expressions and gestures. This is for the reason that I did not want the performance to be repetitive, for instance maintaining one mournful expression throughout, otherwise there would be no development. In the scene where I talk to a friend, I remain silent but I try to present interaction with slight nods and awkward smiles.
However, in retrospect, I believe I did not fully achieve this as in the scenes where I try to act more optimistic, the performance was still slow moving and only had hints of happiness. What definately could have helped was the inclusion of more dialogue between myself and the partner, as this may have provided some depth to the character. The result of there being a lack of this I felt, espcially with the audience viewing, made it rather tedious, as we are waiting for something a bit more dramatic, and instead we are left with a constant state of grieving.
Had to be careful here...
Another slight worry came with the bridge scene, since I have to act as if I am about to commit suicide by stepping on the railings. So there was not just the risk of me stupidly harming myself, but also with those beneath the bridge who must of thought that something serious was about to occur. Fortunately though, such a reception was not met, just some odd looks from drivers.
I DID NOT WANT THE PERFORMANCE TO BE REPETITIVE… OTHERWISE THERE WOULD BE NO DEVELOPMENT…
The most unconvincing aspect of the film I think came from the last scene, where I coincidentally meet up with my friend again. The problem lay with the fact that the friend does not notice anything odd, just that he happens to be there for moral support. In terms of the storyline, I thinks its a nice closure since it becomes a turning point where the actor is more optimistic with his personal outlook in life, it’s just that realistically it doesn’t seem to make sense.
Good timing...
I do think the idea of the film however was worth the risk, as we were dealing with a more mature theme than our previous productions. So to conclude then, I think that the performance was achieved well, just not to its full potential in terms of development.
Director: Ellie Silkstone
IN THE MIND OF HER BEREAVED LOVER SHE WAS STILL VERY MUCH ALIVE
Coming up with an idea for our final week turned out to be a real challenge, since we were given completely free reign (within reason of course). Having debated about it for some time, we eventually settled on the theme of grief, and the story began to flesh out. Our aim this week was to come up with a relatively straightforward script so that we could focus on obtaining good visual elements, and I think we achieved this to some degree. Some shots I’m particularly fond of include several shots from the bedroom scene, as I think the lighting here creates a homely and inviting atmosphere which juxtaposes interestingly with Elliot’s unhappy expression.
One of the things we were praised for was the fact that Alyssia did not seem like a conventional ghost (able to pass through walls and such like), but, at least in Elliot’s mind, appeared to have physical presence, which was exceedingly good to hear as this was exactly what I wanted to achieve. To give this impression, we included elements in the script which hinted at her actual physical influence, such as being able to force the glass of whiskey from Elliot’s hand, whilst also establishing subtle hints at the fact that she was no longer subject to the concerns of the living, such as not wanting to drink anything and not needing a coat in the cold weather. The idea we wanted to portray with these devices was that, although Alyssia was actually dead, in the mind of her bereaved lover she was still very much alive.
There were some areas in which we failed to achieve the film’s intended atmosphere, most notably the exchange between Elliot and Zak outside Elliot’s door. Due to time constraints during shooting, we limited ourselves to a shot-reverse-shot style format, with a notable absence of close-ups. This worked to our disadvantage in editing as the limited choice of shots lead to a scene which felt rather mundane and a little forced.
Whilst I don’t think With or Without You is by any stretch our strongest film, I do think it was a good film to end on, as I think our handling of a very difficult subject has shown a growing maturity as film-makers.
ELLIOT MCINTOSH (SOUND)
THE CYCLICAL NATURE OF THE VIRUS WAS ACHIEVED THROUGH THE REPETITION OF THE HAUNTING VOICE…
Firstly I think the success in this project lied in the interest with the theme; that of new media such as the internet and socialising online. It was even better that everyone this week contributed ideas based on this theme. Therefore everyone brought in their own inspirations to the project. Overall we were trying to create a horror with a technological subtext.
Woah...
AAAAHHHHHH!!!!
One that I mentioned was to do with the potential danger of talking to random strangers online. The images above display an advertising campaign for “The Last Exorcism”, whereby it plays on the fact that people go on the site ‘Chatroulette’ in order to see potentially adult material. What the adverts did then was play a viral video of a possesion to unsuspecting viewers.
He's dead...
We based the webcam death video on this, but to push it further we incorporated the supernatural ‘virus’ to spread through this video instead. The message here was to be wary of where the internet leads you, or you could (not literally) end up like this…
Enough about ideas, now to sound! I considered this to be an important part of our film this week, as in horror you need the music to compliment the tone of the film, as well as enhancing the atmosphere and the scares.
First of all, recording the sound whilst filming was simple enough, albeit the annyoing builders behind my room whose hammering and so on kept interupting our filming. Apart from that it was a smooth process and it all played back well when editing.
THE SUCCESS IN THIS PROJECT LIED IN THE INTEREST WITH THE THEME… EVERYONE BROUGHT IN THEIR OWN INSPIRATIONS TO THE PROJECT…
Susan's death video
So much focus was given instead to the music. With the first scene I used a piano based track which was used to create an unnerving sense as the character watches the video of Susan dying. What I thought was interesting here was the contrast of the technology with a traditional piano track. I think the juxtaposition works nicely as it keeps in with the sense of horror, especially with the timing; as susan dies in the video the piano plays its last note to signify her death, and then repeats in a more jarring tone as the video turns to static.
In order to convey the supernatural character of this virus, we isolated a segment from one of the tracks that included a ghostly exhale. Here I faded it into the title ‘VIRAL’, which alongside the ghostly effect implies that this viral video is some form of otherwordly entity.
Had to use another system for editing sound... It's a LONG story...
DEATH!!!
...and closer...
Closer...
In terms of the final scene where the character meets his demise, I wanted to have a track that would create a build up of tension as the protagonist realises what is happening to him. The music I chose was one of high pitched screeching alongside a consistent drum beat to keep up the pace; last week we were criticised for not creating pace with music, so the aim was to improve on that. We also used a separate drum beat to coincide with the cuts of Susan appearing in the photos to convey shock.
It begins again...
Furthermore, as the music reaches its climax we have a dramatic send off when it is revealed someone is watching his death; here the last drum beats sounds, and then we are left with the echo before the ghostly voice re-emerges. The cyclical nature of the virus was achieved through the repetition of the haunting voice. Overall I believe the sound effects and music managed to enhance the horror on display.
If I was to improve anything it would be to pay closer attention to the sound levels whilst filming, as there were some lines of dialogue that were not loud enough in editing, but apart from that I think it all went well.
CINEMATOGRAPHY: ALYSSIA SLADE
ONE OF OUR MAIN INSPIRATIONS FOR THE PIECE WAS ‘THE RING’
One of our many inspirations this week...
When we began brainstorming ideas for the film, I knew immediately that I wanted to do the genre of Horror. Horror is by far my favourite genre, and one that I find easy to reproduce, simply because the majority of films that I watch/ have watched are horrors. When we came up with the idea for the technological virus coming through in a video, I immediately thought of ‘The Ring’ in which there is a ‘killer video tape’ a curse attached to a video that kills anyone who watches it. We also got the idea of the virus being passed on from this film, in which to escape the curse a copy of the tape needs to be made. However in our film, there is no way out once you get the virus.
This piece was my first attempt at cinematography, which I really enjoyed. Initially we were worried about filming the computer screen as we didn’t want there to be any interference, however after talking to the technician he assured us that we should have no problems and thankfully we didn’t. This week we also managed to get a half decent camera, which was really nice, especially for me, seeing as it was my first time behind the camera.
I KEPT GETTING ANNOYED WITH THE SMALL AMOUNT OF SPACE IN THE ROOM
Oops there's a tripod in shot!
During filming my biggest annoyance was the amount of space that we had in the room, crew members kept getting in the way, and I was getting stressed with asking people to move out of my way, the rooms in the university that we have to work with just don’t cater for the needs of an amateur film crew! As you can see by the picture on the right, this is actually a still from the final piece and that little black thing in the bottom left corner is actually the tripod, which we didn’t actually notice until editing. Also in editing we found that in a lot of these reaction shots Ellie could easily be seen sat on the floor behind Zak, another fault of space constraint. However I think that we managed to use the space effectively and get all the shots that we needed.
Some parts in particular the ones where Zak had to look scared were particularly difficult to achieve as he didn’t feel very comfortable with his acting skill. However this changed when we covered him in blood, he got a lot more into character, mostly because he was disgusted by the blood. This is irrelevant though as the final product is very convincing and very scary.
There was supposed to be a computer somewhere!
Unfortunately for me when it came to post-production we found that I had missed a few shots out that we needed to cut the story together. For example in the shot on the right, the actual computer was supposed to be in frame switching itself on, however again due to space constraint I hadn’t been able to get both the bed and the computer in shot. Due to miscommunication the shot was lost, we did manage to get around it by adding a fade and using a shot of the computer monitor and incorporating the MSN chat sound heard earlier on in the film.
I was pleasantly surprised that a lot of people in the feedback session today liked our final film, and thought it was effective, horror is a genre that I particularly enjoy creating, and I’m just glad that other people enjoyed what we managed to create this week.
ACTRESS: ELLIE SILKSTONE
TWO SUBSEQUENT TRIPS TO THE AVID SUITES, A FREE TRAIL OF PINNACLE AND SEVERAL STRESSFUL DAYS LATER, WE HAD SUCCESSFULLY KLUDGED TOGETHER A FILM
This week I was acting for the third and final time, and once again my character was in trouble (perhaps this says something about my acting style). I played the Virus’ original victim, Susan MacIntyre, and as such, my performance was pre-recorded so that we were able to film Zak’s character actually watching the video on the day of shooting. To do this, we took the photos that would be used in the climax scene during the day on the Sunday before shooting, and I shot and put together the ‘Viral’ video of Susan dying mysteriously the same evening, using my laptop webcam and Windows MovieMaker. I decided to film this footage alone, since I’m quite self-conscious and I thought it would be easier to immerse myself in the acting without anyone watching.
In 'Lost' - a character is struck by a sonar fence
Needless to say, my performance required a lot of fake blood, which was recycled from a previous production. In one shot, I tried to achieve the illusion of bleeding from the mouth by holding a teaspoonful of fake blood in my mouth and then allowing it to dribble onto a piece of newspaper on my lap (unpleasant as one of the ingredients of the fake blood was washing-up liquid). For this performance, I took inspiration from an episode of the US drama Lost, in which an antagonist is stunned by a sonar fence. I particularly liked the way the actor in this episode created a sense of uncontrollable shaking and convulsing, and I tried to emulate this when I played Susan.
I attempted to emulate this
On the day of shooting itself, I was in charge of supplying the Facebook updates from the false account we had set up specifically for the purpose. This meant sitting in whichever part of Elliot’s room wasn’t in shot and accessing the internet via his phone. After the shoot, we had a very stressful week trying to add music to the film, since we had exported the movie file in a Mac-compatible format, which became promptly useless when Elliot’s Mac decided to cease functioning and we discovered that the file was not compatible with Windows. Two subsequent trips to the Avid suites, a free trail of Pinnacle and several stressful days later, we had successfully kludged together a film.
The reaction our audience had to ‘Viral’ was probably the best we’ve received so far (we actually got quite a few positive comments on the course Facebook page – how appropriate), which was fantastic considering we all put a lot of effort in this week. In fact, one of the staff ended up cowering behind her clipboard during the screening, which is always a good sign when exhibiting a horror. I think the success of the film was aided in part by my performance as I think I was able to enhance the believability of my character through techniques I employed whilst filming Susan’s death video. I think the fact that saliva is visibly hanging from my mouth and that I’m making loud choking sounds creates a very uncomfortable and unnerving atmosphere because said images and sounds are so visceral and frightening.
ELLIOT MCINTOSH
Here is the website where we got our music from as unfortunately we cannot upload the audio. We wanted the music to create suspense and atmosphere.
http://incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free/index.html?genre=Horror
The tracks we took from this page were:
AfterMath
Bump in the Night
Classic Horror 2
Dopplerette
Night Break
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Storyboards (Drawn by Alyssia Slade)
