additional scene - the phone

we added a new scene onto the storyboard, of someone ringing the actor's phone, such as his mum, and being worried sick because he has been missing for a while and no one can contact him. we then decided not to use this additional scene, and use the sound from of it in the beginning as we watch the tree's swaying, as he has just passed out, he has dropped his phone without hanging up, and the person on the other end is trying to get hold of him, it makes it a little creepy. the person is supposed to sound worried and upset and makes the audience aware soemthing terribhle is happening.

evaluation of additional scene:
we chose not to use this additional scene after we had filmed it, because it did not flow with the piece. the sudden change of location was not something we wanted in our opening, asd we felt two minutes is too short to include two locations and make them make enough sense. the build up of tension is when the actor opens the locket, and then the phone scene after this let the build up die down and was lengthy and uninteresting. it was a fairly good idea but did not fit well with our vision for the piece and looked cheap, and our aim was to make our opening look as proffessional as possible. we therefore cut this scene out when we edited the film for the second time and chose to leave the ending as the boy running form the locket with the subtle fade to the end title, and leave that as the end.

Choosing music for the opening

we looked at some different tracks that were non copyright that we could freely download. we wanted something eerie and spooky sounding, something a little twinkly and creepy. we listened as a group to a few clips and settled on one perticular one, which we have used as the background track to the whole opening. we cut it and changed parts, slowed it down by 10% so it was slightly lower pitched and a bit slower, so it is deeper and darker . we also re positioned the peak of the music so that it fit with the peak of the tension in the film.

Deciding on a name

we had a group discussion a few weeks ago regarding the name for our movie opening, we thought about the themes in it and what happens and came up with a list of words, such as whisper, woods, dark etc. we then used a thesaurus to give us alternatives for some of the words to broaden our list, in the end be came up with two ideas, "Broken Whispers" and "The Unheard".

we felt The Unheard has a scarier feel to it, without giving too much of the plot away, it was more mysterious and the use of the word "the" makes it sound more effective and punchy, like in similar themed films such as "the ring" or "the grudge", it therefore fits in nicely with films of a similar genre.

we thought that broken whispers was a bit boring, not eerie enough, and doesnt fit the genre. It was a good starting point to build on, but sounds cliche and a bit tacky.

Final font choice

we chose a font called crappy dan, because of the childlike feel of it, and the eerie ness, it also not too cliche like some of the fonts we looked at, or too difficult to read, because this is also a problem as it is important people can read the credits in an opening or it wont be successful
here is what the font will look like:

The Unheard

the unheard

THE UNHEARD

we chose the one in complete lower case as it has a more childlike feel and aesthetically better. it is likely to be white on a black background like this:

the unheard

 it looks a bit like a childs writing on a chalkboard, this is the kind of effect that we were looking for.

what we're thinking now -

- we went to black park twice to do some more filming, and each time we couldn't get the shots right, on the first occasion it was very sunny, a really nice day and the filming looked very bright and cheery and didnt give the right mood for our piece at all. we also used a different actor, and it wasnt as effective, so what we shoot was in fact worse than the original shoot. on the second occasion we had problems getting everyone together and by the time we were ready to film with all the equipment it was too dark to get good quality filmining. we found it challenging to get the group together to the location which was quite far, as some of us didnt have transport, one of us owned the camera and wanted to be there while it was used, so getting everyone together has proved difficult.
- we're thinking of adding another scene, we had a group chat about it, storyboarded it and planned out what we want it to look like. we have put Luke in charge of filming the extra scene, as not all of us are needed, and it can be filmed at his house, which is near the actor's house, so this is the easiest solution.
-  right now we are continuing editing including choosing a font, deciding on how quick our blinks need to be and testing out whether they feel natural or not, we also seeing where we want the titles to be and how they will transition.