First time Filming- Friday 9th March 2012

Today we finally managed to film after college yesterday! There were no real problems except the battery was dangerously low, thankfully though we managed to get most of the filming complete, a slight problem we did have though was when the victim turned the lamp back on after it being pitch black, this was a slight problem because it made the camera go out of focus and made it blurry. we solved this problem however by, having the lamp on just before we hit the record button then turned it off as Dale began filming. being as the shot was still and was on a tripod when the actor turned the lamp back on everything was still in focus.



Today we brought the camera into college being as we had Media Studies and we managed to upload the clips onto a piece of video editing and effects software called 'Final Cut Pro'. this software allows a lot of technical and advanced editing for video clips including Transitions, sound adjustments  and effects and most importantly video effects with effects including 'Cat Eye' and 'Bad Film'. Transitions help the audience to understand and relate to character and the storyline, for example, a fade transition shows the audience that time has passed without stating it. Just as a cut im much more dramatic and exciting for the audience rather than a transition like a cross-fade which is more relaxed and more calm. Having sound adjustments means that we can import other sound clips from other software like 'Logic Pro 9' and 'Soundtrack Pro' and then adjust them in accordance to the emotions or atmosphere we want to portray. for example we could acquire some music for our thriller then adjust it to be whatever pitch we want as well as edit the length and specific sound patterns from the music.  An absolute definite which our group will be using is the video edits, there is no doubt that we will be cropping and cutting certain bits of our video to get the best quality and atmosphere for the audience. If we feel clips are too long of if there is a certain part of a clip we do not need or want in the clip we can cut/ trim any part we want. Lastly effects will really help get our video to be atmospheric and tense, we can use things like 'Cat Eye' to darken the outer edges of the screen, which often is an enigma code and makes the audience question what is going on, it is also quite eerie and is used in a lot of horrors and thrillers. another video effect is 'Bad Film' this makes the video clips look like security camera footage and can also look like very bad and old footage which could have been useful if we to carry on our initial idea which involved security camera style video clips.

All of this is very useful yet today we only really managed to import the video onto a new folder and began on trimming some rough parts of the video clips, we trimmed down the part where the actress actually picks up the phone and puts it to her ear, instead we cut the image to where she hits the answer button, then we cropped until she puts it to her ear and answers. This was because we felt as if this was not needed and just slowed down the pace of the video.

Screen shot of video being played with no edits at all, when the phone begins to vibrate
from the unknown caller

This is the moment just before she step outside and is pounced on by the killer/ kidnapper