Setting the scene...

Please see attached my evaluation for my opening sequence:

Im pleased to have everything completed, but there is one or two changes that i would have liked to make looking back on the opening sequence, that being adding in the sounds of the door slamming and a gunshot at the very end of the film, which i believe would have made the concept clearer for the audience but i did not have time to add in.

Here is the film, it's just over three minutes long:

I was inspired by these two films by the way in which they were filmed; they both use hand-held cameras that give the films a more personal and rustic feel. Obviously with no budget i would never be able to achieve a high quality finish so my options were limited, but like these films i could try to show the movement of the character behind the camera, hopefully without making anyone watching it feel sick- as it was reported some of the audience of Cloverfield felt! Both films are also of a similar genre to that which i hoped my film would be and they set themselves apart from other films by being more original by formatting the film in a doctumentary style.

Here is an 11 minute clip of the start of The Blair Witch Project, and a trailer for Cloverfield.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6nfcs_the-blair-witch-project-the-movie-p_shortfilms

http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi78774553/

Today i have finished editing my film and added the soundtrack, making it look as polished as i could, and also uploaded the soundtrack onto this blog for you to hear.

I am fairly pleased with the finished product, and did it to the best of my ability given the time frame and other circumstances. Although using some of the technology was not my strong point, as i believe that overall i am more capable with the theory elements of this media course, with encouragement from my teacher i tried as hard as i could and therefore cannot ask anything else of myself, learning plenty along the way.

Here is my soundtrack. Enjoy!

Today i made the titles for the end of the film, deciding on its design. I would also like to include a similar clip after the first graveyard scene. It would again be a black background with white writing in Zapfino font.

Today i uploaded the graveyard scenes onto the laptop and deleted the clips that i knew i would not use in the film. I am slightly more behind schedule thab i would have liked to be, due to days of bad weather and other circumstances that have been out of my control, and it was also difficult for me to get to grips with how to edit- but im confident that i will be able to finish everything soon. I will soon add a few more locations shots and hopefully upload my soundtrack onto this blog.

Today i looked at what scenes i want to include from the footage i have downloaded so far.

Today i filmed the graveyard scenes, which i will use at the beginning of my film to show that the main character is already dead, then the film will move back in time to when the character breaks into a house, where they are shot. I will go back to the graveyard on saturday to get a few extra shots. Next i will shoot the outside shots of the house, meaning that all my filming will hopefully be completed by this weekend. I will then need to edit and sort out the rest of my soundtrack.

Trying to make this short film has led me to change my mind more than once about who the character is and how the audience should feel about them, but i feel confident now that the way i hope to present the character is the right way forward, making the audience ask questions as they watch it- but hopefully not confuse them!

On Monday 2nd March i uploaded the filming i had done so far ready for editing and also uploaded the song 'Rusty Halo' by The Script, which will be used as the majority of my soundtrack.

I chose this song as i can relate the lyrics to the theme of my film. The first verse 'It's been a long time coming/But you know you had it coming... Everyone's running from something but we dont know when its coming/So we keep running and running...' could be interpreted as talking about how people run away from the consequences of their actions, and in my film the character's actions have caught up with them.

I want the audience to understand that we are looking from the main characters point of view, which explains why the camera shots aren't steady (in a Cloverfield/Blair Witch Project fashion). The person looks down at their own grave, then retells the story to the audience through their point of view of how they came to be dead- they break into the house looking for something valueable to them, and get shot as a result.

There are also religious connotations within the lyrics (not to mention in the title of the song obviously!) which i have tried to reflect in the filming, in certain scenes such as the roaring fire, the angel headstones in the graveyard, the opening of the large gates on enetering the house grounds etc.

These lyrics show a sense of regret that could be applied to the character, now that it is too late for them to change their ways...