Comparing Attack the Block with Deadbeats

Close-up of our main character on the phone and in Attack the Block, they have close-up shots of their main character (female/middle-aged) on the phone.

Title from our film - the font we chose has serifs on some of the letters to make it look more type writer like.

Title from Attack The Block - very square writing in white.

Screen shot from our movie - teenager walking down the street on the phone. We used someone the same age as our audience because it's more intriguing for teenagers to watch people of their own age group.

Picture from Attack the Block - middle aged woman on the phone, walking down a street.

Picture from Attack the Block - the title is not all one colour with very square font.

title from our film is in two different colours so there is variation.

Sound

I have been working on the sound design for my film. I chose this song because it gives off a mysterious, dirty feel and it creates enigma by the slow beginning and dramatic climax. I used the Free Music Archive website to find the song i have chosen. I originally listened to fifteen songs on the website and downloaded seven and from the seven i decided on the one. I tested the songs against my film footage to see which one worked best.

The song is available to listen to below.

Once I put the song on Final Cut Pro I then edited it by changing the volume to make the dialogue clearer and enhanced parts of the song that increased the tension.

The red lines show the volume of the track and how I changed it.

The website I used to find the soundtrack.

Editing our film

This is our title that was created on Livetype, with a flicker effect. The title looks like someone has written it in blood because of the splats around the letters or graffiti.

Our first still shot of London, we took this from the top of Monument. We added titles to this clip of one of the production companies we used.

This is another still shot of London. The font is black here because it works better against the sky and it is more interesting to have a variety of different title colours. We filmed this behind metal wire to create a trapped and grime feel. The wire contrasts with the out of focus shot behind and makes London look quite dangerous.

This is a Worms eye view shot we filmed of the back of our actor walking down the street. We decided the titles look better when the camera is still so they stay in one place. We chose to put the directors titles here.

This is an over the shoulder shot we took. The camera moves with the actor as she walks, this makes it feel like someone is following/watching her and this creates tension.

This is a worms eye view of the front of our actor, the camera is still here as well so we decided to add our actors name in. Half of the title is red and the other half is white, this makes the title look more interesting and gives us more variety. The colour red also suggests danger and blood.

This is a side worm's eye view shot of her feet walking to emphasize the fact she is going somewhere and is dressed nicely. This is also a tracking shot.

Before we began to edit, we put all the clips into Final Cut Pro so we could watch them. The clips we didn't use, we put into a folder called 'throw aways', we didn't delete them in case later on we wanted to use them.

This is a screen shot of Final Cut Pro, in this shot the film (blue bars) and the soundtrack (green bars) have been edited.

This is a screen shot of Livetype, which is the website we used for some of our titles.

We tested out many fonts on Microsoft Word, for our logo before choosing the final one.

We tried out making some parts bold or different fonts to each other

We created a file, where we saved everything to do with the movie in, this also made it easy and quickly to find stuff.

This is a screen shot from Final Cut Pro, the blue bar shows all the videos we put together to make our film and the green bar underneath is the sound.

We imported all the clips into Final Cut Pro, which then lead us onto making a rough edit where we put all the clips that we were using in order. After we had them in the right order we cut down each individual clip and made sure that there was a good continuity flow. After each edit we would have to render the clips together so they became one film. Once the film was edited, we added titles and transitions. The only transitions we used was fade in and fade out and some of the establishing shots fade to black. The font we chose for our titles are serious and easy to read, the colour of the title change in different shots because some colours work better against different shot backgrounds. The main title, 'Dead Beats' that was made on Livetype, it's white against a black background so it stands out. We added a flicker effect which gives off a psychopath feel and creates tension for the audience because it makes you feel quite uncomfortable. The font of the main title is in a graffiti style but you could also associate it with smudged blood. We wanted to add a darker feel to our film, and decreased the brightness on some of the walking clips and applied this effect to the rest of the clips to create lighting continuity. Once all the visual editing was completed we then added the soundtrack we chose and adjusted it to work with the film.

Using Key frames in Final Cut Pro, we made our production company logo, Blue stamp, move on screen. The word 'blue' expands and shrinks to a normal size ad the letters from the word stamp all come in from different directions to create a stamp effect.

Re-shooting

The shots that were too dark of the hooded boys, could not be lightened enough without the film going grainy, so re-shooting was needed. We changed the location of where we were going to film, instead of Golders Green we chose a road in Hampstead that was more open to light but still making sure there was good continuity, so the audience would think it was all in one location. Instead of taking the risk at filming late in the day, we made sure it was still light out and if the shots needed darkening then this would be done on Final Cut Pro. Before re-shooting we wrote down what we needed to do in order to avoid the faults we had last time. We also wrote down the shots in which we wanted to film instead of taking a variety, because time was limited. We decided not to have any dialog for the actors who would be playing the hooded boys, because it creates more enigma if they don't speak. We took one shot from behind a tree, as if someone was creeping up on them/watching them, this is a shot we could not do before seeing as there was no tree. I am happy to of re-shot the second half of our film because now all the shots are clear as well as in focus and once they have been edited, hopefully they will have good light and match on action continuity.

Filming report

The first filming we did was when we took establishing shots of London. The location we chose was to film around London Bridge and also of the river. When we were filming, we decided the shots would look more interesting and busier from higher up, so we walked up Monument and filmed from the top of that. We were not allowed to take the tri pod up with us, so those certain shots were done free hand. The most interesting shots were the ones where the camera is behind metal wire, which gives a rough, dangerous, trapped kind of feeling which contrasts with the buildings and sunset you see through the gaps in the wire.

The second time we filmed was in the alleyway and high street of Golders Green. This is when we used our first actor, Olivia who plays the main girl in our film. We waited until late 4ish to start filming because we wanted to capture our shots just as it was beginning to get dark, but because in winter it gets dark quickly, this meant all of our equipment had to be set up and ready before hand, so once the time came, we were able to go out and shoot without any problems. Once we began to shoot, we found this took longer than expected but we managed to film everything that was needed by the time it too dark. We took many different angle and size shots, so we had a variety to choose from to use for our film, making sure there was a good continuity flow. Our actor walked down the high street which originally was too long too shoot, so we selected parts of the road that would work to our advantage in terms of light and background scenery for our shots and we will cut them together to give the illusion to the audience that our character has walked down the full road. As it got darker, we tried to capture extra light from street lamps, which highlighted our actor and kept in details that would have been lost in the dark for example our actors dark hair. Even though the light being projected from the street lamps was not natural, it still worked and added to the mysterious, dangerous feel we were going for and this also helps create enigma. The sudden change in light helps our film emphasize the change in day and her walk becoming gradually more dangerous. We couldn’t use some of the footage where cars and pedestrians had interrupted whilst filming because the enigma would have been lost if our character was by other people, then it wouldn’t seem like she was alone and vulnerable. It was challenging syncing what our character was saying with different parts of the road to create a flow in conversation. On the shots where there is dialog, there is too much background noise, so a voice over will be needed.

The third time we filmed was in the same location, Golders Green alleyway but on a different day and with the rest of our actors, who would be playing the hooded boys. Even though it was on separate days, we made sure it was filmed around the same time of day so continuity was kept and it just seemed like a flowing sequence of events. One of our male characters has a darker skin tone, which was difficult to capture on film clearly with a hood up in the dark. The lighting was too dark, which effected how clear the shots came out and the filming because when it is dark, it is hard to see whether what you are filming is in focus or not. The alley way is more enclosed than the high street, which we did not take into consideration and when we tried filming under a street light, only the silhouette, of the boys would show. Once we realized it is too dark to keep on filming, we decided on another date to re-shoot. The microphone on the camera we used is also quite small so the dialog coming from the boys was not clear.

I was please with our filming and the efforts of our actors, but I do think we need to re-shoot the shots of the hooded boys, simply because of the lighting. It may be possible to brighten them on Final Cut Pro and if they are not too grainy then we will use the shots in our film.

Equipment List:

Skateboard (For Tracking shot of feet)

Yoga Mat (For tracking shot of feet)

Video Camera - Sony HDV

Trip pod - Velbon

Laptop

Microphone

Planning:

To make sure we were prepared for filming, we sent an email to each of our actors, explaining the idea of our film, what they are required to do, the dates of in which they are needed (and if they are not available, to tell us) and what costumes/props were wanted. Each of our actors got given a script and the character that had dialog, were asked to know their lines before filming started. Before we did the real filming at the specific time, we did a test run in daylight to make sure they knew what they were doing and felt comfortable as well as confident with it. We checked the weather forecast for good days to film on and then decided the chosen dates. For one of our tracking shots on our characters feet, walking, we used a yoga mat and skateboard in order to create a smooth track as we did not have the necessary equipment and the camera would have been to unsteady if we tried to bend down and follow our character.