Aviator Speed Record Paragraph

In the film Aviator Speed Record sound and editing are crutial elements of the film and help to create the films genre of suspense. The editing begins off slow, to show the viewer the setting, and occasionally speeds up to show the main characters point of view. The edits maintain their slow rhythm until the plane crash where the edits speed up quite to convey the characters confusion and the fast pace of the event.
The original background music in the scene shows that it is based on a period of time in the 1900's, but it soon becomes a suspenseful piece played by an orchestra. This makes the viewer subconsciously realise that something that could be tragic is about to happen. The music becomes really quiet as the engine stutters, and adds to the suspense as the viewer now knows what is about to happen, but doesn't know how it will end. The music remains slow as the plane is crashing and remains slow and suspensful to keep up the genre. 
Overall, the sound and editing help to improve the movie, and form the genre of the film.

Sleepy Hollows Paragraph

 The film Sleepy Hollow Tree of the Dead is a horror film with a supernatural sub-genre. The use of sound and editing have been used to create the genres of the film alongside many other elements.  The music used in the part of the film that was viewed is mysterious and suspenseful, making the viewer eager to know what will happen next, even if they know that it may scare them. There are moments in the movie when the music becomes slightly- for lack of a better word, magical. This is mainly when the tree of the dead is involved, as the characters don't yet know exactly what it is. In the music, there is a lead up to the Headless Horseman entering the scene. When he does enter, the pace of the music increases, putting the viewer on the edge of their seats in anticipation of what is to happen. The music constantly changes to relate with the scene and get the viewer to think in a certain way about the event that is occurring on the screen. But the sound isn't the only thing that persuades the viewer to react in certain ways, so does the editing. 
The editing used in the segment of the film is mainly invisible cuts. The editor has made the scenes simply tell the story of what is happening in a straight forward manor, instead of using flash backs or flash forwards that are not required in this specific part of the film. The rhythm of the edits is slow, and although it occasionally speeds up to reveal to the viewer what is happening, but other than that, the speed of the edits remains quite slow. The slow pace of the editing adds to the suspense and mystery of what is happening as it allows the viewer time to ponder on the events that are being displayed before them.
The use of sound and editing has helped to genres of the film Sleepy Hollow Tree of the Dead. Without these two elements, the creators of the film would not be able to manipulate the viewers in the way that they have, and the film wouldn't be successful.

Recipe for One Horror Film

Ingredients:

• Shy Girl
• Cheerleaders (2)
• Jock
• Well trusted person
• Nerd
• Head Student
• Creepy Kid
• Empty School
• Knife
• Corpses
• Blood
• Torture
• Guns

Method:

1. A shy girl along with a group of other students all get a message from a well-trusted person to go to their school at 5 for a meeting. 
2. They all get there on time and wait for that person but they don’t show up. 
3. The cheerleader goes to the bathroom and finds the bloody body of the person who 'texted' them on the floor. 
4. She screams and others come running to find out what happened. 
5. They try to call the police, but find that there is no reception. 
6. They try the school landlines, but they don’t work. 
7. They try to leave the school, but find the door is unlocked. 
8. Most decide to stick in a group, but one of the cheerleaders runs off. 
9. The group finds the body of the cheerleader in a classroom that they pass. 
10. They relocate themselves to the gym, keeping an eye out for the killer. 
11. They send a few off to get some food from the cafeteria, as they are hungry. 
12. They hear a scream and go to see what had happened. 
13. The jock was killed, and the cheerleader is screaming.
14. The cheerleader doesn’t know what had happened, but the others are suspicious of her as she was the only one in the room. 
15. They go back to the gym, unsure of what to do. 
16. The Nerd gets pulled to the side on the way back, and the others don’t realise for awhile. 
17. When they do, they go back to find a open window. 
18. They see that they can’t climb out of the window as it is a 3 story drop, that the nerd had obviously taken a swan dive out of. 
19. They go off and the Cheerleader gets shot in the gut and the others take her to the nurses office and try to treat the wound. 
20. While they are there, they give her pain killers, that turn out to be poison (the killer swapped the pills), so she dies. 
21. Not knowing what to do, they go to the cafeteria hoping to find a weapon. 
22. The shy girl turns for a minute while trying to get something out of a cabinet and when she turns back there is no one there. 
23. She's scared so she hides in the corner with the knife that she had just found. 
24. Mean while there is a creepy kid torturing the head girl (who is tied up and gagged), and ripping her fingernails off with pliers, and talking about how she deserved it for bullying him as a kid. 
25. He decided to leave her there and let her die slowly as he goes to find the shy girl. 
26. When he finds her tells her not to worry and that this way they'll be together forever. 
27. She stabs him.
28. He gets peeved and grabs the knife off her and slits her throat. 
29. Realising what he had done, he runs off. 
30. When school starts the next day, the police are called as there is a suspected suicide, but what they find is more than they expected.

I don't know.... I don't watch horror movies...

Production Activity

This is the final result of the short film for our first production activity.
We asked Mr Andrews to watch it and he gave us a lot of useful feedback that we can use in the production if the next one.
Between the news paper clippings, we originally had fades to black. This made it seem to change too fast, so we had it changed to dissolves so that the reader would be able to read the titles.
In the first scene with Lauren, we got told that we could have had the camera further back, as the frame cuts off the top of her head. But the shot was good as she was in the top left point of the rule of thirds.
The second scene was good as there was a leading line and I was exiting through the point at the bottom left.
The third was good as the camera case was at the bottom left point, and Lauren stays in the left two points of the rule, until we angled the camera up to face her and she was placed in the middle of the screen.
In the next shot, the desk is in an awkward position and the shot could have been angled better. If we had taken the shot from a high angle and from the top left corner of the desk, then it wouldn't look as awkward.
The shot after this is where Lauren is searching through her drawer to see if the image of the key is in there. This shot was ok, and the fact that the rule of thirds wasn't used well isn't as much as a problem as the whole point of the shot was to show that she did have the image. Also, when she brings the image out of its place in the drawer, it is in the bottom left third, helping the shot to end up looking good.
The next shot wasn't as good as the rest. Lauren was placed in the middle of the frame, which was visually unappealing. Also, she the excessive back lighting and the lack of light shining on her face made her seem more like a villain that a hero, as she was (in a way) supposed to be. We brought the brightness level up when we were editing the film, but she still seemed evil.
When comparing the keys in the next shot, her right hand is in the bottom right point of the rule of thirds, but there isn't any leading lines leading your eye to the key. As the key is the focal point of the image, it isn't that good of a shot. But it does show that the keys are the same, bringing some sense into the film.
When Lauren comes out of the 'headquarters' the shot is quite awkward. Although it ends up working as Lauren walks to the left points of the rule of thirds, we could have filmed it from further to the left. It would conceal the villain (a.k.a. Millie) a bit better and also it would make it more visually pleasing. Also, we should have used a tripod as the shot is quite shaky.
The next shot is quite good as it uses the rule of thirds quite well, but the only problem was that we couldn't originally see the gun when we changed the movie to black and white. To fix this problem, we had to brighten the shot.
When Lauren clenches her fist around the key, it ends up looking quite good. Even though her hand and the key weren't originally in the rule, her fist moves into the rule as she clenches it.
The next shot was troublesome. The gun and the camera were both shaky, but in a way that adds the fact that Lauren is supposed to be scared. But the shot should have been taken from Millie's left so that the gun is closer to the camera than Millie and have the gun in the bottom left point of the rule of thirds and Millie in the top right.
The next shot is awkward as Lauren's hand is located closer to the centre of the screen, but it effectively shows that she got killed without having to show the gore of the action.
The next is a shot of the key. It was a fill in shot as the shots before and after it were too similar and caused the movie to become too informal and, in a way, awkward. Although we tried to make it as smooth as possible, it still ended up shaky.
The next shot could have been taken from a different angle, and we could have placed Lauren's hand one of the points of the grid, and Millie's foot.
The last shot of the film would have been better if we had taken it from further to the right. The leading lines make the shot work, but if we had have her start walking at the right of the grid and leave at the left.
But in the end, the film turned out quite well. We just need to fix up a few shots... Well, most of them.

Shot List

Shots:

1.        Collage of newspaper clippings shown – zoom in, zoom out

2.        Shot of Lauren running through door at top of stairs

3.        Shot of Julian running down stairs - drops something

4.        Lauren walks down the stairs - picks up the bag and takes key out

5.        Cuts to her searching through a desk - different angled shots

6.        Finds image of key

7.        Shot of the key next to the image of the key

8.        Show the reaction of the detective

9.     Walks out of the room

10.  Gun appears at her head

11.  White flash

12.  Shot of the arm, implying they are dead

13.  Shot of the shooter walking away - only their back

Production Activity

The Production Activity went quite well and we managed to complete the film on time.

On the first day, we were planning out the one minute film. We decided that Lauren would be the detective that was trying to find the key, I would be the person who had stole the key and that Millie would be the killer.

On the Second day, we filmed the staircase scene where Lauren is chasing me and I drop the key without realising. The lighting was a problem at first, but we managed to work it out. The shot shows me running down the stairs in a low angle as I am in a position of weakness and high angles of Lauren as she is in a position of power as she is chasing me. We kept changing the idea and ended up with a whole heap of shots, but were only able to use a few as there were problems in the others involving timing and acting.

On the third day, we filmed the scene where Lauren is searching through her desk at her head quarters and trying to find the image of the key that was stolen so that she can identify that it is in fact the right key. We used the dungeon and took advantage of the lights in the room. We then filmed just outside the dungeon and had the scene when Millie confronts Lauren with a gun and shoots her in the temple before leaving with the key. There weren't too many problems that day, the main one being that Lauren was unable to keep a straight face, forcing us to send a few people out of the room to remove the distraction.


Today was the last day and we used it for editing. We had to cut out loose parts of shots, and also film a shot of the key as we had to place a shot between two other shots that were too similar and caused disorientation. We were originally overtime, but managed to cut it down to a few seconds below the minute mark. We used a fade to white to show the gun shot and the death of Lauren. Also we made the whole film black and white as the warm colouring of the film didn't help us make our mystery/suspense genre.

Overall, the project has gone great and I am quite happy with the end result.