LO4: Exported final footage

Here are the settings I used to export my final film in Premiere Pro:

I uploaded it directly to YouTube in a high quality format so that quality isn't lost.

Final footage:

 

LO4: Justify creation process against original production plan concepts

Here is a list of 3 crucial shots to the short film and how they change/stay the same from my original production plan to final draft.

Shot 1

This shot of my antagonist finally taking the centre screen for the climactic part of the movie is very effective at meeting conventions. As this is the shot where my antagonist has finally revealed themself, I want them to have an imposing presence on screen and to the audience. I carefully planned this shot in my preproduction storyboard to use techniques that give it a stronger meaning and have more of an effect on the audience, however a few changes were made. One of the techniques I planned in the storyboard was a low angle which connotes the power and dominance of the antagonist as it towers over us and our protagonist. I changed the visual of the scene slightly to have a backlight behind my shadowy outline, compared to the storyboard which was just a barley visible outline in the darkness. I did this to create a more

 effective visual that further emphasises the terror of the scene by using the light behind my actor to emphasise their imposing presence. This helps to further create the enigma of the short film for the audience as they are finally able to see the entity, but aren't given answers to their questions. It also allows me to create a ghost-like antagonist and an effective visual on a low budget. Another change I made to the shot was to have a 'static-like' distortion flicker on the screen. This was to call back to an earlier scene where the same effect appeared when the antagonist partially revealed themself. This creates a more streamlined story and helps to make the antagonist feel more omnipotent. 

Shot 2

In the kitchen scene my extended tracking shot conforms to genre conventions of horror by creating tension. It does this by putting the audience in the protagonists shoes, having us slowly move around the kitchen with her, making us empathise for the character much more. The bright cold light emanating from the fridge and camera mounted light connote the spine chilling fear our character is feeling in the scene. I improved the scene by reducing the temperature slightly, enough to make it more blue, but not too much that it's overwhelming. This helps to make it feel like all the light in the scene is coming from the traditional blue light fridge. When the light is shut off at the end of the scene as the fridge closes, the room is left shroud in dark, creating a new further sense of tension as the antagonist could be hiding amongst the shadows and leaving the tension still in the air as the shot carries on for agonisingly long. This scene is also an example of how I effectively used camerawork and visual editing to conform to my genre; this is done by controlling exactly what my audience can/can't see in the scene. For example blocking the background out when my character gets to the fridge that opened by itself, tricking the audience into thinking something will be waiting behind like in a typical horror movie. I then created my scare scene by hiding the scare in an area the audience already thought they saw earlier in the tracking shot: directly behind us.

Shot 3

This shot is important as I needed to convey to the audience the death of the mother in a single shot with a low budget and limited skills of practical effects. In my original production plan the scene had a lot more practical blood and gore, however I was unable to do this in filming as I didn't have much fake blood and it stained easily, restricting me to only using a small amount on the wrist. As a result I had to use my limited knowledge of PremierePro to create fake blood splatters that look as if they were on the camera itself. Although this is different to the storyboard it still creates a smilier effect and conveys the meaning of the shot to the audience effectively. 

LO3: Source special effects footage in line with production plan

 

Here is evidence of my recorded footage I will be applying my visual and special effects to.

All of these shots align with my storyboard, the ones I plan on applying the effects to are;

- 9339, 9341, 9320, 9313, 9356: these are the scenes I will be applying the 'eyes' effect to, of two white glowing dots staring down our protagonist. This is important as it establishes that our protagonist is actually there, as well as this the character react to the eyes multiple times throughout the film. This means this is the most important effect to implement or else the movie will not make sense. 

- 9282 9288 9294: although I will be applying the effect of colour grading to all of my clips, these are the ones most important as the colour grading is emphasised to be specifically a light, cold blue to create a specific eerie atmosphere planned in my preproduction documents. 

LO3: Applying effects and editing sourced footage

 This post is a merge document containing both:

- Review and edit sourced footage 

- Apply visual effects to planned sourced footage 

Application of the first visual effect- Colour Grading

Colour grading is one of the simplest forms of digital effects that you can apply to a video. This is useful as some of my shots didn't turn out how initially planned, so the digital editing of colour grading allowed me to go back and fix some of my previous mistakes or just make the shot look more visually pleasing for the audience. 

An example of fixing a previous mistake this is in this shot, which appeared much darker than initially intended. This was an issue as only a slight bit of the foreground could be seen in the shot; seeing the background here is important for the audiences understanding of how the scene plays out, as it lets us know that there's something in the room with my protagonist. 

I fixed this issue by accessing the properties of the clip and balancing the whites, highlights, shadows and exposure of the clip to make an overall better looking shot. This allowed the audience to be able to see the fact that the door was opening by itself in the darkness. It also made the scene much more satisfying to watch as a movie being too dark is a highly regarded criticism in modern horror movies that I wanted to combat in my production, whilst still creating a fear of the unknown with my monster hiding in the shadows.  

Another way I fixed an issue with my recorded shots with colour grading was improving the continuity of the scenes, as well as just giving the movie more of a visual style that helps make it stand out. An example of a continuity issue with how some scenes were filmed is that the lighting drastically changes in between the shots that are supposed to be taking place one after the other. Here is an example below:

In the first shot we can clearly see that our antagonist is being hit with a dim orange light in the room where they are stood, but when the shot changes that allows s to see in to the room, the lighting is not only much more high-key, but also much whiter/yellow. This makes the room appear much brighter, which is an issue as it completely pulls the audience out of the immersion of the film for what is supposed to be an otherwise shocking and important scene. 

And here is the updated scene after adjusting the properties: increasing the exposure in the first clip and increasing the temperature and shadows in the second. These changes make the scenes look as if they're are taking place immediately after one another and help to give more depth and meaning to the film; the orange initially intended making the scene feel hot with tension as we reach the 'boiling point' of the film. As well as this it helps to improve the cinematography by making the shots feel more stylistically distinct from the standard white/pale lighting.

This was a change I made to most of my scenes also, correcting the lighting and giving the film more visual flare with the colour grading so that the audience stay invested in my film. 

I also enhanced my cinematography with colour grading and editing to conform to the conventions of my horror genre. In this example of my protagonist Quinn's phone light scanning over the environment, I edited the temperature, exposure and blacks/whites. This caused the light to be much more concentrated and made the surroundings darker. This made it so that I could directly control what the audience were allowed to see within the light, putting them in my protagonists shoes and allowing me to appeal to genre conventions of horror by creating a creepy atmosphere to keep the audience engaged and on edge.

Special Effects

As part of my project it's important to apply visual effects in post production so that I can make the short film as closely accurate to my vision of what I want the film to look like as possible. In the production of short films, especially horror, special effects are the way to do this. 

As I have not only a budgeting constraint but also a talent constraint for the application of practical effects, it resulted in an issue of me not being able to find a way to create an effective dead body to communicate to the audience the twist of the movie. I came up with the idea of a close up shot of the hand, that way I can also solve the enigma of where the car keys were by having them be in the dead body of the mothers hand. I added a minor practical effect of fake blood (as seen below) but it still didn't feel worthy enough of a shot to reveal that the mother is dead, especially with the extreme lack of blood on the hand. This causes the audience not to be satisfied with the reveal as their audience expectations of what they expect to see in a modern day horror film is a lot of blood and gore. 

(the shot before any application of Digital Effects)

This is why I decided I wanted to apply a digital effect to the shot to make the scene feel more 'gore-y'. Although I still had a digital effect talent constraint being that I couldn't create fake blood/gashes on the hand, it didn't mean I couldn't make the scene feel more gorey. I decided it would narratively make sense if I made it seem as if blood was dripping down the camera lens instead, implying to the audience that the death was so brutal that blood splatted everywhere, even on to the camera itself. 

The first thing I did to create this effect was duplicate my clip and layer them on top of each other. I did this by holding down the option key and then dragging he clip a layer higher, duplicating it on top of the other.

I then searched for the 'tint' and 'gaussian blur' effects in the project window and added them to the duplicated clip.

I opened the added effects settings and mapped the black to a dark red and white to a lighter red on the tint effect. For the Gaussian Blur effect I just increased the blurriness to make the screen look like we (the camera) were looking through blood, causing the screen to be blurry. 

I then clicked the 'new item' button in the project window and layered a black 'colour matte' on top of my clips. I then put the 'VR fractal noise' effect onto this new colour matte. 

I edited the 'VR Fractal Noise' effect by adjusting the contrast and brightness to create a white stained fog like screen. This white fog would become my blood. 

I did this by adding the effect 'track matte key' to my previous duplicate clip, accessing its settings and then changing the 'matte' to 'video 3' and changing the composite to 'matte luma'.

This made it so that the blood red overlay replaced the white and black of the fog-looking matte. I then further started playing around with the settings of each effect (mainly the contrast, brightness and opacity of the clips) as well as increasing the size of the matte overlay so that there wasn't excess blood on the screen and making the blood larger.  

The finishing touch I added to this effect was editing the 'evolution' setting on the 'VR fractal noise' effect. I enabled the animation for the setting and created key frames at the start and end of the clip. The starting keyframe being set to 75 degrees and ending keyframe -13. This made it so that the blood moved on the screen slightly, as if its dripping down the lens.

Another primary visual effect I used was a glitch-distortion effect. This made the scenes I applied the effect to seem as if the camera the audience are looking through was glitching out to connote the world our character is in distorting and breaking apart.

I created this effect similarly to the previous one. 

First I duplicated the clip I wanted to apply the effect to and layered it on top of the original clip. I then applied the 'strobe light' effect to the overlay and changed the strobe light duration to be 1 second and created keyframes so that more strobe lights would appear as the clip continues (first keyframe=0% random strobe light possibility, last keyframe=100%). This created a white flash effect on the clip. 

As I wanted the effect to not show a white frame each time, I changed the strobe to 'make layer transparent that way when each 'flash' happens it switches between the top overlay and actual clip itself. I then made them slightly out of sync so that each flash would switch between 1 second forward in time and 1 second back. This is so that the clips gave the appearance they were glitching between one another. 

To give the effect more of the appearance of a 'glitch' I used the effect 'VR Chromatic Aberrations' on the top clip which give the scene a blue/red outline every time the glitch appeared. I also applied the 'black and white' effect here so that every time the glitch happened the scene would flick between colour and black/white.

The final touch added to this effect was that I made the overlay slightly larger than the original clip so the size would also distort between glitches. 

The final effect I added was a lot less complicated but effective non the less. It was creating my piercing white eyes that stalk the protagonist throughout the film. 

I did this by creating a black background shape on power point and adding two white 'full stops' on top of it to give the appearance of eyes being caught in the darkness by the camera light. I then screen shotted it and imported it to my edit.

After adding the overlay to my scenes I got rid of the black background by adding the 'colour key effect to the overlay. This allowed me to select the colour black and completely remove it from the overlay so that only to white dots remained. I then added the 'VR Glow' effect to make the yes glow slightly like they were two specs of light in the darkness. I then duplicated this effect and applied it to every scene I had planned the eyes to appear in.

LO2: Issues and risks for proposed multiple effects.

One issue/risk with proposed multiple effects is time constraints. Applying and creating visual effects, especially digital effects, takes a lot of time. This means that I have to be very careful about how much time I allocate on different effects as I need to ensure that I leave enough time to have every aspect of the movie edited to the best of my ability. This means that I will have to be very careful and stay within my production schedule as falling out of line could cause the project not to be completed.

The effects taking time as means I will be sat at a computer for extended periods of time. This creates the risk of eyestrain, bad posture and aching wrists. It's important that I take regularly scheduled breaks/exercises as allowing these risks to happen not only cause me to have poor physical health, but may impact on my mental health too. This would result in me losing motivation to work on the film and getting frustrated with it.

Another issue/risk to be aware of is a talent constraint. As I am only college student, I don't have the full extent of knowledge for how to create premiere pro special effects. This means that creating multiple effects will take a lot of time and learning for me to get it right. This is a risk as I have to ensure that the extended time it takes to create all my special effects doesn't turn into a time constraint issue and push me off of schedule, causing me to not have it completed in time. As well as I can't create very many practical effects either due to the high level of prosthetic talent required. 

LO2: Production plan for audio-visual content incorporating visual effect ideas

Storyboard with explanation of visual effects i'll be using

The primary special effect I will be applying to my film is the creation of my ghostly antagonist who mostly appears as two glowing eyes peering at our protagonist from the dark. This is a simple visual effect that'll be present throughout the film and establish the threat of my antagonist. It is first seen here in shot four watching our antagonist as she wakes up. this is an effective visual effect as its simple to create (in comparison to creating a full ghost design) and effective for my genre as it feeds off the viewers fear of the unknown without looking cheap and tacky.

 

The white eyes are seen here again in shot twelve.

Although all scenes in my short film will be using colour grading to darken the shadows and make some scenes brighter/darker, this scene is the best example of where I use it to create a distinct visual style and create an eerie atmosphere. In the scene the fridge opens by itself and the blue light from it spreads across the kitchen. I will be using colour grading in editing as a visual effect to make the lighting a cold blue, creating meaning through the VFX as it connotes the spine chilling fear our character is feeling.

In the final scene the eyes visual effect will be used again but instead applied on top of a silhouette to heighten the effect of the reveal/plot twist in the movie.

Production Schedule

Here is my production schedule, highlighted in red is when I will be applying the visual effects to my short film; in the postproduction editing stage.

Here is a production schedule specifically for the editing stage, including the application of a range of visual and special effects.

Risk Assessment

Here is a risk assessment I created to avoid any potential harm/danger when applying my visual effects in post production. 

Location Recce

 

Location:  Residential Home

 

Date:   14/01/24

 

Survey time:   09:08

 

Address:   S8 Westwick Road, Greenhill

   

 

Interior   

Available power: Correct 

Natural light: Medium-High 

Doors & windows: One in every room, natural light not required 

 

Logistics 

 

Transport:  Not Needed/ Self transport

Permits:   Gained

Facilities:   Available (food, drink and restrooms)

 

Exterior   

Weather:   Clear skies

Light:   High-key

 

Sound:  Little to no outside sound that will effect my filming.

 

Notes: Cramped house environment may difficult for filming, ensure to keep this in mind when planning pre-production. The filming must take place at night to achieve the low-key lighting atmosphere. Take the actors into consideration as they may be tired, make sure to provide food and drink.

   

Recording my short film in a dark house environment will make it easier to apply visual and special effects to my short film as a lot of the planned VFX can be obscured by dark shadows to make them ominous and harder to see, meaning its less easy to see the flaws in editing. As well as this the location allows for control of external light sources, making it much easier to colour grade each scene as no natural light will be interfering with my artificial lighting and making it too high-key.

Footage Log

Almost all scenes shown here in the footage log will be using the VFX of colour grading, the scenes; 9313, 9320, 9341, 9356 will all be using the visual effect of the white glowing eyes previously explained in the annotated storyboard.