The Lost Hart Finished Product By Matthew Helliwell

Here is our film 'The Lost Hart' I uploaded it to youtube earlier this afternoon.


Here is the embedded video.



Alternatively here is the link.

The Lost Hart

Audience Feedback by Shelley Brookes and Hayley Outhwaite

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPcAuSgtW8U

For our audience feedback we interviewed several people after getting them to watch the unfinished film. This was so that we could get feedback on what else needed doing and any changes that could be made. A problem we faced when recording our feedback was that the tape we were using ran out of space. Therefore we had to find an alternative tape to use.

The questions we used were:

1. What did you enjoy about the film?
Throughout the film, were you able to pick out any favourite parts?
Specifically, was there any parts that stood out to you?
Were you able to follow the film with ease?
2. What did you think about the twist at the end of the film?
Was it easy enough to understand?
Is there anything you would change about the twist or the build up to the main climax?
Was the ending obvious throughout the film?
3. Was there any part that you didn't enjoy, or you didn't think was necessory?
(Answer Yes) Specifically, what didn't you enjoy?
(Answer No) Would you say there was nothing wrong with our film?
4. Do you agree with the 12 rating of the film?
(Answer Yes)Why?
(Answer No)What rating would you give it and why?
5. Overall, what star rating would you give the film?

These questions were produced by Lucy Davies as shown earlier on on blogger.

Critically Evaluating my Video Production by Shelley Brookes

Continuity editing is a common technique within our film and is difficult to maintain. Although we showed that we were able to do this as our shots were all continuous. We used it to show the actresses walking through doors, conversations and all other continuous shots. We also used jump cuts to deliberately miss things out for example walking to another place.

Our film is a psychotic thriller and has similar aspects of other films. These include, The Uninvited (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnqDcdyI-qQ ), Gothika (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0e8SfWvXdM ) and The Butterfly Affect (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5dVQfzjDS4 ). It has a thrilling affect and causes a sense of confusion. We used The Uninvited for ideas on how to create a twist, as in this film there is also a girl suffering from a mental illness. As a result of her illness in the film she has an imaginary friend who is her dead sister. Her sister leads her to kill their step mother. Whereas in our film her imaginary friend is a girl who use to go to the college she attends. The girl is a positive attribute to her life as she helps her with her problem, which is being bullied.

Towards the end of our film we were trying to create horror by having Lucy sat with her friend Emily-Jane and the camera is a mid-length shot of them both, then cut to the teacher Simon and then back to the shot before but with Lucy sat on her own. This is like at the end of the film The Uninvited where the girl is stood with her sister and then the camera cuts to her dad and then back to her on her own covered in blood and holding a knife.

‘The Theory of Entertainment’ by Richard Dyer states that a person picks films that show or give them something they don’t have at the time. For example if a person is lacking abundance then they will watch a film with lots of money, cars or clothes in it. This is a film that shows wealth.

We were trying to achieve a sense of fear, confusion and suspense with the audience when making both our film and our two sources of advertisement. It was reflected in our poster by the way we used dull colours but with a splash of white around the main character Emily-Jane to make her stand out, as we were hoping she did in the film. Also, the old fashioned writing may imply it has something to do with something from the past. We decided to have Lucy and Emily-Jane on the poster as they are the main characters and this is how most posters are set out. This is shown in the poster for the film ‘Date Night’. It is an image of both Steve Carell and Tina Fey who are the main characters in the film. We then repeat the writing ‘chasing her ghost..’ all down the left hand side of the poster. This is to show an annoyance or something that is in the film that the character may not be able to get rid of. In our film this would be her mental illness.

Our other source of advertisement was a radio trailer. We used a piece of music which was performed by only a piano. This same piece is repeated over and over which creates a creepy feel to the audience. We used voices of the same pitch so that it creates a better sense of panic when we use the extracts from the film. This is due to the big difference in the tone of voice. We then added an echo on to the voice of the character; this dragged it out and enforced a sense of confusion and suspense on to the audience as they aren’t sure what’s happening but will want to find out by seeing it.

The film Law abiding citizen uses music from a piano at the beginning of the trailer. When a climax occurs though the music changes and speeds up. The music is usually background music on a trailer so that the voice of characters or the narrator can still be heard. But the music plays the biggest past as it implies to the audience the type of film it’s going to be. In our trailer it is the same all the way through which will cause confusion as it gives nothing away about the film.

When we first got our brief we decided we wanted to make a storyline with a twist at the end of it. This way they will think they know what’s happening all the way through the film and then at the end it will get them thinking as they realise they are far from the truth. To help us with our choice of film I conducted some research using a questionnaire. It consisted of questions that would help us with our choice on what genre to use. In my results I found that most short films were seen on the internet site http://www.youtube.com/ by the audience. It then came to my attention that within horror films was murder and rape. Second to this was sex and drugs. Therefore we had to make up our own mind as it would be virtually impossible for us to include any of the other 4 aspects in a five minute film. We then asked the same question but with what they don’t like to see and the results showed that they didn’t like to see what they previously liked. This implied to me that the people taking part in my questionnaire were either not taking it serious or just ticking any of the boxes.

So that what was happening in the film was apparent to the audience we took several different shots every time we filmed. These included shots from different angles, with different amount of lighting and in different parts of the room or college. We used cuts of previous parts of the film to represent Lucy’s flashbacks. We also used special effects to make Emily-Jane disappear then re-appear in the room with Lily. Finally we experimented with saturation and colour effects. This lead to the decision that we would change to a three or four toned colour then change it back to its original colour. This caused it to look like a flash and created a spooky effect.

Our film was aimed at teenagers so we used characters of the same age so they were easy to relate to. For example, Lucy being the victim of a bullying problem meant that any teenagers being bullied could relate to her and it may encourage them also to talk to someone. This made the characters easy to understand as they were teenagers suffering real life problems. Although, the older generation who like psychological thrillers may also be classed as our target audience. In my opinion our film was easy to understand all the way through until the end we intentionally set out to confuse people with the twist. We found out that this technique worked when we got audience feedback. The participants said that they thought it was ‘unpredictable’ and a ‘good idea’.

A problem with our film may be the regional accent. Although, there are no regional words used but the pronunciation of words may be different to how others say them. This may lead to a mixture of interpretations with the audience or for them to be confused with what the characters are saying.

When I was planning and researching before the film making process I used the website http://www.blogger.com/. I created an account and posted all my research and planning on the site. We used http://www.google.com/ to find out any information we needed for the film. An example for this is when we were deciding on a certificate. I also posted my poster analysis, the poster I designed, my analysis of a five minute film and all the diary extracts I wrote after days of filming. Apple Mac’s were the computers we were on to do all our planning, research and any other work that was needed. Photoshop was another computer programme which helped us with our other advertising product, our poster. We had several lessons to give us information on how to use this programme and what tools to use for best results.

The video recorder we used was a Sony HDV 1000. A tri-pod was used as a stand for the camera so that it was a still and even shot. To make sure of this I would check the spirit level on the top of the tri-pod and alter the legs until the bubble was central. For our radio trailer we used a H4 zoom recorder. This was easy to use; although we were given a sheet with the instructions on to prevent us making any mistakes.

When editing our film we used software called ‘Final Cut Express’ this was very useful with the production of our film and made it a lot easier for us. Garage Band was a programme we used to add audio clips to the film such as the alarm clock.

All the technology we used was a big attribute to the production of our film, poster, movie trailer and the research and planning we did. I found the website http://www.blogger.com/ difficult as I didn’t know how to make my name visible on the blog’s wall. I used the camera a lot so I found this was the easiest source of equipment for me. I developed my filming skills, using a variety of shots and techniques such as zooming and panning. I also liked to get a number of different shots so that there would definitely be one that we liked and wanted to use. The programmes on the computer played the biggest part on helping us develop our film as they made it possible to add special effects, such as audio clips and change of colours on certain shots. It also let us cut off parts off the shot we didn’t want.

Diary Extract by Shelley Brookes

March 23rd
This was our final day of filming and was used to do the car scenes. This was the most difficult scene to film as it was outside college and included driving a car on a real road.
First, we did a shot of Jade, Sharon and Danielle (the bullies) driving down the road in the car. This was done close up and then from a distance so we could get a better shot of the bully Danielle throwing a bottle out of the car window, aiming for the head of Lucy. We then did these shots so that Lucy could be seen walking down the path at the side of the road. The bottle was then thrown so that it would miss her head, that way we didn’t hurt her.
We then did a shot of Danielle throwing the bottle at Lucy’s head but with the car at a stand still, this was so she could do it softer.
Finally, we did a shot from inside the car with the bully Danielle holding the camera. This was so the audience could see it from her point of view.

Critically evaluating video production by Lucy Davies

For our media product, we wanted to create a mild psychotic thriller that was potentially for a wide audience. Psychological thrillers deliberately use psychological tricks to create tension in the audience by stimulating the imagination of the viewer, as they make up their own minds on what is going to happen. To make maximum use of suspense in our film, we purposely kept the action content to a minimum which was a way that made the audience gripped to the storyline making the overall experience of the film thrilling.
We chose to place our film under the category of psychological thriller as it includes a main character with mental health issues rather than the actor being exposed to physical danger. As a group, we decided to rate our film as a ‘12a’, enabling a large amount of people to actually watch the short film we produced. Another reason why we rated our film as a 12a is that we didn’t have the right equipment and experience to form any scenes of violence or horror, so we decided to produce a film that contained mild swearing and mild scenes of horror to qualify the rating of our film as a 12a. Throughout the production of our film, we enabled ourselves to use the correct set of shots and cuts to enhance the importance of the psychotic effect we wanted to establish for the duration of our film. At the end of our film, we used flashing images of Emily-Jayne standing behind Lucy which was a feature we interpreted to reveal the twist at the end using a psychotic effect. We also used filters and coloured effects with blurs and blurred motions to make some parts of the film more unusual, as we wanted to add things that the audience would not expect. In some places, we used quick cuts from shot to shot to make the scene more frantic, allowing the audience to feel more anxious to what could happen which was a way that built up tension to capture the audience’s attention until the very end of the film. We also used a variety of different shots, including close up shots to emphasise emotions and facial expressions used by the actors and long shots to show the scenery enabling the audience to see where the film is taking place so that they get a better understanding. Mid length shots were used for conversations allowing the audience to feel more involved in the film. We also used full length shots so that the audience could see the characters fully and make up their own opinions of each character from their appearance. (This technique of letting the audience make their own decisions was an idea I wanted to incorporate from the 5 minute film I analysed, as it makes the revealing of the twist more dramatic). The character Emily-Jayne that played the part of a ghost wore the same clothing throughout the film implying that there could be something mysterious about her. The costumes of the characters became a problem during the film as the dress we used for Emily-Jayne was borrowed from the performing arts section of college and it got lost after we had used it several times so we had to improvise on set. Also, we used two different jumpers for Lucy, and as both characters had to film in their own time we could only do short scenes so we got confused which jumpers were needed for each shot.
Continuity editing is a technique used to link a sequence together using a variety of different shots. This makes a scene more interesting as it enables the audience to see a range of shots that they can simply follow without confusion. Continuity editing was used throughout our film for conversations and walking sequences through doors and corridors etc. We used this technique to make the film flow more appropriately, allowing the audience to get a better understanding of what the film is about without getting confused, especially for the twist at the end. However, some parts of the film where we wanted to use continuity editing was impossible as some of the scenes we filmed didn’t have enough different shots to make the sequence flow appropriately. Also, the lighting and sounding from shot to shot was different which made it difficult to make the scene continue. An example of this is when both main actresses were in the canteen. It was difficult to make the scene continue with a variety of different shots as we simply didn’t have enough shots. Nevertheless, in some parts of our filming we did the same shot twice but made the actress do it in different emotions to enable us to have more variety when editing. We also did the same shot in close ups and long shots so that we could chose which was better for the overall scene. When filming, we did have an advantage as we were able to use actors from performing arts which made the filming part more professional, but this caused problems as we had to film in our breaks at college and their breaks which left us little time to edit.
In addition, we used several jump cuts to compress a number of shots into a quick scene. An example of using jump cuts in our film was the opening sequence when our actress (Lily) was getting ready for college, to create a more frantic scene. This technique emphasises a specific activity that the character is acting out, which is a way of creating suspense to capture the audience’s attention. We also used dissolves and fades to pass a passage of time and to simply link different scenes together without immediately cutting from scene to scene.
Uses and gratification (Richard Dyers Theory of entertainment) is an approach that highlights why people enjoy watching films and the pleasure they get from them. This can be summarised from the entertainment value of the film, the information that it provides for the audience, specific role models that the audience may find inspiring and the socialisation factor that comes from watching a film. In my opinion, our film is entertaining as it captures the audience’s attention throughout the film until the twist at the end. As Emily-Jayne is wearing old fashioned clothing and comes across as an outsider, the audience are anxious to see why this appearance was used for this character, which is a way of gradually building tension. Our film is also educational as it provides information about schizophrenia and how it can affect people. Even though our film comes across as dramatic, it is still true to life making the audience learn about situations that schizophrenics may be in. Transparency can make certain viewers want to watch our film as they may be able to relate own experiences of knowing people with schizophrenia or even being a suffer themselves of schizophrenia , enabling the audience to share their own emotions towards the film. Furthermore, all films create socialisation as any person can have their own opinion on a film which is another reason to why people may watch it.
From the 5 minute film I analysed (‘LOVEFIELDS’), the main way that tension was built was by the music used and the fact that the director led the audience to believe the male in the film raped and killed the woman, making the revealing of the twist more unexpected. In addition, the use of close ups were used in this short film to express emotions more clearly, making the overall experience of watching the film more thrilling, as it involves the audience. This is a technique we used in our film, by doing close up shots of Lucy’s face when she was distressed etc to make it more direct to the viewer. In our film, we led the audience to believe that Lucy was an ordinary girl that was getting bullied, leaving any action content to a minimum to keep the audience gripped throughout. This was a technique I wanted to include in our film, as the opening sequence to ‘LOVEFIELDS’ was very slow, however it made me anxious to see what was going to happen. I believe that our film gave no implications to what the ending could be about like ‘LOVEFIELDS’.
To advertise our film, we used a radio trailer that included appropriate information to inform the audience. With any trailer, to get the maximum effect of advertising a film to the viewers, it is vital that specific techniques and features are incorporated to make the audience want to see the film. This is a DVD trailer of the film ‘The Sixth Sense’. Before watching this trailer, I was intrigued to see what techniques were used to persuade the audience to watch the film and the music and script included, in order for me to take ideas and use them in our own radio trailer.

Immediately, the audience is captured by the scene of the accident and the fact that the young boy is implying that he can see a dead woman next to his window. The audience’s attention is now focused on the young boy, making them predict what the film could be about. We used this technique in our trailer, as we wanted the listeners to make their own minds up on what the film could be about, making the twist at the end less obvious. We wanted the listeners to be left in suspense after listening to the trailer, which was a technique used in ‘The Sixth Sense’ trailer. We did this by using an extremely brief description of the film and adding extracts of the film to leave the audience wanting more. Both trailers had their own way of building tension by using psychotic effects. In our radio trailer, we wanted to include a piano for the background music to create a ghostly effect. Both Shelley and I spoke for the audio to portray that a group of girls were chanting like the bullies in the film, or Lily and Emily-Jayne were talking simultaneously to show their connection with each other. An eerie effect was created in ‘The Sixth Sense’ trailer by using thrilling music and extracts from the film such as ‘I see dead people’. Also, a deep male voice only said the title of the film and the tagline being ‘Not every gift is a blessing’ which emphasised these two features. In our film poster, we included a tagline 'chasing her ghost...' to leave the audience in suspense and by copy and pasting it, it gives the implication that someone has repeatedly written it down in frustration (Highlighting mental health issues). Also in the poster, the title is the biggest piece of text so the audience won't get confused between the tagline and the title. We thought it would be a good idea to smudge all the text used on the poster to create a ghostly effect that we have used throughout the design on the poster. Furthermore, putting the rating of the film on the poster was a vital piece of information that needed to be added so that the audience knew what age it was suitable for, which is something ‘The Sixth Sense’ trailer didn’t include.

To begin with, as a group we chose images that we thought were suitable to use for a film poster. We thought it was vital that both main characters were used in the poster, so that the audience have a better idea of who to expect in the film. This is why a large image of Lily's face and a figure of Laura-Jane is used, including their names at the bottom of the poster enabling the audience to recognise who they are. Cleverly, in ‘The Sixth Sense’ trailer, it included five star ratings and critics’ opinions that may make the audience want to watch the film. We wanted to include this in our radio trailer, but we thought it may be inappropriate to the script. However, ‘The Sixth Sense’ trailer highlighted the main actor ‘Bruce Willis’, so we decided to include the actors names in our radio trailer, as we did in the poster, as this could also persuade the audience to watch the film if they knew the actor or actors from previous films they have seen them in. To continue with the eerie effect, we wanted Emily-Jayne to be in the background, distorted, so that the audience were under the impression that she could be a ghost. Influenced by the film poster I analysed, we decided to slightly blur her face like the young girl was in the ‘Uninvited’ poster as it created some sort of mystery.




For our audience feedback, I produced a number of questions to get the right amount of advice to make improvements on our film. Some of the positive responses enabled us, as a group, to feel good about our film, and also leave things in that we may have taken out. We did receive criticism which was that the pace of the film at the beginning could have been quicker, so by improving this, we shortened walking sequences and long conversations to make the film more entertaining for the audience. We were also told to add more music to our film, so we choice a piece of music that we wanted to use as our theme tune from a college band ‘My Friends in Vegas’. We also added music from Garageband to build tension and make scenes more interesting to watch. One member of the audience said how they worked out the ending which was disappointing; however, no one else seemed to know what was coming so we decided to leave the film from the majority of people’s opinions. Another member of the audience mentioned how the film didn’t flow in some parts as there were editing brakes, so we solved this by finishing the film fully and by adding fades and dissolves to link scenes together.
After asking the question, ‘Do you think the rating of a 12a was right for the film?’ we had positive responses reassuring us that we made the right decision to class the film as a 12a. One of the viewers stated how this was a suitable age rating as anyone younger may not be able to understand the twist at the end, even though the film wasn’t really scary or contained bad language.
We decided to ask people of our own age to give feedback on our film as this was our main target audience. By using the main actress we did (both actresses were of a similar age to our target audience), this enabled our target audience to relate themselves to the film more. From our audience feedback, we were pleased with the overall outcome, and the fact the audience understood our story and thought that the characters were believable. This made our final stages of editing easier as we had little changes to make to our film.
The most important piece of technology that we used was most definitely the internet. This enabled us to use http://www.blogger.com/ so we could sort out all our work on from media and share it with each other. Also, by using http://www.youtube.com/ it gave us inspiration for radio trailer ideas and film poster ideas from http://www.impawards.co.uk/. To create the poster for our film 'The Lost Hart', we used Adobe Photoshop, enabling us to use effects and images of our choice. This made our overall poster look more professional and more likely to be used for a large Hollywood production company if this was possible. In our film, we also used Garageband to add sound effects and music that was appropriate for each scene. We added non-diegectic sounds, such as the alarm clock at the beginning of the film, and also background noises of people murmuring to make shot to shots in the canteen continue.
We used a zoom H4 recorder to make our radio trailer, and then added the speech onto Garageband to create a professional trailer that could potentially be used on a real radio station for advertisement. To edit our film, we used final cut express on an Apple Mac computer which was an easy way to produce the film and add effects to make the film more impressive. Our final piece of equipment we used was the Sony HDV 1000 to film our movie and a tri-pod to stand the camera on and get steady shots, and the DV 1000 to add all the clips we filmed to the computer so we were able to edit it. Both pieces of equipment were easy to use; however, the camera was not always reliable as the battery ran out several times during filming which lost our group a lot of time.

Diary Extract by Shelley Brookes

On March 2nd we did the classroom shot of Lucy entering the room with Emily-Jane to speak to their teacher Simon about the bullying. We started with the conversation between the two but with the camera facing Simon. We then did the same with Lucy, although we did it more than once as we needed to capture Lucy doing a variety of emotions and reactions within the conversation. We also needed to do this show with and without Emily-Jane to show in the film that she isn't really there and we need several different angles of the shot.
Finally, the shot of the bullies for another scene was done using panning. It panned across the faces of the bullies whilst they all made a comment towards Lucy and the way she's talking to herself. We did this shot with Emily-Jane there talking to her and then again without Emily-Jane there and Lucy talking to herself.

Diary Extract by Shelley Brookes

On the 10th February we did a shot at college of Lucy putting on her jumper. This was due to the fact she had two different jumpers on in scenes next to each other. Therefore we decided to do this shot to go in the middle, showing that she has changed jumpers.
We then did a shot of Emily-Jane and Lucy entering the classroom for the scene with the teacher Julie. This was being re-done as the first copy we did of this shot got filmed over. We used members of our media class to act as the class on the film.

Critically Evaluating my Video Production By Matthew Helliwell

Continuity is an editing technique that has to be observed and measured at all times to avoid irregularity in the scene. We generally stuck to continuity to make the production flow from scene to scene an example is when Lucy moves from corridors into a classroom. If continuity isn’t observed in shots like these then we would get an irregular passage of movement. I edit to make sure we stuck to these parameters, but also added jump cuts to keep the viewer from getting bored. The benefits of this are to make a very long shot shorter like in the bathroom scene where Lucy is seen brushing her teeth I split the shot and took bits out so she darted around the bathroom. I hoped to create a rushed effect with these jump cuts but as our films final cut was too long by a substantial amount of time. I had to trim down shots that wern't necessary so I took a lot of shots out of the bathroom. But there are still examples of jump cuts creating a rushed effect throughout the beginning. You can see this clearly by looking at the frame by frame screenshots between the shots.

Here we can see Lucy Casken standing at her

wardrobe as she has just removed a jumper from it.

And in the next frame we can see Lucy Casken in a different location putting the jumper on.

And a few frames later we see her down the stairs.

And then in the kitchen getting breakfast.

This scene purposely breaches basic continuity laws by using jump cuts to rush Lucy's morning routine. It also stops camera shots dragging out and possibly boring the viewer. I like jump cuts and I use them frequently in our film. I got the idea for including jump cuts by doing research into films that use them, such as Notting Hill. I also analyzed a short film produced by other A level students called "The Wrong Turn." This film included jump cuts throughout. Which made me feel confident in using them, because if other A level students could use them and make them work well using I movie editing software. Our group certainly could make it work using Final Cut Express.

If we had to categorise our film to a certain genre I think psychological thriller would be adequate enough as our films themes relate to other films in that category. A major theme of psychological thrillers are characters trying to find out what is real and what’s not which poses a strong connection with the character Emily-Jayne. With Lucy Caskan trying to find out who she really is kind of like how David Fincher tries to make the narrator from Fight Club find out who he is. Which I reference in my film ever so slightly. As the camera pans left to right and shows the bullies speaking about Lucy there is a slight flash of Emily-Jayne Hart stood there next to Lucy Caskan. This idea was brought upon by Brad Pitts emergence to the narrators life in Fight Club. You can see sharp quick flashes of Brad Pitt at the beginning of the film as The Narrator deals with psychological problems. An example of this is in this video taken from youtube you can see the quick flash around the 17 second mark. [Tyler Durden Flash]

Blink and you miss it. You can see it clearly in these screenshots.

This is the workplace around the 16 second mark.

And now we can clearly see Tyler Durden stood in the workplace. This is to show the narrators mentally fragile state of mind. Which I wanted to show in our film.

I love the film and liked the idea of using ideas that stemmed from it. Also in the film especially towards the end there are a lot of brightness sweeps. I got this idea from the TV show Prison Break although they tend to invert the colours I still got the idea from there. The editing I hope provides some kind of enjoyment for the audience. The editing I think keeps the film moving and avoids it from getting a little bit slow. Other than editing techniques I think using actresses who act regularly helps make the film more appealing and real. Anyone with a love for films such as Fight Club, Se7en, the Uninvited and other thrillers would appeal to our film as it contains attributes of typical thrillers as well as attributes that may not often be associated with thrillers. Its always good to have something new and to keep the viewers guessing, like in Se7en. I don’t think we achieved this as well as I would’ve hoped to in our film. In places I am very disappointed with the film, but from the camera shots I got I think I managed to edit it to the best it could be. In the dining scene where Lucy buys two coffees and they sit down and have a conversation that was very awkward to edit and get something decent as members of the group had just filmed one shot throughout the whole conversation which was a substantial amount of time. So to ensure the viewer did not get bored I had to adjust the wire frame of the shot and stretch it so that it did a close up onto Lilly’s face. I think I got the best possible out of that situation because it would’ve been terrible to leave it as one long shot. I also went back and filmed a little bit more which wasn’t filmed with the only available actress and tried to make the scene as good as it could be. As for transitions I don’t really like using them because I think they look tacky. So I just dimmed the contrast to fade out at the key frames I wanted. I did this because I could make it more personalised than a set transition. Editing is a way of making things personal, I made the most of Fast cutting, slow cutting, continuity editing, intentional jump cuts and effects that were available to me. I used a lot of blurs and motion blur to put across the main characters confused state of mind. In the flashback we also see a colour change so the viewer knows it is a flashback. From an audio perspective I added an alarm tone for when the alarm goes off. An equalisation filter also helped me get around a problem of hubbub in the cafeteria. Although I couldn't reduce it fully I took most of the bass out and it did make a positive difference. I also added audio effects such as reverberation and delay on some audio tracks I found it very effective on voice to create a sense of confusion.

As a finished product. Our film poster, radio trailer and film itself produce an all together spooky, confusion filled experience. Which I think we all wanted that effect. First of all our poster is very dark, featuring eerie colours such as blacks and greys with speckles of light. This is sure to give a spooky, eerie feel to anyone who looks at the poster. The tag line which I created ‘Chasing her ghost,’ also gives a spooky sense, it is duplicated on the background to make it stand out yet still come second to the title and actors names. I think this is a very effective poster in applying a theme of confusion to the film.


The radio trailer also does this but I think it was more difficult to portray these themes just through sound. The eerie delicate piano piece underlying the speech is used to draw the listener in. As a package the radio trailer and poster both match the prospects of the film, an eerie psychological thriller. My poster draws resemblance to the poster from the film A Beautiful Mind, as it has Emily Jayne Hart stood in the background slightly faded out, whereas A Beautiful Minds poster has a series of blurred colours and then a silhouette of a person in the background. This was a good idea and I’m glad I stumbled across the poster and took ideas from it.

In filming I was sure to film scenes in two emotional moods so when I came to edit I could choose which looked best. So we made the actresses go through some lines in a sad mood and an angry mood. You can see this at the end when Lucy shouts at the teacher ‘She was my friend I knew her,’ later on there is a flashback and she says the same words in a sad tone. From this I tried to get the view that in her own head she sounds different and she feels different so that the viewer could feel her confusion. But I think fast editing in the flashback scene stops the viewer noticing this as much as I’d like the viewer to. To try and get the most out of the film and portray the characters to the audience I spent time planning before filming, trying to work out a way to build a love able character that people get attached to, I found this hard to do in just a few minutes but tried as it is very important. In the end I think it depends upon the audiences willingness to accept a new character. I tried using sympathy to try and make Lucy connect with the audience through her bullying as bullying is a trouble a lot of teenagers go through. Trying to make teenagers sympathise was a good choice as our target audience is mainly teenagers going onto older adults who like psychological thrillers or thrillers in general.

After taking part in our audience feedback which can be viewed here.
[The Lost Hart Audience Feedback]
We were able to find out what other people thought of the film and we could see if we succeeded in getting across our themes to the audience. At the time we let people watch the film to judge, It was only half way through, we did this so that we could retrieve criticism and then change the film accordingly.
In our audience feedback we got praise for using real actors we also got a lot of praise for editing techniques like the brightness and contrast flashes, one viewer said it made the film interesting and another said that was how the twist was shown. From criticism we found out that we needed more music in parts where there were little or no dialogue. So I got a song off garage band to use as a song off the radio in the car. Other songs in the film were cut from a song that my friends band wrote and i thought it fit the themes well. The statistics of the audience feedback suggest that we had particularly good reviews with 3 out of 5 stars a 4 and a 4.5, we were very impressed with that.

During research and planning the vital piece of technology was the internet and mainly the blog we created. This allowed us to all share everything we had together in our group. It solved a great deal of problems including when I forgot the script one day, we were able to print it off as it was on the internet and accessible to everyone. The most important piece of technology for me personally was using the editing software Final Cut express.I found it easy to use and just brilliant. A lot more flexible with cuts and effects. Plus having multiple video and audio tracks helped the creativeness of the film and allowed us to experiment more than last year where we used I-movie. As well as Final Cut I used garage band for audio samples like the alarm clock which was very useful. To record sound for radio trailer we used a zoom H4 recorder which is very simple and easy to use. To record video, we used a Sony HDV 1000. I found that the camera was very good but pulling focus and setting a shallow focus was rather difficult. This was a disappointing feature as it is commonly used in all films.


Technology at the most of the times was very helpful and reliable although we did have certain problems. A few times we got a camera out and the battery wasn’t charged which was a big problem when we were filming exterior locations. As well as battery problems we got the camera out and when we filmed the shots were not use able due to something not being cleaned correctly. The only problem I had with any other technology was the editing software final cut closing unexpectedly and I lost hours worth of work because of that which was devastating.

To conclude we thought it was best to stick to certain rules and obligations and not stray too far from the genre themes. This makes it easier for the audience to understand our film. Which from our audience feedback they mostly did. Which is a plus. Technology helped us greatly as personally I didn’t fancy splicing film tape to edit each shot. I think we made the film the right way.

Organisation On Set By Matthew Helliwell

Personally I think that being organised when you come to filming is crucial to obtaining good results. It ensures that filming takes minimum time which is important for everyone.

To be organised whilst on set I obtained a clipboard from which I could pin the script and the shooting script plus any other additional notes which contained ideas that I wanted to put into consideration when filming came.

This is the script which was pinned to the clipboard for reference when actors forgot words or just for general guidence. As you can see part are highlighted for which lines the actors are reading in the scene we were filming.

And this is the shooting script that was also attached to the clipboard. This is always to be refrered to and each scene is sectioned off by a different shade of grey. Alspo each scene is numbered for quick reference to other members of the group. Each shot is described very accurately so that we can carry out the shots and make things easier for all of us.

This is the outcome. Script on the top and shooting script on the bottom because we used the script more than the shooting script. It is a lot easier than having a lot of sheets in your hands.

Radio Trailer By Lucy Davies Final with ideas from the whole group

This is our radio trailer for our 5 minute film. I wanted to include piano in the background to create a ghostly effect. Both me and Shelley spoke for the audio to portray that two girls were chanting like the bullies in the film, or Lily and Emily-jayne were talking simultaneously. We also added delays and echos to make the ghostly effect more dramatic. We included appropriate information to inform the audience of the characters and the time it will be on the television.

Final Poster Created by Hayley Outhwaite with ideas from the whole group

This is our final poster of which we used ideas from our own individual posters and collaborated them together in order to manufacture this final poster.

Radio Trailer Created by Lucy Davies with help from group (changes to be made)

This is the first draft of our trailer for the 5 minute film we created. Unfortunately, the trailer lasts 22 seconds which is too short so there are changes to be made. I am wanting to do this by adding another audio of Lily saying 'Emily-Jayne Hart' and extending it by making bigger gaps between each audio part with the music playing continuously in the background.