After getting feedback from my previous thriller opening sequence, I decided to re-edit the footage. I have made a lot of different cuts and the video is very different to how it started out. For the editing process, I mainly used Adobe’s Premiere Pro. This program was available to me at home and I found it a lot easier to use than the recommended Serif at school. I had previously had difficulty with Serif so I thought that using Premiere Pro would be a lot easier for me. Another program that came in the Adobe suite was Adobe after Effects; I used this throughout the video but especially on the second flashback.
I decided it was better to do the sequence individually then export them all together into the final movie. I did this to make sure that if I needed to re-edit anything, I could easily allocate the correct file then re-export it into the movie, it also allowed me to track anything I may have lost whilst editing the whole film together.
Here is an example of one of the sequences I cut and edited individually:
After doing this, I set about making the main movie and cutting the bits that I wanted in the film. As I filmed different parts of the movie at different points, I had to make sure they all linked together. By editing them in different windows, I could concentrate on each one and piece them together afterwards; this provided me with a backup [in case something went wrong in the main window].
I decided that to start off, I was going to have the graveyard scene as the opening to the thriller sequence as it sets the atmosphere of the rest of the thriller. Previously, I had a getting ready scene of the girls the night before, but I decided to cut this as it is almost a different story to the rest of the thriller and doesn’t fit in with the rest of the thriller.
Before
After
As most of the thriller was filmed at different times, I made sure to edit them individually before putting them together.
I then moved onto the flashback. Because we had already filmed the graveyard scene a couple of days before, I set off editing that first and left room for the flashback. After filming the flashback, I opened it separately to the main film and called it Ouija board. I then set about editing it. This scene was filmed by Dave Badley and he stood on a chair and held the camera high up to fit us all in. I wanted this scene to be in a circle closely linked, so Dave filmed us on the Ouija Board moving the bracelet about the board. He filmed for a few seconds then stopped, he then moved to a different position in the room, and recorded the next bit for a few seconds. He repeated this three times to give a variety of different shots. Whilst this was going on, I decided that there would be no sound other than a recording Anna, Vickie and I were speaking. We said the words; “Warning, this is not a toy. Only play once. Play at your own risk.” We repeated these words several times and said them at different times to give a more eerie effect. I imported this sound separately and then put it into the Ouija Board clip. At the end of us whispering those words, Vickie, Anna and I asked the board a question. This was: “Do you want us to stop”, the bracelet then led to the word ‘No’ and we then changed the angle of the camera from high, to low and it zoomed in on the word ‘No’. We then had our cast member Tim Rogers say the word ‘No’ in a very deep voice that we found quite scary.
The effects I used on Premiere Pro to link the 3 different angles and the close up of the word ‘No’ were; Cross Zoom, Centre Merge, Cross Dissolve and a Non-Additive Dissolve. These were good as they showed a passing of time as well as linking them together and they worked well with the clips.
For this flashback, I used a high bird’s eye view angle to vary the shot types and to hide our faces. I could have used different angles for example an extreme close up of the hands on the Ouija Board and reaction shots to show our reactions to playing it, but by not showing our faces it adds an atmospheric tone to the scene.
During this scene I decided that to help the mood and the Mise en scene, I added an audio file of Vickie, Anna and I saying the words “warning this is not a toy, only play once. Play at your own risk” and I thought it better to have us saying it but start one after each other and repeated a few times, getting louder and louder. This also contributed toward the mood of this scene and adds a sense of danger as we’re playing it. After receiving feedback from our first rough cut, I then changed the view of the flashback to have it as a quad, so having different things happen in the four screens. I did this on Serif as it was available to me at the time and it was relatively easy to use once I read the instructions.
Once this flashback was completed, I started on the other one containing Rob Strover as a homeless person. During this clip, I decided to have Rob walking along a street then picking up an Ouija Board he finds on the street. We chose to do this as a flashback because it is seen when the main protagonist sees Rob dead and wonders what happens to him. I used a variety of different shots in this sequence for example worm’s eye view for when Rob is slowly turning around. After cutting this sequence, I decided that it would look better if it was in the night time, as it would add to the atmosphere. I went into Adobe after Effects and used a Day and Night effect, I used this to tone down the brightness of the clip and make it look like it was filmed during night time.
Once the two flashbacks were completed, I put them into my main movie sequence. Once I put them all together I decided that just before the end of the thriller, I would combine both flashbacks and make them literally flash quite fast across the screen.
As our project was to do a Thriller opening sequence, I had to address one of the main problems which were the titles. I decided to research the general conventions and with this knowledge applied it to further research. I looked at openings of thriller films and the one which gave me the best inspiration was the film se7en.
I decided that instead of addressing the titles first, I would leave them till last as I knew they would take up most of my time. I drew up a storyboard and put in key timings and positioning of the text.
Once this was done, I decided to follow some tutorials on YouTube and do my titles on Adobe After Effects.
After the titles were finished, I put them into my movie at the beginning and sped a few up.
Here is a snapshot of my completed movie.
Overall, I enjoyed the editing of this thriller, even though I encountered a few technical glitches along the way, I worked through them to produce an end result I was happy with.
