Certificate Article

Interesting article from the Guardian, it explains the controversy caused by a misjudged aged certificate. 'The Woman in Black' received 134 complaints after being rated a 12 and suitable for younger viewers. It's apparent that the eery scenes were too disturbing for audiences, even though there was very little blood or gore on screen.  

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/jan/13/bbfc-rewrite-horror-rules-woman-black-complaint-gore-sexualisation

The movie has since been rated a 15, as our movie opening has been heavily influenced by the Momentum Pictures product, we will definitely stick with the older certificate. 

Certificate

In order to give 'Beggars Hollow' an age certificate we did some research on BBFC (British Board of Film Certificate). There are seven possible certifications ranging from U to R18. As a group we knew that producing a horror movie would mean that we had a higher certificate, somewhere between 12 and 18.

12
Material that is not generally suitable for children aged under 12. No one under 12 may view the film in the cinema if not accompanied by an adult. A work which has a very dark or unsettling tone which could disturb the audience would be less likely to be passed as a 12. Moderate physical and psychological threat is permitted as long as horror sequences are not too frequent or sustained.

I found very few examples of 12 rated horror movies. The Gremlins is one of the few I could find and I would hardly class it a horror. Our movie does not have a childish theme nor is aimed at a young audience so it will definitely not fit under the 12 certificate.

18
Films rated 18 are for adults only. No themes are prohibited. They may contain real sex, discriminatory language and strong sexual violence. In terms of horror, they may contain very strong horror, fire or substained threat. 

The 18 rated films which we previously researched contain huge amounts of blood and gore. For example, Saw, Child's Play and The Nightmare on Elm Street are known for huge amounts of violence. We tried to avoid this horror concept and chose to focus on an eery storyline instead of expletive gore. Which is why the 18 certificate is unsuitable for our film.


15

No one under the age of 15 is allowed to see this rating at the cinema, they can not buy or rent this certificate either. In a 15 the audience may expect strong violence, strong language or drug taking. In terms of horror, a 15 certificate can have a strong threat and horror as long as there is no sustained focus on sadistic or sexualised threat.

The majority of our film inspirations were rated a 15. We share themes and concepts with movies such as Sinister, Insidious and The Woman In Black, so as a group we decided to adopt their age certificate. Rating 'Beggars Hollow' a 15 as it contains moderate threat which could be disturbing to some viewers aged 14 and below.

Evaluation Time

Now that our two- minute opening is complete, we need to analyse and evaluate it. Using as much digital technology as possible, we need discuss all aspects of 'Beggars Hollow'; the challenges, the target audience, the success and the distribution of the movie. I'll definitely be using iMovie for part of the evaluation as I'm so familiar with it now, but there's other digital technologies that I can incorporate to make it more effective. I'm hoping to try 'Prezi', 'Animoto' and 'Pixlr'. 

Beggars Hollow

Here it is, the final version!

Last Few Edits

We were convinced we were finished so showed our film to Miss Foster again, she was pretty happy with it, but there were still a few adjustments to make.

The first was to the title, she told us to make the font bigger, which managed to fix in a matter of seconds. 

The next change was to the 'droaning' sound which we use during the landscape shots, this sound builds up gradually and then drops to a silence. But there wasn't much of a 'build up' of sound so we decided to fade it out instead.

We then altered the high- pitched 'Tisses' sound as Miss Foster noticed that it didn't begin with the video footage.

The biggest adjustment was to the production company. Again, we were told that the clip used for our production company was too similar to our actuall film footage. So we chose to crap 'Ripple studios', we didn't want to replace it with another clip so we're just going to stick with 'Ludio Studios'. 

Draft Five

Here's our title sequence with 'Ripple Studios included, the little jingle and 'gurgle' sound effects were both sourced from EpidemicSound.com. This is also the first draft that includes the new turn around shot. I think it makes a massive improvement to the opening two minutes.

New production company

Thankfully the Mac turned back on (and our edits were saved!) So the sound is officially finished and we don't need to make anymore changes to that.

Our next task was to change our production company clip. After showing other people the titles, some commented that the clip of Bonnie was confusing as the dog later features in the opening. We didn't want to confuse our audience so we chose to remove the production company clip. After going through older filming footage, we found a shot of the river that can be used instead.

It was easy to replace the clip, the only issue was to making sure they were the same length. If we had swaped the old clip with one that was longer/shorter all of our sound editing would have been ruined.

After making sure both clips were 6.2 seconds long, we adjusted the video settings; changing the footage to b&w and adding a fade transition. Then we found a jingle and rippling water sound effects of 'epidemicsound.com'. That was our production company clip complete; all we had to do was come up with a new name.

After a 10 second discussion, we decided that we're no long 'Bonnie Productions' but in fact 'Ripple Productions'

The Finished Title

For only a 5 second shot, this took a lot of work! As a group we couldn't decide on where to have the text, how big it should be, when to fade it, or if we should even keep the name! 

Holly initially hated the apostrophe in 'Beggar's Hollow', I don't really know why, but she didn't like it. We were just about to change the name when our teacher told us that old locations don't often use punctuation. This meant that we could have the setting written as 'Beggars Hollow', so everyone was happy, and it even tied in with our old- fashioned look. 

For the layout of the font, I suggested we had the top line smaller than the bottom, just so that the title matched the layout of the names. Holly then played around with the positioning of the text, it took us forever to agree, and iMovie gave us very few options. But in the end we decided that it should be off- centre, from the left, and sat on the horizon line, I think this integrates it well into the landscape shot. 

After showing Miss Foster another draft of the opening, she gave us another few improvements to make. One of her suggestions was too make the title text a lot bigger; it needed some emphasis. So after a quick adjustment, here is our finished title;  

Titles

The titles were one of the last things we finished on our opening, I think this was because we needed to have a full discussion as a group, deciding on where they should appear and what roles we should be given. 

As I said in an earlier blog, we used the Adobe Song Std, the long and thin font is slightly eery and it also fits in with old- fashioned theme we were aiming for. I then suggested writing the titles over two lines and making our names larger than the roles. I'd seen this earlier in the Twilight titles and thought it was effective as the names are emphasised.  We then decided to change the writing to capitals in order to make them even more prominent. 

Holly positioned all of the names in the light sections of the landscape shots. The positioning was important to make sure that the black font was read-able, but we also wanted our names to be integrated within the shots (we didn't want to ruin the footage, we love it too much) 

I especially like clip of my name appearing, the trees give my name a shadow and it fits to well into the background! 

Evidence of Sound

'Night Terrors' our main piece of music was sourced from 'EpidemicSound.com' we used the 'dark' and 'scary' moods under browse. We must have listened to hundreds of piano extracts before deciding on this one piece. Once downloaded, we used 'Adobe audition' to slow the pace of it and also alter the pitch, creating a lower eerier sound. Night Terrors begins to play at 1.05 when Keeley stands up from the swing. 

Later on Adobe Audition we extracts sections from our second piece of sound which is 'Tisses- High Pitched'. This piece is just violin screeches and eery noises for 3.19 minutes. We played it throughout our entire opening, but then used cropped sections of sound in order to layer it. The screenshot shows one high- pitched chunk from Tisses which we cut out and then imported to iMovie. This short section of sound was placed in time with the jump cuts; meaning a sharp- piercing noise would appear as each shot changed, this helped to create a professional finish to our opening.  

The screenshot shows the different sections of sound which we had to individually import and align with the video. This was a such a long- process and it must have taken us about a week to finish it. It was difficult because our title sequence is made up of so many short clips, meaning our sound had to be short and precise.

 There were also many layers of sound, it became confusing. As the sound builds up towards the end of our opening there are seven layers of sound!

As a group we had many discussions on the sound to use at the end of the clip, at one point we all agreed that we wanted a big build up and then drop to silence. This was much harder than we initially considered. It took us almost two days to create the crescendo which we used on our final draft. The actual 'build up' is made up of the 'Tisses' piece and then other section from 'Tisses' which we imported on top. We made sure to cut the the crescendo as soon as Keeley disappears, creating a sudden silence. We felt it was imported to use a lot of silence as many horror movies we have watched manipulate the silence in order to scare their audiences.

My favourite Shot

While looking through old footage to replace our production company clip, we found an old shot of Keeley from our first day of filming. The shot showed her stood by the tree, facing the camera and then quickly turning away. Holly pointed out how good it would have looked in reverse. After testing it, we all agreed.

When played backwards Keeley is shown looking into the forest and then abrubtly turning and looking into the camera. It's really frightening. 

As a group we were excited about this shot and all wanted it in the title sequence. We chose to insert it just before the end where we've created a crescendo. So just as Keeley walks into the trees, the sound builds to uncomfortably loud, Keeley turns back to the camera and gives this sinister stare.

It's only 0.8 seconds long and probably hardly noticeable, but I'm in love with this new clip!

Last editing of sound?!

The editing process has been strenuous, in particular the editing of the sound. But we may have just finished the sound completely! I'm so so so happy. We've just finished adjusting the noise at the end of our titles, it's taken us so long to create a crescendo. We've also managed to align all the clips with the audio, which was so painful. 

So the sound is complete but there's one problem; the Mac has crashed. 

(Worried faces)

Job Titles

In order to make our titles more professional, we're following Ms Foster's direction and adding job titles before our names. I have a few examples here from 'Se7en', 'Skyfall' and 'Twilight'; 

Me and Holly have done the major part of the editing so I think either one of us could have 'editing by' before our name. But I think Holly has also made a lot of key decisions for our opening so her name could read; 

'Edited by HOLLY NEILAND'

I did all of the camerawork during filming so mine could appear as;

'Cinematography by KELLY RODAWAY'

Bella is featured in our opening footage so her name could be shown as;

'Starring BELLA ORGAN'

And Janadhi altered the pitch/ tempo of our chosen sound so her name could appear as;

'Sound production by JANADHI SUMANADASA'

And of course we will have;

'Starring BONNIE THE DOG'

These are just my suggestions though, I think they work well but we will have to discuss it and decide as a group during an editing session. 

Se7en Title Sequence

Last night I re- watched 'Se7en' with my parents. They'd never seen it so it took a lot of will power to not ruin the ending for them. When I first watched it in school with the media class, Ms Foster replayed the title sequence a few times so that we could see the intricate work of the first two minutes. But it wasn't until watching it last night that I actually appreciated the amount of work that went into it. The flickering of the names must have taken days/ weeks to produce.

I also noticed the job roles that came before each name in the titles, I hadn't paid much attention to these before but Ms Foster suggested we include the roles in our own opening.

Here's the title sequence for Se7en;

Production Company Changes

After showing the clip to Miss Foster she suggested some ways of improving it and integrating it well into our film opening.

Her first idea was to change the saturation to b&w, this instantly made it better as it separated the production company footage from the actual movie footage which is in colour. We were then instructed to add a blank slide and two transitions in order to clearly deprecate the two pieces of footage.

Her final suggestion was to add an upbeat jingle. This would create a cheery production company clip which will contrast with the dark and frightening film opening that we've managed to create. We will have to find a short uncopyrighted jingle, most likely from epidemicsound.com.

Our Production Company Clip

Our Production Company

As a group we decided on the name 'Ludio Studios' for our production company name. This was because it links back to the doll we used in the movie as 'Ludio' means 'Marionette' in latin. Plus is rhymed!

We all agreed that we wanted something simplistic, as well as b&w so that it would stick with the horror movie theme. We weren't planning on creating something extravagant like Sony's flying horse clip.

So after school Holly made some sample clips and kept us updated via the group chat. The first part of the production company clip is a simple black screen with text appearing on the right hand side. The text reads; 'in association with LUDIO STUDIOS'. Very professional.

For the second part of the production company clip, Holly added a shot which we had to previously remove from the film. It was the shot of Bonnie the dog sniffing the china doll, it was the shot that we all loved and really hated deleting. Holly kept the audio on this clip so that Bella can be heard saying 'come on Bonnie'. As she says this, our second production company name appears which is 'Bonnie productions'. ((That was my idea. Genius.))

Production Company Inspirations

Inspiration for the Titles

After looking back at some of our movie inspirations I paid more attention to the titles. The majority of the horror movies had chosen similar fonts to ours, picking thin, simplistic writing which did not effect the background.

These three examples are from 'The Haunting of Radcliffe House', 'Insidious 2' and 'Finders Keepers'. I noted that each name appears for approximately 4 seconds for each movie before fading. Something we will have to consider for our own titles. We've chosen to use black font, whereas all of the movies have used white. I don't think it will make much of a difference but it is something that we can play around with in the next group editing session.

Font

For our drafts so far we've just been using rough credits that we manage to make in 10 minutes. We literally just threw them on so that we knew where they would be. But now that we're nearly finished, we've started to properly consider how we want them to look. Starting with the font. 

After scrolling through, what seemed like 1000 fonts. (WHY ARE THERE SO MANY?) We voted as a group and decided on 'Adobe Song Std'. We chose the font as it was simple so would not distract from the landscape shots which we're so fond of. The long thin lettering also reflected the 'creepy' theme which we were going for. 

More Sound Editing

In order to make our opening as professional as possible we want the audio and the clips to be in perfect sync. We're aiming for high pitched shrieks or piano notes on each of the jump cuts between shots. The audio will continually build to crescendo and then stop suddenly on the next shot. This will build the anticipation for viewers and heighten our 'scare factor'.

In order to do this we have opened up the sound waves in iMovie so we can see exactly when the music builds, we then need to crop our video clips to match these waves. It's a strenuous task as it has to be so precise. Also once you adjust the length of one clip, all of the following clips are not in sync with the music. I think this task will take up several editing sessions, but after that there is very little left to do.

Third Draft- Updated Sound

The third draft of our opening two minutes, adjustments have been made to the tempo, pitch and volume of the music. High- pitched violin shrieks have also been included. 

Sound Vlog

Major Cut

In order to reduce the length of our opening to two minutes, we made the decision to cut all of Bella's forest section. It was only a 30 second long scene, made up of 6 clips, but it has always been an important part of our storyboard. We originally planned to end on a shot of Bonnie the dog finding the old Victoria doll. But now, without this section, our opening ends on Keeley walking into the forest, followed later by Bella. I think our film ends on more of a cliffhanger now which is quite effective but I'm still upset about removing some of my favourite shots!

Editing Update

Over the past few days editing has been primarily focused on sound. We've also been trying to cut the clips down so that our film opening is a total of two minutes. This has been the hardest part of editing so far. I really don't want to shorten any more clips or delete something that could later be important. Bella's section in the forest is now only 5 or 6 short shots even though we originally took about 15. Keeley's swing scene is now only about 7 shots even though we'd planned to have many more. I think we would ruin the opening if we were to delete any more from these sections. But I'm also hesitant to shorten the longer takes because I feel that horror movies should be made up of long takes in order to build tension. So I don't know how we're ever going to get it close to two minutes!

The other issue with editing at the moment is syncing the music in time with the footage. We've been trying to get violin shrieks in time with the jump cuts. It's a lot easier said than done.

Once we've sorted these issues, I think we also need to begin working on our production company. We need a frame in the beginning of the opening which introduce our company, this may be a struggle to insert as we've already gone over the time allowance. We also need to think of an image and possible animation to go along with our production company name, something we've not even considered. At least we have a name!

Ludio Studios. 

(Ludio is 'Marionette' translated into latin)

Sound

For the past few months we've been obssesing over 'Tea for Three Plus One' which is the musical score in the Woman in Black composed by Marco Beltrami. It fits perfectly with our footage, and the timing of the music matches the speed of the swing, Keely's walking and even the flickering footage. It's so frustrating that it's copyrighted!

In order to find a similar music box/ piano song, we've been trailing through Youtube and music download sites. We even considered recording our own song with Hannah playing the piano, but then decided that it would be far too complicated. So after weeks of searching, Miss Foster showed us 'Epidemic sound', a site which lets you browse music by mood. After selecting 'dark' and 'scary' we found the piece ' Night Terrors'. It's a creepy piano score with a lullaby tone (a little more high pitched than we would have hoped- but hopefully we can adjust this.)

So we've chosen to use 'Night Terrors' as the main audio in our film. We've inserted it during the swing scene with a long fade in, so that it begins to play loudly as Keely stands up and walks towards the trees. Along with this piano tune, we've inserted high pitch violin shrieks; a gut- wrenching sound which will hopefully put the audience on edge. These are just the building blocks for our audio though, and will likely add many more layers. We also need to decide on what sound will be used during Bella's walking scenes because she's currently trudging through the trees in silence. 

Second Draft

Editing

The media room is our second home right now, Holly and I have turned editing into a little after school ritual. I don't think we realised how much time it was going to take up. The first draft in the previous post shows the first portion of editing completed, but of course there's still a lot more to do.

Here's a rough list of what we've done so far;

-Detached all audio from the footage and deleted all of the diegetic sound up to Bella's forest scenes.
-Pieced together the landscape shots so create a montage of the setting. Each take is 6 seconds long at the moment, this may be altered in the future.
-Inserted the footage of the river and used 'video options' to play it in reverse.
- Added our names on to our chosen shots. We also played around with the fonts and fade ins/ outs but this is still to be finalised.
- Inserted the background audio which plays during the opening montage. The audio is called 'droan suspense 2' and is found in iMovie's audio effects. We cut this sound quickly on the shot of the tree to build tension with the silence.
- Ordered all of the scenes which more difficult than we thought as we didn't film in chronological order.
-Deleted any footage we weren't happy with, reducing our footage from almost 20 minutes to 3.
-Cropped particular shots of Keeley so that she was centred in the frame.
- Adjusted the brightness and contrast of the shots so that the setting looks more sinister.
-Altered the speed of certain takes, we played the clips of Keeley's feet in slow motion in order to match her walking speed to the previous shots.
-In one particular section we cut the clip down to dozens of 0.1 second long clips and arranged them disorderly in order to create a flickering effect.
-Some of these flickering shots were changed to black and white in order to add to the flickering/ manic effect.
-Added a fade to black transition at the end of the film opening.

Although we've done quite a bit already, there are still a number of adjustments to be made to the video clip, and even more to the sound! Our next task will definitely be the sound. From there we can finalise the credits and cut the whole clip down to two minutes.

The Title

As a group, we've had countless conversations about the name of our film. We wanted something short and memorable, similar to 'sinister' or 'insidious'; a single word with a dark meaning. We spent a stupid amount of time on the online dictionary and looking through the thesaurus for synonyms of 'doll', 'scary' and 'forest'. For a while, we settled on the name 'Marionette' (An italian word and synonym for doll) we thought this worked well as the doll has become the main focus of our film, we also thought it was original. Until we realised that it sounded like a bad remake of 'Annabelle'.

While editing the title credits, Holly and I decided to change the title from Marionette, we thought it was far too cheesy to keep. So after messaging the others on the group chat, we decided to change it to 'Beggar's Hollow'. The name comes from the street which ran alongside our filming location, I chose a location name as 'Eel Marsh House' in the Woman in Black is so memorable, as is 'Radcliffe House'. 

I'm still not keen on the name, I think whatever we choose will be cheesy, but we have bigger things to worry about right now. i.e . all the editing! 

The First Draft

Filming Day 2