The Fake Leg

Fake Leg



On one of the sense in the story board it shows that the killer miss places a leg but we talked that for the character to be able to miss place a leg would be very clumsy and would not fit in with the description of the character, which him being organised and a clean freak. So we decided that instead of a leg he miss places it a thumb or a finger, something that is more likely foor him to miss place unlike a leg. It also fitted in well because we found out that it is very hard to make or even find a fake leg. So we thought a thumb or finger would be easier for us and more appropriate for the killer.

The Fake Blood

Fake Blood Situations 

Well yesterday was the first time that me and Dale used the fake blood. It wasn’t that hard to make, it took about 10 minutes to do. After making the fake blood we started to set up the room   which also took about 10 minutes as well. When we used the fake blood yesterday we decided to have it in a glass and with the angle we were at you HOPEFULLY wouldn’t be able to see it. However Dale decided to be a stupid and when putting the fake blood on me he wouldn’t pour it over my shoulder he thought he would just tip it on me so we could waste the blood and so the camera could see the glass.

On attempt number two we thought we could use a jug so it would be easier to pure the fake blood but it would also be harder to hide it because it was bigger. So we thought up a way of hiding the jug, because I have a pillow case on my head we thought we could hide the jug if the pillow case was at a certain angle. But again Dale has proven his rubbish blood pouring skills and decided just to pour it all over me and once again you can the jug on camera.

So finally we thought that we could just use a tube and a pump and attach it to my neck so when he “cuts my throat” we wouldn’t be using the fake blood I will. What will hopefully happen is when he “cuts my throat” I will squeeze the pump and it will come down my neck. 



Shooting the Opening Preparation: The Room

Changing the room from a family room to the scene of someone's murder was a fairly tasking job. It took us about an hour to do, mainly because we knew exactly how we were going to set it up, and involved:

• Moving out all of the furniture
• Covering the floor with newspaper articles (which took 3 newspapers to do)
• Putting the chair in
• Taking the table back in and covering it with a bed sheet to make it appear completely white (matching the room overall)
• Setting up the table with knives, a glass of water, pills, and a towel

There were also some little things we took into consideration. For example, the use of white everywhere served to not only emphasize the effect of the blood but also to help further portray the character of the killer, whose seems to be almost obsessive with the neatness of the things he does (both in his formal clothing and the overall minimalist approach to the decoration of the room). This is also helped along by the fact that the newspapers along the floor are, for the most part, perfectly straight - any deviations from that were generally because of the bloody stuff kept moving when we were walking around the set.

Also, the last shot you see of the table has blood on the knives, to indicate which ones he used (and having the second knife show that he did something with it, because we removed the shot of him actually cutting up the body - the second knife and the tying up of the bag are meant to show it instead).

Shooting the Opening Preparation: Bloooooood!

First things first - we make the bloooood!

We went to the shop and bought red food colouring, green food colouring, and looked high and low for corn syrup but the closest thing we could find, at least in name, was golden syrup... so that'll do.

At first we thought a couple of cups would be enough, so we started to mix the water and syrup with the food colouring in them in order to find the right color. Red made it too bright, but the green made it dark enough to pass off as actual blood, so we added a bit of that too. We then realized that a much larger amount of blood would be needed, so we whacked out some metal bowl we found in the cupboard and made a much larger load of it.

Overall, it was pretty good, and looked realistic (more realistic than just bright red, at least). The only problems we came across were to do with using the blood really, which we'll detail properly in another post.

All in all though, the things we ruined were:

• The floor
• The wall
• The chair
• Tom's clothes
• Tom's underwear
• Tom's skin
• My trousers
• A lot of newspapers

I'd call that a success!

Draft Feedback

Dale
Research and Planning - Level 4
Practical Draft Level - Low Level 3

Tom
Research and Planning - Level 3
Practical Draft Level - Low Level 3

"Meaning isn't obvious. Use more than one piece of music. Tom must look like he's in danger. Get rid of the pizza cutter. Make sure you do all the things you say you will (in your blog post)."

In order to better show the chain of events in the opening, we've decided to go from the shot of the feet being dragged to a shot of the feet of the man in the chair before panning up to his face and continuing on as usual. In order to also make him look like he's in danger, we'll be using face paints to make him look like his face is bruised, along with creating a wound on him from the previously heard gunshot.

To make sure we use more than one piece of music, a totally understandable decision, as well as make sure it goes along with the pace of the opening, we've decided to choose a piece to be put over the opening shot of the sky (a shot that that will be reduced in length as well) that is slower in pace than the main music, and cutting it at the point of the gunshot.

Whilst we were originally going to have some levels of humour in the opening, clearly the use of the pizza cutter was just too much for the teachers to handle, so we'll have to take it out for their sake, but we'll be ever so sad to see it go. The final shot of the microwave will also be cut, as well as the shot of the baking tray with the leg.

We've also finally decided on what to put on the television - what will be on the television is a shot of the room from another angle done in the perspective of a video camera, a suggestion put forward by Ms Elger to help portray the killer in a sort of egotistical light that is hinted at by the music and the formal clothing.

Also, some other changes have been made (or are being worked on), such as the floor being covered in newspapers for the blood to fall on (linking to a new shot, where instead of having the man's throat slit on camera, it's shown slightly off screen whilst a headline of a newspapers is focused on by the camera),that the man will be bound to the chair with cling film, that the shot of the baking tray will be rid of completely, the iPod speakers will be replaced by either a faux record player or a slightly old stereo, etcetera.

New Costume

The old costume was a no go for the teachers because they thought it didn’t go with the theme of the music so we decided to change it so I am wearing more formal clothing

So instead of wearing Nike trainers I will wear shoes, the jeans were ok but I’m going to have to wear an old white shirt.



Evaluation of draft

Filming

Tuesday:

The filming started on the Tuesday 8^th of February round Dale’s house at about 4:10. We started with the first scene on the story board and went through it as planned. But half way through the filming we needed some clean film to rap me down in the chair (dale got this idea from a programme called Dexter). After buying that they tied me down to the chair and then we filmed the first couple on scenes. But because of some distractions it was hard for me and dale to get most of the work done so we decided to come back on the Thursday and do the rest of the filming.

Thursday:

On the Thursday there was only me and Dale at his house so we thought that we would start all over again with the filming because there was so little done on the Tuesday. After we got changed into are costumes we started filming in the same order as last time but we used a different chair for me to be tied in because the chair that we used the first time looked to modern for the idea that we are going for, this chair had more of a old fashioned look to it. As it was draft we didn’t use fake blood because it would make a lot of mess for just the draft and Dale’s Mother wouldn’t have been happy. The filming went very well and twice as quick as it did on the Tuesday because of the lack of distractions (Sam Cook).The one scene where the killer is looking over all the weapons and goes back to the pizza cutter. The problem was that when he looked over the weapons it was nice and smooth but we couldn’t think of a way to do that so I did it free hand. However we have thought we could make a device use a skateboard for the shot to become more smoothly. Another little problem we had is the light, because we are working in Dale’s conservatory and it being February the sun goes down early but when we come to film the proper thing in a couple of weeks it should be lighter throughout the process of filming.

But overall the filming on the Thursday was a complete success compared to Tuesday and when we come to filming the real thing we know the mistake’s we shouldn’t make. We have also learned not to do all the filming in one day unless we actually have the hole day not after school.     



Draft

Well, in order to meet the deadline we rushed the editing for this here draft. There are several things in it that should be noted will be changed for the final version:

• The candle on the baking tray - that's meant to be a leg, but we couldn't get any materials in time to make it. It's a placeholder.
  
• The lack of blood - there will be plenty of it in the end
  
• The floor will have a layer of scattered newspapers
  
• The television will actually have something on it - exactly what is yet to be determined
  
• The iPod is going
  
• Some other things I can't recall right now
  

The sound was also not sorted out in time for the editing, hence why many of the scenes have no sound whatsoever. Whilst unnoticeable whilst the music is playing, the three/four shots whilst it isn't are noticeably bad - the opening has no sound, the shot of the killer leaving and the empty room has no sound, and the microwave shot at the end is just messed up (that's a dishwasher you can hear). Also, some parts whilst the music is playing are meant to have sound - for example, when the man has the pillow case put over his head you're meant to be able to hear him struggling whilst the shot focuses on the speakers. The shot of the baking tray is also meant to have the sound of a pizza cutter over it, but noticing it now the shot lingers too long on it, so it'll probably be shortened down considerably. Other things to note are the final shot of the empty room - the doors are closed, and should be open. The sound in that shot should also have a car in the background, and a low drone or a decreasing volume in the music. It should also be lit better - it's fairly dark as is. The gunshot in the opening shot is very low quality and should be sorted out. Also, this was done in Windows Movie Maker, and I apologize for that. Adobe After Effects was acting up when it came to exporting the movie file, even when exporting to different file types (.mov, .avi, etcetera.), so we resorted to using other software. This actually lowers the quality of the video a lot, due to the fact that the effects we were going for in the editing done in AE are now notably absent, as effects done in Movie Maker apparently made the program crash when accessing. In order to fix this problem when doing the final version, we've decided to export the individual shots from AE (as, generally, the problems only occur when there's a large video being made), and then bunch them together via Movie Maker afterwards.

Filming The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

Filming began on Tuesday 8th February and lasted from around 4pm until 6pm. During it, we had a couple of friends around to help with setting up the room. Unfortunately, this led to us being fairly distracted throughout, especially since I had to provide food for those guys as well as making sure they kept out of shot (being a good host). This, in turn, led to Tom and I being fairly distracted and, looking back on the footage from that day, made the shots we did fairly bad - we planned to carry on with it on Thursday 10th February, and keep the footage (being a draft).

When it came to Thursday, we took the other day as a clear indicator as to what not to do when filming, and so decided not to allow the others around during the filming so that we could keep focused on the task. Earlier that day we drew out small diagrams of where the camera would be and where it would be pointed at, as well as making certain adjustments to the storyboard as we went through it, and eventually had a very precise "to-do" set for what to film and when.

Another problem from the other day was the non-linear structure of our filming - we filmed shots in a different order than they were in, which (in a room made of glass and thin blinds) resulted in varying lighting throughout the scene. This was bad, so we chose to film instead in a linear fashion, resulting in the lighting getting darker as time passes in the scene, as it should. The original seat was also improvised (one of those office chairs that spins), and looked fairly out of place - so intead, we went with a more traditional wooden chair for the scene.

After all of these changes, we decided to reshoot the entire scene. This seemed appropriate, and still does, for consistency's sake. Luckily, Tom was able to come around on Thursday for as long as we needed (no longer having cricket or other things to do). Without distractions though, we managed to shoot all of the shots in the same time frame as Tuesday's shooting, and making them better.

There were a couple of things that went wrong, like accidentally changing the lighting of certain shots because we left the kitchen light on, but other than that everything went fairly smoothly. In order to save time with shooting, we decided on taking out certain elements that will be returning for the final shoot however - we didn't have the blood, nor a newspaper covered floor (as intended, due to the wooden floor of the room not fitting too well with the atmosphere), Tom wasn't tied down with cling film (instead holding his hands behind him to make it look like he was tied up), there is no party in the last shot and the room was a fairly light colour (though this may be returning, due to a lack of funds and no access to dark sheets - all of them seem to be white in my house).

Overall, the shooting (on the second day at least) went fairly well, and the final shot of the microwave let Tom discover the greatness of Super Noodles, so great!

The Draft - Attempt No. 1

Overall, the filming and the editing went absolutely fine until the final step, which was exporting the movie to a .avi file, because Adobe After Effects doesn't save straight to one, but saves a project file instead (due to the nature of the program - you create several compilations, then choose which ones to export to video after editing them properly).

The problem was that the video files that the camera we were using, .MTS files, aren't properly supported by the version of After Effects that we have (CS4). During the entire process, the video files work perfectly, but when you try to export them to a video file the result is a jittering mess of frames that just wouldn't be cohesive at all. To combat this, we tried converting all of the files to .AVI and then replacing them in the program, but every time we tried to do this the program crashed.

The editing itself, prior to rendering the movie, took around 5 hours. We didn't get to the point where we would have to do the editing again until 5AM, by which point there simply wasn't enough time to do it, coupled with the average time it takes for a movie even as short as 2 minutes in order to render (normally over night), we weren't going to meet the deadline.

Deadline extended until Monday 13th February