Composing music

Know what the film director wants
It's not the job of the director to do the music but he'll know what he wants in terms of atmosphere and mood and what he wants the audience to feel when they watch the film. For example, if there is meant to be a tense moment in the film the director will say that and then the composer can make music to fit that.

Be original
When watching a film the story it self has to be intriguing for the audience to be interested but if their is known to be good music in it more people will want to hear which will mean they'll have to watch too.

Experiment
If you experiment with what music you are going to put in a film it's more than likely your music will come out better because you've chosen from different music and picked the best one. Sometimes the less obvious music can be the most effective. 

Know what the story is
The music always needs to go with the story so that it makes sense. There is no point in having fast upbeat happy music in a sad scene. 

Ask for reference materials
The director will know what she/he wants so ask them for some artists or genres then you'll know you're heading in the right direction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-L1RCtgtoE

Hans Zimmer and Christopher Nolan worked together to make a noise for "the joker" so that every time the audience heard this noise they'd know he was coming. Hans Zimmer didn't want to make a boring typical blockbuster he wanted to make something different so people would be more interested than usual. Together they did a lot of different experiments using different tools.The joker is supposed to be scary so they had to try and find a sound to create that feel. Hans Zimmer tried to create tension using razor blades and string. He then thought of using two different instruments and they were a cello and guitar. I think that the final music that they ended up playing for the joker works very well. It creates a scary and dark atmosphere which is exactly what they wanted to do.

Shadow

Evie Project 1 from Long Road Applied Media Diploma on Vimeo.

Production Meeting

Thursday 30th January

Evie, Olivia and Charlie present.

By having feedback back from other people about our rough cuts we've decided to continue filming in the coming next weeks.
And to ensure that our film is effective and interesting we have begun to create our special effects.

Lightening Ball Effect

In our sequence we need three special effects. One of our special effects is a lightening bolt coming out of my hand to get rid of the shadow following me and Olive. This is a screen shot of me creating the effect on after effects. It shows the box on the top left i change how big or how little the lightening bolt is. The video of what i am putting the effect on and the box at the bottom with all the different things i am changing to it. To create this effect i have made a key frame in the different parts of the video while moving the lightening bolt in my hand as the footage moves and changing the opacity. I manged to do all of this by looking at a tutorial on youtube and help from the other members in my group.

We did a special effect of the eyes changing colour twice, we did this by creating a mask over the two eyes and tracking them so that the mask and effect moved when the clip did. Once the eyes are masked we key framed the clip in the places where we wanted the effect to be and just changed the colour. 

Self Assessment of rough cut

Audio

In my film all of the dialogue was recorded when we filmed the actual shot not on a microphone which is what other people have done, we didn't do this because it sounds a lot different and louder which makes it less realistic, however the way we've done it makes it harder for the dialogue to be clear as sometimes the camera is a long way away from the person talking or there is different sounds in the back ground. To do this better i have muted certain parts of the film and replaced it with ambient sounds or music to make it more atmospheric and sound better when watching it back.

Special Effects

In our sequence we have four special effects. They are changing the sign of long road, Olives eyes changing color, my eyes changing color and a bolt of lightening coming out of my hand. After finishing the rough cut we hadn't finished the whole thing therefore not all of the special effects were in there, the one that was is Olives eyes changing color. To make the special effects look really good we have all been looking at tutorials on you tube to help us and helped each other in our group.

Sequence

Over all at the moment i think my sequence looks really good. At the start we had a couple of costume changes which wasn't really a problem at all but because of that we had to re shoot some shots therefore it was quite a rush to get things done in time for the rough cut deadline, we met that deadline but not with the sequence that i am happy to keep, it wasn't as good as it could be. From now on i will work more on the sequence to get it all done for the final deadline and up to the best standards that it can be... 

Metadata

On premier when editing my film i have organised my shots so that i know what everything is and where everything is, this makes it much easier when trying to find shots to put into the sequence. I have also ticked all of the good shots so i know what to use and what not to use. When going through my shots i deleted the ones that were not good at all so i'm not editing with bad shots and can pick the absolute best.

Peer Feedback

Production title: Shadow
Feedback from: Chris Yarwood

Does it make narrative sense?
yes in terms of the snapshot story so far, understanding that the two main characters are the same and see things but not sure what that is or where it is going.

Do the special effects fit well with the sequence? How could they be improved?
The special effects look good however so far sure what the black eyes actually do, in terms of power/ability also could have the eyes more black and cover the whole eye to show off more of the effect.

Is the dialogue engaging?
The dialogue is the quite engaging bit because it shows how creepy the girl is through the window and why the boys call her a freak.

What do the sound fx, ambient sounds and music add?
The music is really well put because it makes it seem more scary and filled with a tint or horror, could make the ambient seen to fit better from shot to shot.

Is it entertaining? 
I found it rather entertaining and wanting to know what they saw and why they were called freaks.

What would you do to improve the sequence?
Better sound connections between shots and finishing the sequence. 

                                                                                ***

Production title: Shadow

Feedback from: Charlotte Flemming 

Does it make narrative sense?
Yes it makes sense and tells the story of the main character being different and how she feels.

Do the special effects fit well with the sequence? How could they be improved?
The effects that are seen fit in really well with the aspect of suspense and loneliness. By sing the lends zoom and blurs it emphasises.

Is the dialogue engaging?
The dialogue is engaging and it'd be nice if it gone on for longer as the story is strong. And the starting scene is very dramatic.

What do the sound fx, ambient sounds and music add?
The sounds give a strong effect and natural sounds help this, it fits in really well.

Is it entertaining? 
Yes as there's a full story. Wish there was more (very engaging).

What would you do to improve the sequence?
I personally don't think there is need to be more but if there was further footage it would be better.