Draft 5

A small add to the coffee scene were the letter box opens as a close up before cutting away. This makes it seems as if the scene moves faster than it did before. However I feel that the first close-up of the letter box opening doest work with the rest of the scene and it feels redundant.

Draft 1

The draft is really good for the first edit however:

The music shouldn’t continue all the way through the film as I think that ruins the feel of the film as I think that silence will work better in its place. Where music is used the ambient sound should be muted. The first set of music should stop when he wakes up. The cutting should be more in time with the music. 

When the camera tracks in to him when hes on the sofa just make it static or silent. I would say use the sound of rushing waves and water as that is a good sound for drowning out sound and thought. Get rid of the dolly zoom on the table as it just doent fit the rest of the film (it is too stylised for the rest of the shots).  Make the door slam much louder.

Add a crash sound at the end Just to hammer it home and add one shot of him looking ‘into’ the camera.

Flashback scene 1

This is an editing version of footage shot at the beach scene for the flashback. It is set when the two brothers where children and is going to be started when the main character sees a pebble on the table. I like the shots used in the sequence but I would like to re-edit some aspects of the flashback. This may need to be shorted so I may cut out the opening shot as it wont be needed, I would also like to edit it with higher exposure so it looks more dreamlike, as it is a good memory. The music that will be played over the top will be the first piece of piano music. I would also like to enhance the sounds of there movements and add in children laughter.
I do like the shallow depth of field as I think it is very dream like, an aspect and technique I learnt from 'Eden'

Opening Sequence First Shoot

This is a reshoot of the dream sequence and the first scene in the house, after he wakes up. This edit allows for us to see the cross cutting between the opening dream sequence and when he wakes up. However this edit misses some aspects of the film that I want. e.g. the non-diegetic music during the dream sequence which will build tension in the scene by becoming more and more dramatic, this sound will then cut to silence when he wakes up. This edit also lacks some diegetic sound, mainly the front door opening, which will indicate the main characters movements down the stairs.
The opening shot of this scene doesn't follow the editing style of the rest of the film
Another area of the film I would like to change is the shot we see the character waking up, I would cut that a few frames forward which would open it with his arm outstreched, this would make the cut a piece of pictoral and continuity editing.
I want to re-edit this edit as I want the point when he opens the door from the outside to start as a closeup then pull away. This will make the area around him feel and look empty and personify his lonely personal feelings.
We are going to do an audio commentry on what we want to change and develop in this edit.

Experimental/Recon Shoot

After doing a small recon shoot, which allows me to see the location in the form of video instead of  a still image story board I have editing some rough footage together in many different ways to see what works best.  I decided to do a recon/experimetnal shoot system instead of a storyboard at this point as the location (the woods) is very hard to map out and storyboard accuratly. And in this shoot I did not focus on sound so there isn't any.

 

In this sequence I like the opening shot where it quickly zooms out, however this does not fit the style of film that I want. I also like using the high angle from the tree where you can see the branch in front, this is beause it makes it feel surreal. The ending of this sequence cuts of as the person touches him, this is because I will cut away from that and onto the main character waking up. The final cut in the sequence would work better if there is a fast manual zoom, which will make it seem as if it is moving into the character and not just cutting across

This is a very simple shot and it uses a single shot tracking around the woods. One of the main issues with this shot is that the main character becomes very hard to see in the scene. However this shot will be cross cut with a shot going up the stairs in the real world house

I like the opening shot of this sequence as it slowly announces the revels the main character. I will also add the sounds of a boy counting over the top to show what they are doing. I also like the shot with the white twigs in the foreground uing a shallow depth of field with the character in the background defocused. I find that it is very similar to some shots in 'Eden' as that uses focus to change it.

 I like the opening shot of this sequence because it allows for the main character to be slowly revealed. I also like to use it because it shows the full size of the tree, making it tower over him, while as it tracks down the character is pulled into full view.

 The second to last shot was used instead of the high angle shot from the tree allows for a closer look at what the character. This shot needed to be cut sooner, when the mix of twigs is in the shot. This is because all of the shots after this long tracking shot are cut too fast making it seem out of order.

In this I attempted an earlier editing but putting it into soft focus to see the effect. This defocused feel doesn't work in the majority of the footage but works wee on the opening shot because that is more surreal as it tilts down from looking at the tree. But I will have to transition into the full focus carefully as a cut would not seem organic

This opening of the film will  be cross cut with a tracking shot going up a set of stairs in the real life boys house. And these sequence would end with the main character waking up in bed after the dream/nightmare. Through all of these test shots I have learnt that to get the best effect I will have to use a steadicam to control the stability of the camera whilst moving.

Experimental Footage

This experimental footage shows the basics of the scene where the boy wakes up in his bed. This experimental footage is to test the shots I are planning to use. From this footage I can see that the first  long shot of the shadowy figure to the right of the screen. However because this character is revealed at the beginning of the film allows the film to loose the suspense behind it. So to avoid this I am going to change the instant character being at the start to just show a shadow or just the door closing. This will allow me to announce that the character is present in the film without showing the character.
The lighting during this sequence change the atmosphere. The bright white light lifts the mood and sets the film during the day. However when we get to the close up of the character on the phone the lighting changes to a darker softer yellow light. I prefer the first light system, however this makes it harder to create suspense.
During the long shot at the begging we see the entirety of the wall. One of the main problems with shot is that there is too much white space to the left. This space draws the eye and pulls focus away from our main character.

From this experimental footage I am going to look into creating suspense without showing a character.

Experimental opening shot

This experimental footage shows a possible opening shot, tracking up and into the younger brothers bedroom. This is inspired by the opening shot in 'Daddy' as it follows doen a hall and into the dads room. This shot would be used to introduce the main character while he is sleeping, although I alos want to cross-cut it between this and a dream sequence in the woods as I think that will create a tension that can be falsly broken, but I will have to see what the dream scene will look like.

However one problem with this expreimental footage is that the lighting is lacking in the middle as it becomes to dark to see anything in shot. I do like this aspect though as it gives a moment of utter blackness but in this footage that moment is too long. The lighting from inside the room gives a good amount of light in some of the shots, showing single blades of light rather than completely illuminating the entire shot. One major aspect of this footage that I do like is the moment of soft focus when it comes out of the darkness as it gives a dream like feel. This shot would have the sound motif of the piano playing over the top lightly, to introduce the film.
It will then cut to a shot looking straight down at the younger brother waking up from his nightmare/dream.

Whip Pan Transition Trial

This a set of 'whip pan cut' transitions that have a strange effect of making a cut between two locations look like a continuous shot. However in the final cut together is does have the slight downfall of this technique is that it makes the character look multiple than just a sequence of shots.

I want to use this technique to cut between the dream sequence at the beginning of the film as it is slightly disorientating to the audience and knocks them off their concentration making it easier to manipulate their emotions later.

Sound experiments

The two separate audio experiments that go as the soundtrack. I prefer the shorter track as the longer experiment has too much to hear and overpowers the emotion I want in the film. 

The shorter track that I prefer is in D minor pentatonic scale, which makes it more chilling. However the track gets higher, which is regularly used as a tension building tool, I do not want this so I am going to develop the track so it goes down because that adds more of an emotional effect that I want. 

Because it is an emotional drama then I will also look into using other instruments like strings as they connote both sorrow and can create the desired emotional affect