Our thoughts on our opening sequence!

Now we have completed filming and editing completely it is very rewarding to see our final opening sequence. We have enjoyed working on this project and have decided to share our thoughts on the process and the final film. 

I have asked Amy and Ashley their thoughts, but firstly I will share my thoughts about our project (that's me,  Shamayla). It was easy to select the genre of film as we all had the same interest in Horrors and Thrillers. We wanted to create a dark film that created tension but we also wanted to set in within a time frame. We decided on Christmas as it is something that most people associate with happy times and not bad. Therefore our film challenged the idea of Christmas as we represented it with an evil Santa, which would create discomfort with the viewer. Initially we found it hard to put all the clips together but as we started to edit clips and the film flowed, the results were very rewarding. I think the opening sequence is successful because it fulfils horror conventions. These are things such as, dark lighting, horror props in the mise on scene such as knifes and scissors. Also, the sound track creates suspense and tension through high pitched sounds and the use of camera angles like the canted and low angle create discomfort and fear for the viewer. 

I really enjoyed the whole filming process, but I particularly liked the editing as that is when the film really took shape and came together. Here are Ashley's and Amy's thoughts:-

Ashley

Ashley enjoyed the filming the most as he enjoyed acting as well as learning new techniques with the camera for example, the use of shadows can be very important to create the mood of the scene and creates a sense of confusion and enigmas of who the person is. Ashley thought that our opening sequence was a success because it meets the criteria that a horror film needs to meet.

Amy

Amy liked filming because she enjoyed filming using different camera angles and was able to have lots of fun establishing ways to create different social groups through different camera shots. She thought the opening sequence was a success because it meets the conventions of an opening sequence and the genre horror. It is also it's a bit scary!

We shall now evaluate our opening sequence.

Shamayla

Santa Claws - The Final Cut

This is our opening sequence for our film Santa Claws. It has been a lengthy process to get to this final product. We have spent lots of time planning, preparing, filming, editing and finalising our film.

We encountered a few minor problems whilst creating our opening sequence. These were mainly during the editing process, for instance, when we thought we had finished the film we had to go out and film more clips. We did this as we wanted to make our clips with Santa Claws in more scary and suggestive.

Shamayla

Completed Editing!

We have added the extra bits of our film footage to the opening sequence. We have edited it in with lots of different shots and links to clips. We have used lots of slow motion to increase the suspense and show a creepy side to the film. To show what the killer is thinking we have also used the slow motion to identify the killers victims and to show how he may kill them. We have edited in lots of Christmas objects to show the time of the scene and to reinforce how bad the killer is, as Christmas is usually a happy time. We have edited in lots of dark shots to show the dark side of the killer and kept light clips to a minimum.  

Shamayla

Additional Filming

After editing we decided that we had to do some more filming because we didn't have enough shadows in the film. We needed more shadows to make the film more scary and in keeping with the horror genre. We created more shadows by using a desk lamp against a background. We really wanted to make the opening sequence more moody to show the fear, this is why we re-filmed some parts again. 

Shamayla

Editing

We have now nearly finished editing our film, we have cut up the clips we have captured and shortened then to make them fit with the music. we then started adding transitions to allow the movie to flow better. we are now currently adding titles.

Ashley

Filming Has Finished!

Finally we have completed our filming! We have uploaded our filming onto iMovie HD and have began to cut the clips. We now need to add the song we have chosen to our opening sequence and begin to edit the clips to the beat of the song. 

Amy