Construction: Sound Editing

Sound

Sound is a massive part of horror films as they add a lot of tension, drama and suspense which is all very much needed if you want your film to be successful. Within our horror film we added a lot of sound to enable us to achieve that horror feel to it. This meant adding background noise throughout to give a generally spooky mood for the whole film.

All of the sounds we collected were off of a very good free website called 'free sound.org'. This site allowed us to download any type of sound we could find and use it within our film. They had an extremely wide variety of sounds as well which allowed us to browse loads of different tracks until we found the one we wanted.

Once we had found and downloaded the sounds that were most suitable for our film opening we dragged and dropped each clip, much like the camera footage we had used. This made it very easy to edit and arrange each track to our liking.

A problem which i noticed during the sound editing stage was that some tracks were much too loud for a clip. This meant that it was so loud that the audio in the original clip couldn't be heard. To overcome this problem we had to look at how to decrease the volume of the track slightly just when the dialogue had commenced. This was very much the case during a clip where Sam and Elliott were talking. The image below shows how the sound dips to compliment the dialogue so they can be heard.

Sound was also a key factor in adding suspense to the opening. So during the clips where the villain was shown holding the hammer and when he goes for Brian when he was taking a pee, we added some sound that would really add tension to the scene. Heavy breathing and a very dark and bold sound could be heard when we were shown the hammer which help to indicate danger and that Brian was in trouble. The clip afterwards is a lot faster which indicates danger is coming rapidly and the use of sound on top of this is much like a scuttling insect running quickly. This makes it seem more creepy and exciting.

           

Construction: Editing : Video editing

Once all the filming had been finished we decided to start filming. This meant we had to import all footage from the camera onto the Mac so we could start editing. For editing we decided to use Adobe Premire Pro CS6. This type of software is particularly good as it allows easy editing and gives a wide range of effects, transitions and other features that allow you to develop footage even more.

Video Editing

Once we had opened up and started the program, we had to insert all of our footage onto the program. This just meant dragging and dropping all the footage from the camera and putting it into an area on premiere pro, as seen below.

After we had imported all footage we wanted we could start to add them onto the editing reel and put them in the order we wanted. When we were putting them in order we had to cut and edit some of the clips to make sure that it was only what we wanted out of the clip that we put on. For example, there could be a couple of seconds of a clip that we didn't want to have in it so we would trim it to make sure that it adds more and better continuity.

To make sure that the opening was as horror like as possible i looked at changing the colours within each clips, the main effect change within the opening are the titles. As you can see from the images below, the titles have a very yellow/green effect throughout that makes it creepy and spooky. We were inspired to use this type of titles by the film 'Solstice'. We not only took colour inspiration but we also implemented how they had use a mirror effect to make the titles more spooky and quite disturbing.

'The Campout' Opening Titles

'Solstice' Opening Titles

To get these effects we had to look for video effects that allowed me to change the colours and another which would allow me to mirror the clip.

 The different effect options above allowed me to change the colouring within the clips and the mirroring. I changed the input and output levels of black and white to make shadows and dark areas look more bold and dominant within each clip to make it that bit more scary and horror like. This made it much like the Solstice's opening again as they have very dark and dominant sections of there titles.

Another area of the opening i have edited a lot to show darkness within the clip is one of the last ones. This clip really represents a stereotypical villain as they have a weapon and you don't actually see the villain either. These are common horror conventions that you would expect to see within horror films as we found out in our survey.

During this scene I also changed the speed of the clip to make it more tense and add suspension. I did this by slowing down the clip to around 65.3% of what it would of normally been. This slows it down enough for the audience to experience the tension and listen to the suspense which has been built up.

Once all of the clip was put together we added transitions to help make it smoother and less jumpy when each clip changed. By doing this it makes more sense when you are watching it and helps to define each section as they occur as well.

Another example of speed changing is the last clip we see as the villain is running towards Brian in a POV shot. This clip is sped up to indicate how fast the danger is approaching Brian and that he is in real trouble. This makes the clip a lot shorter than it should be but adds more effect and excitement.

For the majority of our opening we used cross-dissolves and dip to black as they were the most useful and suitable transitions for our film.

Once all of our film opening was edited accordingly and was as good as we could make it we rendered the entire work area and exported in maximum quality so that we could upload it to YouTube.