Ollie Tristram

A creepy, short Teaser Trailer for my film. Be sure to look below for the 'Making of' and the film itself.

Whilst we were filming, my friend Andrew, who was cast in the original version of the film to play Martyn, documented the process using another handheld camera. Including interviews with the actors and a couple of outtakes, this is the edited 'Making of...' documentary - Narrated by Josh Parker.

My final version!

After a few drafts and a bit of tweaking here and there, I can present to you the final version of my 6 minute fictional film to be submitted on May 22.

I would love to hear your thoughts on the film so if you visit the YouTube page you can post a comment there.

Thanks, and enjoy! :)

I reshot my film on Tuesday 28th April with a modified script and losing two of the five characters. There was just too many characters and too much going on for a 6 minute film and I'm very glad I did reshoot it because it looks a lot better and will therefore hopefully get me a higher mark :)

Anyway, here are the production stills from that day.

Last Thursday (12th March) we had a lecture on film titles. I hadn't previously thought much into the titles for my film, so this helped open my eyes a little as to what I can do to make my film look more authentic.

Now as a video dairy style operated by someone who supposedly doesn't know how to work a camera my advice was to keep titles as basic as possible. This even meant writing titles on using the camera (if it had that function).

My film is in a similar style to The Blair Witch Project, so for me to make titles and edit to suit that kind of seemingly uncontrolled style, it will benefit the look and feel of my film.

Unfortunately my trial copy of Photoshop has expired (again) so I cant show a still of what I mean and I've looked on Google and its hard to find a still of what I mean on their too, so you'll just have to use your imagination :P

This is a collection of the best of the production stills taken during the shoot on Monday 23rd February. They are displayed here in reverse order.

Here is the first draft edit of the required 6 minute version. I don't think its as good as the 14 minute version (which I will be uploading soon) but nevertheless it's still fine. I will be continuing to edit this to meet my standards over the next week.

Tuesday 24th February 2009

With approximately 40mins of footage in hand, spread over two Mini-DV tapes (one from the Sony Z1 and one from the Sony Handycam), I was ready to capture the footage to my computer, via Adobe Premiere CS3.

Today simply involved just capturing all the footage, but instead of capturing it off one tape in one go I thought it would make editing easier if I captured each scene separately and labeled them all individually, this way I could drag and drop each part onto the timeline in the correct order and cut the starts and ends off, rather than going through a massive bit of footage finding where every part needed to be cut, and then moving it around that way.

Wednesday 25th February 2009

Today involved me sorting between wanted and unwanted footage and then arranging it on the timeline in the order of the narrative. I quickly began to realise I was not going to be able to fit all of my scripted action into 6 minutes. So I thought I would make a full length version which includes everything I have scripted and then cut that down into the required 6 minutes. This way I can showcase my versatility in editing further.

With 14 minutes worth of intended footage arranged on the timeline, I began post-production on the clips. One of the first things I did was to use colour correction on a few of the introductory clips which I didn't white balance quite right as they were too warm in colour, so I reduced the Red and increased the Blue to try and give a more realistic colour and match the first shot which I did white balance properly. In terms of colour editing, I also increased the green on all the nightvision shots, just to emphasise further that it was using an infra-red nightvision light on the camera. I also boosted the contrast a bit to make the blacks even darker and create an even more eerie atmosphere.

Next, I went on to sorting out that intentionally 'messy' introduction to the film. All I did was use a Gaussian blur effect on the footage so much so that people's features were unable to make out, with the intention of adding the film title on later.

With all my footage looking like it was supposed to look, all I had left now was to add titles and audio. I started with the titles, finding a font from Da Font which was clear to read but looked like a horror text keeping with the film's style. I used a Text preset that gave it a glow, but used a small grey to white gradient and changed the glow to a dull green. I added the title over the blurred introductory shots using a crossfade to fade each section of text into the other. I then went on to adding credits at the end of the film - showing the film title in full, who made it (me), the cast, and a special thanks to the people at The Salutation Inn for letting me film there. And finally, I added text in the corner of every new scene using the Handycam to show that time had paased a lot more than it actually had, to make out that Daniel and the volunteers had spent a long time in the cave, as was intended in the narrative.

Thursday 26th February 2009

With the titles in place all I had left to do was audio. I didn't want a soundtrack for the film as it was in the style of a video diary and that wouldn't have a soundtrack over it, therefore it would sound odd. So instead I went on to add sound effects.

Now I had always intended for there to be a Sheep sound effect and during the shoot we even had to act as if we heard one. I searched the internet and found a Sheep 'Baa' sound on a Sheep website, which was mildly amusing. I had to edit the sound to fit in with two locations it would be used - a cave, and a bedroom. I opened up Logic Studio and applied a considerable amount reverb to the sound effect for the cave, also reducing the dryness of the original sample. For the room, I added a small bit of reverb again as the original sound was fairly flat and must have been recorded outside.

One part of the film is where Warren becomes possessed slightly, and I needed a demonic growling sound to overlay while he had a fit. I did this by recording myself into my flatmates microphone in ProTools and then headed into Logic again to edit the sample. Again adding reverb due to the cave, but as the camera approached Warren the dynamics needed to increase, but I sorted that in Premiere.

Another significant piece of audio was an eerie and strange royalty-free apple loop I found in Logic which I simply lay over the credits.

And finally I found a royalty-free cave ambiance sample, which I overlay on any of the cave sections of the film. When the film is watched back you can hear the occasional drips and a low rumble which really adds to the atmosphere of being inside a cave.

One I had all the audio balanced I wanted to master it. I exported all the audio tracks as a stereo uncompressed WAVE file and imported all 150mb of it into Logic. To master it, I boosted the levels (as the original overall levels were fairly quiet), used a limiter and also added compression. Unfortunately, when I initially recorded the footage on my Handycam the sound was clipping/distorting whenever I spoke. But with a little help from Logic I managed to remove most of the clipping by using a High Shelf Filter, and it came out quite nicely.

With the footage arranged, video effects rendered, titles on and audio processed I was ready to export my full 14 minute 30 second film. Now the task was to be how I would cut it down to fit 6 minutes... hmmm...

Monday 23rd February 2009

The weather is overcast, which is fine. I had arranged to meet the actors at my flat for 2pm and everyone was on time which was good. We all then headed down Shakespeare Street at around 2.30pm to begin filming the first scene in the script - the character introductions.

Whilst setting up the camera and equipment and organising the shoot, Josh, one of the actors took photos for my production/promotional picture album and then I began the filming. The first shot was of my character, Daniel, introducing himself and the project. We actually had a funny idea of having Warren, another character, walking on shot on the phone to a friend to emphasise his party-animal attitude. Then shooting continued as scripted, going from character to character introducing themselves.

I then had another new interesting idea of how to introduce the film, and that was to film random bits of footage while everyone was still in character to show that my character wasn't that familiar with using a camera. I also planned on making these shots blurry and have the film title appear on them in the edit.

Around 4pm the first scene was over and we headed back to my flat for a short break. Around 5.15pm we left for the second location, The Salutation Inn. The sun was just beginning to set (which I wanted as it worked with the time of day in the script), but there was enough light to film the shoot without the use of extra lights. I used a low angle shot of me standing in front of the pub to make the pub appear dominant and important in the background.

So far so good and the filming schedule was going to plan near perfectly, without any unwanted interruptions. We entered the pub and took all the equipment and bags down into the caves where the main section of the film was to take place, then headed back upstairs to begin the introduction to the night. This is where I switched from using the Sony Z1 HDV to my own Sony Handycam, as I wanted the film from this point onwards to look less like a professional documentary and more like a home-made investigation, which in the case of the narrative, it was.

From here until the end of the scene I followed the script very closely and as each shot was improvised we rehearsed them first and got the general idea of what I wanted, before I hit record. This worked really well and was efficient. The actors we're all very professional and there was no messing about and unwillingness to perform in the particularly dark environment.

One problem I did have though was that the Sony Z1 was going to be set up in the corner of the room and act as an observational camera so during the edit I could switch between my hand-held camera and the still camera. However, the cave was just too dark and there was no infrared light on the Z1 for me to use. So to work my way around that I shot a part where the camera had appeared to stop working, and we used the excuse that something similar had happened on Most Haunted, blaming the unexplainable.

Around 8.00pm. after filming had finished, we headed upstairs back into the pub for a drink and a reflection on how things went, and then the actors and then the actors and I went our separate ways.

That evening I filmed the final part of the film of my character Daniel talking into the camera in a video-diary-style, summing up the evening. I even changed the time on my radio alarm so that it fitted in with the script and appeared that the time spent in the cave was much longer than we actually did. This part was scripted to be filmed inside Uni the following day but I thought it was unnecessary to go back into Uni the next day to film something which made as much sense to film in Daniel's flat.

Then, the next day, capturing the footage to my Mac began.

I have managed to secure The Salutation Inn's haunted underground caves as the location for my film and last night I went down to be shown around them and took the opportunity to take photos of the caves. Its very dank and spooky down there and is the exact location I had in mind for my film, really adding to the realism for the story.

These are the four main characters of the film. None of them are any more or less important to the narrative than the others.

Warren
Played by: Sam Myddleton

Warren is a third year student on a Sports Science course at the University. He is a very confident individual who has a lot of friends who are equally as confident. He comes from a rich family who live in Herefordshire and is used to having his own way. His favourite activites are socialising, which he does to the extreme by going out partying every week and playing a variety of sports. He is known by most as arrogant, self-obsessed and vain but to those that don’t know him; he can come across lively, chatty and friendly. Another reputation he has is to be quite a stud with the ladies, and this is actually why Warren accepted the invitation to take part in the experiment because he quite fancies his chances with Sophie. Warren’s masculine persona is purely just a front, because the time spent filming in the haunted place gets too much for him and it is soon clear his original persona does not reflect his real feelings.

Peter
Played by: Josh Parker

Peter is a second year Music Technology student. He is quite laid-back and is a well-organised person. Peter’s main attribute is that he tries to make light of any awkward sitautions by telling jokes. He also tells jokes in front of new people he meets to try and impress them, sometimes they are genuinely funny, but other times he tries too hard. The joke telling comes from a low self-confidence that people that know him can’t really see because he is the kind of person to bottle up his problems. He has grown up living alone with his single mother so there is a side to him that is very fatherly and he would be kind of guy you would go to for advice. Peter is very sceptical of ghosts, so his reason for accepting the invitation comes down to the fact that he doesn’t get out much and having been invited by someone to do something quite important he feels obliged to. There is also a small side of curiosity inside him because if he was to see a ghost, he may just believe.

Martyn
Played by: Andrew Bradford

Martyn is a first year Human Genetics student. He is very much the opposite type of person to Warren as he is shy, quiet and studious. He is quite the geek that studies hard at University, comes back to his flat and plays World of Warcraft. He is not a complete nerd though, Martyn does have quite a large group of friends and regularly goes out for casual pints at the pub. One of Martyn’s favourite television programmes is Most Haunted and he has a fascination of ghosts. So when he heard a student was inviting a select few students to spend the night in a haunted location he jumped at the chance, so he can experience what the people experience on the show. Martyn’s overall personality sees him as one of those people who get straight A’s in exams, but is actually quite a nice guy who is easy to get on with.

Sophie
Played by: Steph Dawson

Sophie is a good friend of the Psychology student who is conducting the experiment and is only taking part to do him a favour because no other girls would do it. Sophie did have a past encounter with a ghost when she was younger so she is quite intrigued into the experiment anyway, but when it comes to the night she will be very scared and probably scream quite a lot. She is a third year Theatre Design student. Her personality is typically girly: quite loud, slightly confident, very little common sense and concerned of her image. She likes to keep up with the latest fashions and make-up and reads magazines to learn all the latest tips about fashion and ‘guides’ on men. She has a boyfriend who is not in the experiment so she has no interest in Warren.

I have changed the narrative of the film. It is now this:

A third year psychology student is conducting an experiment called An Observational Analysis of Behaviour and Effects of Prolonged Time in a ‘Haunted’ Environment. For part of this study there will be video data collected which will be my film. It will still be shot in the style of a documentary and introduced by the student himself, and act as a sort of diary of events. The student has advertised around University for students to take part in the experiment, but with very little response the choice of students has not been ideal. Although there will be an introduction to the students and location, the main emphasis of the film is now on the night itself and the interactions between the students.

This (pretty much final) idea is a mockumentary on the Most Haunted-style TV programmes.

Narrative/Theme

A TV show, which features different groups of people every week and takes them to haunted places to the spend the night, has this week chosen a small group of students from a the university’s paranormal society. The students will also act as the presenters of the show.

Pre-production

The program will be scripted although I do want some of the scenes in the building to be improvised to add a more realistic feel. Also, apart from all the usual pre-production that is expected (character studies, recces, health and safety, etc.) I plan on having the actors and I spend a night at the haunted location for us to experience the same situation the characters in the film will be in, therefore helping the actors understand their roles better.

Structure

• Introduction by students on this weeks show
• Introduction of the location
• Tour round the location in the day with site owner telling stories
• Students spend the night at location
• Next day, students reflect on the night and a scientist gives his opinion on what occurred.

Characters

There will be 4 main characters of 3 males and 1 female (as we want more humour and less screaming). There is also a secondary character of the scientist.

• Character 1 (male): Cocky, cynical and outspoken, but when it comes to the night, is actually a scared little girl.
• Character 2 (male): Average, laid-back and curious. The character most people would relate to.
• Character 3 (male): Fairly sceptical, tells jokes and makes light of most situations. Will act as the main source of comedy.
• Character 4 (female): Typical girly-girl. But really wants to see a ghost because of a past experience with one, so a strong believer. Gets scared easily.
• Character 5 (male): Old man aiming to disprove any ghost theories.

Setting

• Outside University
• Inside and outside haunted location like pub.
• Interview room/computer room for scientist analysing footage.

Cinematography

All interview sections will be done using Sony Z1 on a tripod. As will the tour section, but probably be handheld for that. During the sleepover there will be a small, handheld, night-vision camcorder to film the haunted antics.

Post-production

The film will be edited using typical clichés like creating atmosphere using video effects to make the locations look darker and scarier than they actually are. There will also be fast cuts and direction changes in camera to add a disjointed feel to some shots, particularly those outside and inside the ‘haunted’ location.

Audio-wise, I plan on producing the title and/or credit music myself and using royalty-free atmosphere sounds and noise samples to add to the scary tone of the film, which is another cliché.