The first draft of Subject 984

Once the whole editing together procedure (both the Visuals and the Audio) had been completed we can now present the first draft to the Trailer for our film Subject 984. It may be that we need to go back and refine elements of the trailer as getting it right the first time is a rare case:

Editing the Trailer

Once all of our footage had been recorded we could begin to edit together said footage so as to produce that which we had planned out back in October. This came in several stages with different things to consider along the way:

1) What to use

Once all the footage that we would need had been recorded it was time to gather it all together and decide what to use, how to use and how much of it to use. In all likelihood we would end up using easily on about 25-35% at most of what we had originally recorded because the important thing to make sure that we had done was to hint at what the film would be about and to hint at the different characters and how they fit into the plot of the film. The bank that we had (or a portion of it at least because there were a couple dozen files) looked something like this once they had been imported:

As you can see here the process of putting it all together is already underway, the green bars at the top representing those clips that have been 'favourited' as the ones that we were going to use. The orange bars show how much of that clip we ended up actually using within the trailer.

2) Adding sound effects/soundtrack

As well as moving around the moments of footage that we were going to want to use we also needed to  move around the sound effects and soundtrack to make sure that they were all placed in the places that the needed to go so that everything was in sync and felt 'right' when it would be presented to a viewer. This in particular was finicky business as some elements of sound had demands in terms of precisely where they needed to fit and how long they needed to last (whilst at the same time trying to use only what was necessary out the different pieces of footage).

As you can see here there are a variety of different tracks that need to play simultaneously fitting together whilst at the same time not overwhelming each other so that you can hear both together working in sync rather than against each other.

3) Text and Transitions

Within the trailer we needed to add elements of text for the titles, in particular playing to different conventions such as company titles, something that we could take from the AS coursework so that we could play to the idea of 'from the makers of'; textual information and plot hints that fit in with the theme of the overall tag-line for the film; actor/actress credits to sell the film using the 'big names' that would be featured therein. In doing so we needed to make sure that this clear and spaced out evenly to create the desired effect whilst also not overpowering the footage too much or dragging the trailer out.


We could also play with transitions here, which were important to show changes in the narrative, and

my favourite that we were able to use was the circle in and out at the point where Mya discovers a secret being hidden by the Trory Anwir institute for mental health, as this out represent an eye opening to a previous moment in the medical room and understanding that she had been correct all along when she thought that suspicious was going on.




4) An end to the process

Once the whole editing procedure had been completed the full length (of the first draft) was 2:59 seconds in length. The amount of footage used relative to how much had been recorded was a small ration indeed but to see all of our hard work in one place that fit together such as this does was a momentous event. We were aware, however, that it was very likely that this would not quite be the finished product and that additional chop and changes were likely to be required before the process reached its conclusion.

Acquiring the audio

As part of putting together the Trailer we needed to add soundtrack as this is crucial for both creating an atmosphere and also building excitement - if a trailer lacks a memorable soundtrack then it will not be quite so successful as soundtrack evokes something within the viewer which makes it seem that much more appealing.

The first thing that I needed was to find a suitable website from which I could source soundtrack - as someone who does not have access to an orchestra ready to play whatever I demand of them I could either pull something that already existed (by asking the owners permission to use what is by copyright theirs) or I could find royalty free music that is open for anyone to use. Given that I found them to be a good source of soundtrack from previous projects I headed straight for Free Music Archive to find the soundtrack that I desired. In looking for tracks I needed:

1) something mournful and sad for the beginning
2) something darker and more disturbed for the moments in which Mya would freak out
3) Something sad yet hopeful for Mya's initial moments inside the Trory Anwir institute for mental health
4) Something momentous yet suspicious for the moments of discovery
5) and back to something else that was mournful and sad for the ending

Once I had found them I could look through their vast archive and find what it was that I needed. I felt that the titles for some of the songs were oddly very appropriate for their roles - for example, the track used for the opening is called "nothing lasts forever", or for the moments of discover is called "hidden castle" (Mya might not discover a castle but her discovery is still something hidden in its own way).

Now that job was done it was time to edit together the soundtrack and it turned out that this was not as simple as I first assumed it was going to be - I originally thought that all I would need to do was to put the soundtrack in where I needed it to go. As it turned out iMovie was very much all or nothing so I would need a second piece of software in order to put the final soundtrack together.

This piece of software was to be Audacity, which is specifically designed to edit together sound files to create new music and it was very useful. Using this had a few steps to it:

1) Inserting all of the audio into the program, when I had done so it looked like this:

As you can see this initially is not immediately a viable soundtrack to use because all 5 different tracks (all taken from Free Music archive, the original sounds and sound effects were added separately to the ambiance soundtracks that I was editing together here) will overlap and drown each other out.

2) Lining up the sound

As opposed to having different tracks overlap, I wanted to time the start and finish of each track so that they follow on from each other whilst beginning at the appropriate time in the trailer to create their desired effects. In order to make sure that this was done right I needed to check their exact start times on the trailer and then listen to the Audacity file whilst watching the iMovie file to see if they line up correctly - given that it was two different machines this was very awkward but it worked well enough:

Once the job was done - and it looked something like this when it was (see below) - I was ready to transfer the finished product onto iMovie  - it fit together exactly as intended and, though perhaps some of the cuts are a little jumpy from track to track, its exactly what we needed in order to create the desired effect. 

The filming process day 3

Date: Friday 1st December 2017
Time: 14:00-15:00
Moments filmed: New friend, Ending
Personnel needed: Matthew Herriott (Camera/director/Christopher), Evie Brookes-Payne (Producer/Mya Brown)
Props: none
Equipment: Camera, Tripod

The final shots that we had to film were the shots which included my character, Christopher. These were some more challenging shots to film because both myself and Evie needed to appear in the shot at the same time meaning that, with nobody there to act as cameraman/woman we had to improvise slightly making timing of the shots absolutely critical.
In the end, we realised that by leaving a gap at the beginning and the end of every shot it would make it easy to edit out the beginning and the end leaving us with the desired footage to use for the trailer. Though this isn't the commonly established method with which one would expect to film shots it was more effective than it sounded because it meant that we had to cooperate in order to make it work otherwise the shots we were trying to pull off would almost certainly fail - leading us to waste less time on irrelevant details and more time working on what had to be done. 

The filming process day 2 (extra)

Date: Wednesday 22nd November 2017
Time: 13:40-13:50pm
Moments filmed: Dialogue
Personnel needed: Matthew Herriott (Camera/director), Evie Brookes-Payne (Producer/Mya Brown),             Emma Hillier (Silvia Brown)
Props: none
Equipment: Camera, Tripod

Recording this particular element of the trailer was very interesting as it was the complete reverse of a lot of the filming that we had done so far: as opposed to filming for the visuals (and removing the audio) we were filming for the sound (and removing the visuals). Because audio is very difficult to perfect I was of the thinking that this particular job would take a long time to get right. The most important thing to get right in the filming of the dialogue was the deliberate pauses and the enunciation of certain words so that the appropriate amount of emotion cut through to the audience. As it turned out, this was actually quite a simple fix.

The filming process day 2 (part 3)

Date: Wednesday 22nd November 2017
Time: 16:00pm - 17:00pm
Moments filmed: Off Limits/Discovery
Personnel needed: Matthew Herriott (Camera/director), Evie Brookes-Payne (Producer/Mya Brown), Kim Wright (Dr Goodwin)
Props: Keep out sign, Mya's file
Equipment: Camera, Tripod

As the last thing that we filmed on this particular day, there were many complications to trying to work out how to put together Mya's investigation.

The main consideration was how much of the corridor we needed Mya to walk down, and realised that in reality the audience does not know how long said corridor is and therefore all we needed was for her to walk up the stairs and then she could pretty much be at the doors already.

The most difficult thing though would have to be working out when DR Goodwin should have to walk out of the office and down the corridor that is on the other side as where she would be starting from was out of sight and earshot for us to be able to give her an idea of when to go. In the end, we had to use timing so that I had approximately 15 seconds to get to the camera and press record before DR Goodwin would walk out of the office and down the corridor. As we knew that it was perfectly feasible to edit out any bits of that particular shot that we didn't want, it didn't matter if the shot lasted too long early on because we didn't have to keep it.

When it came to filming the second half in which Mya would discover her file this was more complicated because we needed to make sure that the audience could have a chance to very clearly read Mya's file tag as well as her expression when she finds out what is going on at the Institute. This was where we had to make a crucial change, as opposed to having that moment be as two shots - one in which she opens the cabinet and another in which she reacts to her discovery - we had to add a middle shot which would allow the audience to get a close up shot of the file so that her tag could very clearly be read.

The filming process day 2 (part 2)

Date: Wednesday 29th November 2017
Time: 13:55-14:40pm
Moments filmed: Therapy 1 & Decision
Personnel needed: Matthew Herriott (Camera/director), Evie Brookes-Payne (Producer/Mya Brown), Emma Hillier (Silvia Brown), Shannon Reading (Dr L Church)
Props: Dr L Church counselling room sign
Equipment: Camera, Tripod

As what was potentially our longest filming session of all of them, the therapy shots proved to be more of a challenge than we had originally expected and this was a for a few different reasons. 

The important idea that we wanted to convey in this scene is that Mya has to go through Therapy following her accident, therapy which doesn't seem to be very effective as Mya is very unresponsive to DR L Church's (her therapist's) approach. 

The reason as to why this was so complicated is because we needed to try and catch a lot of body language seeing as the physical sound from these shots was going to be removed at the editing stage meaning that although we could get different characters to speak the kind of lines that they might have said in the event that we would be keeping the sound they were going to have to exaggerate the way that they were saying it by shifting around or by opening themselves up to make it clear that something had been said. In some places we can clearly see that DR L Church is talking as we are close enough to see her lips moving but at other times this was not quite so easy. 

The other chief consideration that we were going to have to make was what lighting to use, and this was because Mya (who is supposed to be very downcast) was wearing white in a white room meaning that only her hair looked the way that she should be feeling. What we ended up doing was a take with the lights on and a take with the lights off so that in the second version at least we had less lighting and Mya doesn't appear to be quite as bright as she did in the original. Having taken so many different attempts at some of the shots it left us with some serious considerations that we were going to need to make when it would eventually come to the editing stages.

The filming process day 2 (part 1)

Date: Wednesday 29th November 2017
Time: 11:00am-12:00pm
Moments filmed: Opening
Personnel needed: Matthew Herriott (Camera/director), Evie Brookes-Payne (Producer/Mya Brown)
Props: Family Photo
Equipment: Camera, Tripod

The first shot for today would be the shot which we will use to open up our trailer, in which Mya is seen in her living room presumably talking to her mother, Silvia. The focus in this shot however, as opposed to being on the conversation between those two characters is on a photo of Mya when she was a small child and this illustrates that there was a time in Mya's life when everything was normal, safe and happy. 

In order to pull this particular shot off - as we would need a camera which allows the user to set the focus manually - would require the use of a different camera to the one that we used for the rest of the filming. The camera that we used (on the left in the picture) was much bigger and harder to handle than the standard one that we have used for the rest of our filming and so required more practice but we were able to work out how to create the effect that we wanted (and a very beautiful effect it was indeed).

Unlike some of the other shots that we have taken throughout the production of the trailer, this one was very different in style because it didn't have any set moments in which something would physically happen, this was more of an establishing shot to contrast with what was to come next as well as to effect an origin point in Silvia's dialogue (though she is not explicitly shown here) so that the rest of her speech would make more sense.

The filming process day 1 (part 4)

Date: Wednesday 22nd November 2017
Time: 15:50pm-16:00pm
Moments filmed: Medical
Personnel needed: Matthew Herriott (Camera/director), Evie Brookes-Payne (Producer/Mya Brown), Kim Wright (Dr Goodwin)
Props: None
Equipment: Camera, Tripod

The final shot of the day would be the medical shot, and this was by far the simplest of all the shots to get filmed as it only lasts about 6 seconds. We were quickly able to get this one filmed but there were more learns to be gained here than from any other shot today:

1. Both teams (myself as the director, and the cast) need to make sure that the other is ready before we initiate a shot. Looking back at the footage of the attempts here, I saw that in one of them I had accidentally started filming AFTER they had started performing meaning that the first few seconds were invalid (we did 4 takes though so there was plenty to choose from).

2. Although DR Goodwin can be heard in the background in this shot, she is not actually seen on-screen. Originally, we placed K. Wright (DR Goodwin) behind the camera so that she would not get in the way of the camera but this meant that she could not be heard quite as well as we would have liked. This improved once she had been moved around to be in front of the camera - though remained out of shot because the camera was focused on Evie (Mya Brown). What we needed to remember here is that we should position people so that they are where they need to be in order for them to be seen/heard in the way that we need them to be.



The filming process day 1 (part 3)

Date: Wednesday 22nd November 2017
Time: 15:30pm-15:50pm
Moments filmed: Leaving time
Personnel needed: Matthew Herriott (Camera/director), Evie Brookes-Payne (Producer/Mya Brown), Emma Hillier (Silvia Brown), Kim Wright (Dr Goodwin)
Props: Suitcase
Equipment: Camera, Tripod

As the first moment to film that required the use of some of the adult cast members, we felt that the goodbye sequence was a good one to start with. Being later in the day, and a very windy day it was, the conditions made filming here more challenging than the panic shot earlier in the day had been. Unfortunately, while we were able to work our way around it, this made one of our attempts unusable but that didn't create too much of an issue. Given that, typically as young people we were used to being the ones taking instructions, we were working with adults for the filming of this moment of the trailer that made it challenging to begin with. Neverthless we were able to get over that and got what we wanted to filmed.

One thing I realised for future filming sessions is, although it didn't create too much of a problem for this shot, that we would have to be careful in making sure that when a shot had run its course that the cast members didn't immediately look to me to see that they had done a good job/to find out what needed doing next. 

The filming process day 1 (part 2)

Date: Wednesday 22nd November 2017
Time: 11:45am-12:20pm
Moments filmed: Rage
Personnel needed: Matthew Herriott (Camera/director), Evie Brookes-Payne (Producer/Mya Brown)
Props: None
Equipment: Camera, Tripod

As what would potentially be one of the most challenging shots to film, as well as the fact that the trailer will cut straight from panic into this moment so that the audience can get an idea of just how badly affected Mya has been by her traumatic past, we decided to go for rage next. The reason as to why this moment was going to be so complicated was due to the fact that we were going to have to completely reset the desk with every attempt of the second shot so that the desk doesn't create a continuity error - the reason for this being because in this moment Mya swipes all of her stuff away when she can't focus on the work she is trying to do.

In working out how exactly we were going to present rage was a difficult task because Evie and I disagreed on what exactly we wanted the second shot to look like. She believed that the best thing to do would be to have Mya storm out of shot but I thought it would be better to have her storm out through the door (whether that was to leave the building entirely or just to escape from where she was presently is up for debate because it could be interpreted either way, but the point was that she couldn't focus/couldn't cope). In the end we went with my suggestion because that is more typical of shots in which the character is seen to storm away as well as the fact that it gives a better definintion for where she has gone and how far we have to follow her with the camera.

An important consideration that we picked up from filming these shots (although that was not a problem here due to the fact that we're going to be taking the audio out) is that we need to be careful of what constitues the background audio - we need to make sure that any unwanted sound is filtered out.

Ultimately, fun as this moment was to film, it was also good to get it out the way because of how challenging and time consuming it was and knowing that we had this one done was a real relief.

The filming process day 1 (part 1)

Date: Wednesday 22nd November 2017
Time: 11:00am-11:30am
Moments filmed: Panic
Personnel needed: Matthew Herriott (Camera/director), Evie Brookes-Payne (Producer/Mya Brown)
Props: None
Equipment: Camera, Tripod

The shot that we decided to start with would be the panic scene, seeing as it was one of the more complicated shots to put together due to the fact that we needed to work out how exactly we could represent somebody visibly panicking. Finding a location was not too difficult as any standard road/street would do - as long as we did not have any cars coming along the road during the shot because we wanted to make it clear that Mya was freaking out when she heard an ambulance sound (that we could edit in later) as opposed to the car driving past. Also, as it is a trailer that we are working on putting together, we needed to make sure that this moment does not drag on too long so that we have time to fit everything in the 2-3 minute sequence of events, so working out how far away Mya needed to be as well as how far she needed to walk before freaking out was another consideration that needed to be made. In terms of working out how to make Mya look like she was panicking we decided to go with shaking hands, as this got through what we were trying to suggst. This is also where we made a crucial change to this scene: as opposed to what we were going to do originally - to do this as two shots cutting from the initial reaction to a shot of Mya's hand shaking - we decided that once Mya reacts we should have the camera zoom in on her hand so that it is more obvious whose hand it is that is shaking.

One of the biggest learns here was that of the weather, with it being in the later end of the year the wind (and also the rain) have the potential to cause problems both with communication and with actual recording if the dialogue should end up being distorted.

Putting the shot together in the end took us about half an hour, partly because it took a little while for us to work out the optimum walking distance and representation of a panicked state of mind, and partly in waiting for the road to be clear.

Emailing the Cast

Once the plans had been put together for what we wanted the trailer to look like it was time to bring in the actors/actresses that we would need to perform in the trailer.

Constructing and Gathering the props

As part of preparing to film we needed to make sure that props and costumes were in place so that we were ready to film.

Scouting out locations

Though at the time we had had a rough idea of what kind of locations we wanted to use for the various moments within the film trailer we needed to find physical, real world locations in which our vision for the trailer could come to life - especially given the fact that we did not have any kind of large scale filming studio in which one could construct all the various sets that they desired ripe from their imagination. This meant that we had the job of location scouting for possible filming sites for which we needed a total of about 12 different locations - which is small for your typical film trailer but for us needed some serious searching given the fact that it would be difficult (though not impossible) to look too far affield (aka outside of Stafford).

Our Audience

As part of planning our film trailer one of the things that we were going to have to consider was who we wanted our audience to be so that we could better plan who to target with the various areas of the marketing campaign.


The first part we were going to have to consider was what type of narrative we were trying to tell. By having a female protagonist who by means of tragic circumstance is drawn into a corrupt and secretive institution hiding a secret agenda behind a mask of helping those suffering with poor mental health issues, we felt that it was in a way similar to the likes of films such as 'The Hunger Games' or 'Divergent' series of films - although the fact that the film is not drawn from a successful trilogy of books would mean that we would have to start from scratch in terms of attracting a fan base to flock to the cinema seats. Therefore, this first factor in deciding who the market would be for our marketing campaign would be to target it at the young adult audience.


The other half of determining the target audience was the factor of film genre. As a part of the Sci-Fi Thriller genre ofn films, our film is more likely to attract a slightly more mature and intelligent audience as the film would be engineered in a more mature and less light-hearted format.

The Trailer Script

Once we had planned what we wanted to happen with both the storyboard and the shot list it was time to have a look at what we wanted each moment to look like on a deeper level as well as planning what was going to be said - because although we knew who was going to be talking in each scene we hadn't yet worked out what exactly they were going to say. This made it neccesary to write a script for our trailer and thus one has been written.
Follow the link below to have a look at what we were able to produce:
Film Script

The Shot List

Once we had drawn up our shot list, it was time to consider what we wanted our trailer to look like in greater depth and this meant looking at it shot by shot to construct a shot list.

The Synopsis

Film title: Subject 984

Genre: Science-Fiction/Thriller

Synopsis:

Plagued by past experiences, Mya Brown (Evie Brookes-Payne) suffers from a number of mental health issues. Full of worry, and as a last resort, her mother (E.Hillier) sends her to the Trory Anwir Institution of Mental Health, where she befriends Christopher (Matthew Herriott). Surrounded by caring and understanding people, everything appears to be taking a turn for the better. But, after a series of unexplained medical tests and the discovery of a dark secret, she starts to realise that everything isn't quite as it first appeared...

Constructing the Storyboard

Once the research was completed we could begin to work on the plan for what we wanted our trailer to look like. For this, we needed a synopsis and a storyboard. At present we do not have a title for the film nor do we have any names for the characters, but we decided that at this stage specifics like that were not the most important thing - what should come before who. (For details on what is actually going on, see the synopsis).

Here is what our storyboard looks like:

 After the company titles having finished opening the trailer, the audience is first introduced to the mother and her daughter. We see pictures on the wall of them as a family. The main communication point here is the idea of the daughter being safe when she is with her mother. The dialogue opens with the mother talking to her daughter introducing the idea of her needing to go to a mental health care facility.

Whilst the mother's speech remains constant for the first third to half of the trailer (depending on the exact duration of the various flashbacks that we want to show here), the trailer then moves to show a series of flashbacks, from the daughter talking to her therapist to her having a mental breakdown when she comes into contact with a vehicle.

The trailer cuts back to where it started: in the living room. We see the mother show her daughter a leaflet about the mental health care centre where, seeing as her therapist had not succeeded in getting through to her, she will be sent to receive proper treatment for her PTSD. The trailer will transition through the leaflet to a teary goodbye scene at the care centre, and here the mother's dialogue will end - there will be strong inference in this moment that the daughter is leaving her mother behind, thus the safety felt at the beginning will no longer be there to protect her.

The second 'half' of the trailer shows the daughter inside the care centre. It opens the care centre showing her be introduced to someone else who has just been introduced to the centre. While we want their initial meet to be awkward as both of them are struggling mentally, they manage to get along. Within this sequence of them together, they come across a door that denies them entry, making the daughter slightly suspicious. It then cuts to a scene in a medical bay, here we see the daughter on a hospital bed  - it is implied that she is receiving medical tests and that since arriving this has been somewhat frequent, enough to at least make her suspicious.

The trailer cuts back now to the room whose door is titled 'no entry', though this time the daughter is without her friend. We see her walk through the door this time. Whilst inside, she is seen to investigate a filing cabinet and pull different files out. Whilst we do not learn what she discovers there, we know that whatever it is is enough to scare her. She runs out of the room, but is clumsy enough to leave a telltale sign that someone has been in there.

The trailer then cuts to her trying to explain the mysterious situation to her friend - though we do not hear what she has discovered, we learn enough that they think something is wrong. (Whilst a change of clothes implies that this scene is later on) we then see the two of them making a move to try and leave the healthcare centre. When they come into contact with one of the scientists, the two of them try to run away. We do not, however, see how this scene plays out. The trailer ends here, cutting to the film title and the release date.