Four-Hour Film Challenges

Haunted College
Due to the fact that lessons were being taught whilst filming this video, I was able to take advantage of the college's quiet atmosphere by only filming scenes devoid of people all together. The purpose of this was to present the college in a haunting manner, as if all of its previous occupants had suddenly vanished. In order to increase dramatic tension, I and two others manipulated objects without revealing ourselves to the camera, creating the impression of supernatural behaviour. By filming some scenes in an unused, derelict area of the college, it would seem that the emotions of fear and uneasiness would become much more prominent to the average viewer. The eerie music that I added over the footage also helped strengthen these emotions.
Overall, since I had never used Adobe Premiere Pro before editing this video, I learnt the basic concepts of the software, such as importing, structuring, snipping, and reversing clips, as well as overlaying and fading music, all before exporting the completed video.
Although I find the narrative of the film to be somewhat lacklustre, in terms of camera techniques, I do believe that the few scenes shot outside are slightly overexposed. As an improvement, I would record these scenes again, but set the camera to ensure that the light does not appear too powerful, causing the colour to look slightly blanched.







Jumpcut Madness
As the camera operator, I would spend a few seconds filming four other students located in certain positions within one room. Each time that I stopped filming, the others would move to different locations or alter their poses for me to record. The camera would remain in the exact same position so that only the people within the film would represent change. By the time that the lesson had finished, I had filmed one-hundred and fifteen clips. In terms of editing, I layered the Nintendo Wii theme music over the footage, before cutting the length of the clips down, and structuring them so that each time that a new note began to sound, a new clip would play. This 'jumpcut madness' would be used for comedic effect, along with the silly fart noise that I added at the end of the video to the appearance of the French word 'Fin'.
In order to achieve the final result, I learnt to match the start of each clip to the main individual notes of the music. Being able to view the sound waves helped greatly, as I could actually see when each note began so that the footage could be accurately synched to the rhythm. Therefore, the main lesson learnt was how to match footage to music.
Due to the camera position, one of the four sets of two tables cannot be fully seen, as a corner is not within frame. This is because if the tables act as a midpoint, the camera was unintentionally placed to capture more of the room located on the left side, rather than being placed to capture an equal amount of both sides. Although others may be untroubled by this, I cannot help but find it rather irritating, especially since in most of the clips, nobody is positioned in the left-sided area that I see as being inconvenient, which renders the area useless onscreen. Obviously, correcting this 'error' would be a small price to pay for having to start the project from the beginning, but it is an improvement that I suggest nonetheless.







1920s Feature
This film, which was not at all planned or filmed by me, depicts two students within a chase sequence. One obviously believes that the other is trying to harm them, and so she runs in an attempt to get away. The other, who only wishes to return the runner's pass, is forced to chase her until she is eventually cornered in a room, where she realises the true intention of the chaser, before the film ends. With the use of iris shots, title cards, black and white imagery, and film grain, the final result is designed to follow the style of 1920 feature films.
During the editing of this film, I learnt how to create iris shots, meaning that a black circle opens within the middle of the screen in order to begin the film, whilst another closes to end it. I also learnt how to input still images - in this case, title cards - as well as text, which was used to present the characters' speech, and narrate a part of the story. Additionally, discovering how to remove the colour from the footage helped keep the film remain true to 1920s cinema. The final technique that I gained understanding of was overlaying multiple pieces of footage, as the whole video plays with a film grain effect present.
Personally, I do feel that the acting of the two students was somewhat laughable, but at least one can tell that they had fun doing it. Furthermore, in relation to improvements that I could make, I would try to speed the footage up slightly, as the majority of fast-paced 1920s films were produced in such a way. There is a problem that would arise from this, however, which is that the footage would end long before the music could, which is not in favour of 1920s cinema. Although I could always cause the music to fade out, this would also be out of keeping of silent films. Therefore, the only solution that I can see should I apply this improvement, would be to receive more acceptable footage to include.







Found Footage Music Video to Resident Evil Film Theme
For this film, I was tasked with producing a music video for XXYYXX's song About You, using nothing but found footage. Although the main requirement was for most of the footage to play in sychronisation with the music, and that aspects such as narrative and meaning were not necessarily important, I not only felt the track to be uninspired, but quite irritating. Thus, for the sake of my own sanity, I decided to change the song to Marilyn Manson's Resident Evil (2002) film theme song, as I enjoy it, and believed that it would work better with the found footage that I had in mind.
After searching the Internet, I began to start editing once I had downloaded thirty-four pieces of found footage. In order to create a strong connection between the clips, I made sure that the majority of them followed a red colour scheme, as I find the colour to be the most representative of the horror genre, which relates to the sinister nature of the music as well as its origin. Similar to my 'Jumpcut Madness' film, I decided to view the sound waves of the music so that the synchronisation of the clips to the sound was as accurate as possible. Ultimately, I would not say that I learnt anything new from this project, but at least I was highly satisfied with the outcome.
In all honesty, I cannot find anything about this film that I could improve upon. Although I do wish that every piece of footage used was able to play in 1080p, the only solution would be to remove them, but, of course, doing so would also remove their great contribution to the project.