Music choices

As editor, I am also responsible for sound. This includes the music and sound effects we need for our film. Back in January, Chris and I listened to many different pieces of music before deciding on 4 top choices. These are shown below along with the reasons why we shortlisted them:

• 'Mausam and Escape' by A R Rahman - This piece of music is fast paced and would suit our running scenes. We applied and kept this music on our film for a while, but after showing it to class members and our media teacher, we gained feedback that it was a little too dramatic and made our sequence sound like a film trailer instead of a film opening. I also felt it sounds too Indian for our film, though there are some good parts in the song that add extra emphasis to certain scenes in our sequence.
  
• 'Clues' by Jan Hammer- This music is well suited to our film and the noir genre. It's slow paced but mysterious and matches with the action scenes in our film, as well as the slow studio scenes. The quietness also allows any diegetic sounds in the background to be heard alongside the music. We applied this music in our second edit sequence and the whole group agrees with its suitability compared to the first piece.


• 'Keep Running' - This music varies in pace throughout, which would be useful for our running scenes. The title also links in with our film narrative, but overall we don't like the music enough to see it fitting in well with our film and matching with all the action.


• Theme from 'The Warriors' - This music is from a film called 'The Warriors'. It suits our film in regards to pace, but the genre of the music isn't very noirey. We also want to avoid using any music from a previous film as we want our film to be individual.

Applying for commercial use of our music

If we were to finish the rest of our film noir and publicly release it into cinemas worldwide, one of the things we would need to apply for is permission for music use. This is because we haven’t created our own music to use in our opening sequence, as we are using the song ‘Clues’ written by Jan Hammer. PRS (Performing Rights Society) acts as the agent between our film production company ‘Take Two Productions’, and Jan Hammer, as they ask the owner of the music if we would be able to use in our film opening. To apply for music use, we would have to log onto the PRS website (www.prsformusic.com/Pages/default.aspx) and apply using an online application form. On receipt of our request PRS would then contact Jan Hammer and ask for his permission, and negotiate a price we would pay for use of his music.

As I am responsible for sound in our group, I undertook the task of going through the process stage towards applying to use our music, ‘Clues’. We would need a broadcast licence for a feature film for commercial use only. I entered the name of our production company, our film title, a brief synopsis of our film and various other information, so that PRS can inform Jan Hammer the specific use of his music. Then I entered the piece of music we wished to use and who PRS would have to ask permission from to enable us to use it.

Below is a scanned version of the details I was intending to submit to ask for music use permission:

Looking at titles and fonts

In our film we have chosen to place the main title, 'Shadows Present', at the end of the sequence. We found this popular with many films and we thought it would create an enigma for the audience and keep them watching to find out what the film is called. However, as editor it is my responsibility to choose a suitable title font that will match with the noir style and be interesting for the audience. The same chosen font will then be applied to our name titles (which will be shown during our final fight scene and between the running through the forest) to show continuity throughout. We have also had a group idea that the actors' names should appear during the woods scenes, but are unsure if this idea will stay as it is not neccessary to have too many short unreadable titles disturbing the film, rather than a few good readable titles that break up the action nicely. For the background to our titles we had already decided upon black as it would make the text stand out and would match the noir style.

Below are some of the font ideas and the reasons behind them: (the font examples shown below aren't the same as the ones we looked at in the editing suite, but they are very similar. You might have to click on each font example to see it more clearly as the quality isn't very good)

1. The first idea was to have the titles written on a piece of paper attached to the package, which would be in the hand of the person who dies at the end of our film. The shot we took panned out from the title to slowly reveal the hand holding it, however after following advice from Jon (our media teacher), we decided to abandon the idea on the thought that it looked unprofessional and too 'studenty'.

2. The second idea was to keep the handwritten appearance from the first idea, but use a professional font instead. For this our options were 'Copybook' (shown on the left), 'Brush Stroke 26', 'Bradley Hand ITC' or any other similar examples. After applying the title to our film, we realised it didn't look very noiry and gave connotations of a comedy or children's film instead of a dark crime/horror noir sequence.

3. The third idea was to choose something more gothic and detailed. For this we'd use 'Annual' (shown on the left), 'Copperplate Gothic', 'StoneSerif.1 Gothic' or any other similar font. I liked this font style as it suited the noir genre and introduced our film title nicely according to the previous action shown. However, there were still other ideas that could work just as well, so I looked at these first.

4. The fourth idea was to choose something simple but looked like a typewriter, to give the impression that someone is present and has just typed/written it onto the screen (like in the first and second ideas above). For this we used a font called 'Perpetual Elite' (which is similar to 'Courier New' - shown on the left). The font suited our film noir, and is similar to the titles in the opening sequence to the film 'Se7en' (as analysed previously). We decided to put the font into size 86.0 for the production company titles at the beginning, and size 70.0 for our names.

5. Once satisfied with the font choice, Josh and I tried to apply some sort of title effect that would create the appearance of a shadow walking across the font. After a long time of fiddling around, cutting bits of the title and inserting different effects, we decided that our ambitions were set too high and it wouldn't be worth it after all. So we then decided that the font could change colour to red. This would give connotations of blood and death, and would be a nice touch to the end of our sequence, but the beginning of the film. We kept the same font but changed the colour to red. We placed the titles next to each other in our film timeline, and applied a fade transition between the 2 titles. We then applied a 'blur' vidoe effect to the end of the red title to disorientate the audience and add a noirey touch. We showed the rest of our group and we all agreed that this effect worked well.

So above are the few ideas we had as a group, and ideas I had myself. Each idea is good in certain ways, but had to match the noir genre for it to go well with our film.

Looking at effects and transitions

Being the editor in my group means I have to decide on appropriate film effects and transitions to apply to our sequence. Below is a short film using images from 'Galleryplayer' to demonstrate various effects and transitions that we could use:

Many different effects and transitions have been applied, some noticeable and some not. Each effect and transition between each image adds to create a certain feel towards the film. Below I've analysed each image to explain what has been applied:

1. Image 1 is of a a green leaf. The image fades in from black, so it is slowly introduced to the audience. It also reinforces the vibrancy in colour of the image.
2. Image 2 is of an orange rose. The transition applied between Image 1 and Image 2 is a dissolve, as the audience can see the beginning of Image 2 appearing over Image 1. This gives a soft and gentle feeling, which helps to represent the characteristics of the rose in Image 2.
3. Image 3 is of seashells and starfish. A black and white effect has been applied to this image to give connotations of old and the past. The transition between Image 2 and Image 3 is known as a 'checkerboard'. The effect is common in cartoons but otherwise isn't used as it breaks up the atmosphere created previously, and gives the film a cheap amateur feel. We won't be using this transition in our film noir opening sequence as it wouldn't set the right mood for our audience, and it isn't very noiry either.
4. Image 4 is of a spider's web. The transition applied between Image 3 and Image 4 is called a 'cut', and it is the most simple of all transitions. One shot appears directly after another shot, and the 'cut' is where the 2 shots come together. It is basic but is used frequently in many types of visual media (tv programmes, films etc.). We will be using the cut the most in our film opening as it is basic and gives a sharp, snappy rhythm to the film, which is what we want since our film involves lots of fast-paced action.
5. Image 5 is of a snowy landscape. The transition applied between Image 4 and Image 5 is called 'pixelation', and is common in TV programmes and films to show a character's ill mental state or emotion (e.g. a migraine or headache, confusion or in a nightmare scene). The images blur together to confuse the audience, which could be the same feeling the character shown is feeling too. We won't be using this transition in our film as it doesn't suit our narrative and would break up the tension we are trying to create through our footage. Image 5 fades out to white at the end, which matches with the snow theme from the image. We want to use this effect at the beginning of our film sequence, to give connotations of death just before the anonymous dead body is shown, and also to mark a change in location. Or maybe at the end to mark the death of one of our characters and the beginning of the film.

As demonstrated through the short film above, even motionless images can create a certain atmosphere or feeling when a certain effect or transition is applied. That is why it is very important that we choose the right transitions and effects in our film sequence, as we want to ensure there is tension and enigma so that it fits in with the noir genre style.

The images used can be found from http://www.galleryplayer.com or from the 'Sample Images' file located on most 'Microsoft XP' computers.

Inspiring Images

Above are a few images (found by Google Image search) that inspire our film noir narrative...

Each image shows something that is represented in our film sequence. Two of them show shadows amongst the trees, light seeping in and a mysterious figure. The other one shows an envelope containing money. It is useful to have images that inspire you when creating a film as they can help you to think of good shot possibilities and new ideas for when you create the film yourself.

Animatic

CLICK THE VIDEO ABOVE TO WATCH IT!

Creating an animatic is a very useful piece of pre-production work as it gives us an insight into what our final film opening will look like when all our chosen shots are put together. Intitially I was responsible for creating the animatic, since I'm the editor, but because I was away for the crucial animatic lesson and Chris had already made a start on it at home, we decided that he should continue it and I would do a different piece of pre-production work instead. From the animatic I've learnt what our film will look like alongside sound, and as editor can begin to consider what order and length each shot appear on screen for.

After Chris completed the storyboards, he cut each frame apart and arranged it together to form a look-a-like of our final film, but in storyboard drawings. He then applied 2 of our music choices to add extra atmosphere and make the animatic seem more realistic and like the final piece. The music choices were from our final list of 4, but because we haven't made a final decision yet he decided to incorporate 2 of our choices here to see which one is best suited. The first piece by Jan Hammer ('Clues') is slow but spooky and more noir style, whereas the second piece by A R Rahman ('Mausam and Escape') is more for a running pace but sounds very Indian style. As you can see our animatic runs over 3 minutes, but in the real film the shots will be shorter and the action in each scene will be quicker than it's shown here. Also we decided after viewing the animatic that the name titles could appear at the beginning of the film and we would have no music, or very quiet background music on the final scene where the 2 people exchange their dialogue and get into a fight. This is because we want the dialogue to be heard clearly and the gunshot to shock the audience with a loud effect. At the end of our animatic Chris also added the gunshot sounds we wish to use. We found the gunshots on a sound-effects disc from the college library, and they have proved very useful as we wouldn't be able to create a gunshot sound ourselves.

You can also watch our animatic on YouTube...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k4abKaKFDc

Storyboard for our opening sequence

Drawing a storyboard is also a very important piece of pre-production work as it outlines the various shots we will be using, and it gives useful guidlines on what our final film will actaully look like. Above is our storyboard, drawn by Chris as this was part of his role as director. We took this out when filming in both locations and found it very useful to follow by.

Synopsis for our opening sequence

As a part of the pre-production work we had to complete a full synopsis explaining the storyline for our film noir opening. This was Chris's task to create as he is our director, though we each gave ideas towards this. The sequence only involves 2 characters, of which we have named Peter and the Mystery Shadow. The importance of a synopsis is that it gives guidelines to the script and ensures we know exactly what to film and what moods and atmospheres we wish to portray.

Synopsis:

• The first part shown is a flashback showing Peter walking along a footpath in a woodland area. He is wearing a dark leather jacket over a creased white shirt of which the collar can vaguely be shown. The rest of his clothing is quite casual, including a woolly hat which suggests it is winter. He is alone when he discovers a dead body holding a brown package on the ground.
• Peter has no idea who the dead person is but can see a large wadge of money poking out from the package. In an act of selfishness he takes the package and on hearing a noise in the distance, he runs with a panicked expression and clearly unaware of what he has just committed himself towards by taking the mysterious package.
• Voice over: "This is the day my life finished". This comes from Peter as he runs away.
• The screen switches to Peter entering a dark room of his apartment. All that can be seen is a desk with a lamp and fan on it, as the rest is darkness. The desk is in the centre of the room and a Venetian blind effect is throwing awkward lines across it.
• Peter unzips bis leather jacket and throws his woolly hat and the mysterious package onto the desk before collapsing into the chair beside it. He switches on the desk lamp which reveals the contents of his desk. A black folder, a glass of whiskey with ice cubes in it, an electric fan (which is switched off), pad of paper and a handful of Biro pens.
• His hands are shaking with nerves as he carefully inspects the package. He takes the bundle of money (£20 notes) from the package and checks its quality under the dim light of the desk lamp.
• Voice over: "Like a panther prowling through the undergrowth stalking its prey. Was I the panther, or the unsuspecting gazelle staring into the great gorging eyes of abyss without even realising it?” Here Peter is metaphorically describing his emotions to the audience.
• The screen suddenly turns to a piercingly bright white light. This triggers Peter's memory of him running through the woods just a few hours ago. The screen then switches between location (the woods and the dark apartment room) as Peter reveals the contents of the package item-by-item.
• He inspects each item carefully. 2 black and white photographs of himself walking in various locations, A black notebook containing a date and nameless contact details (address and phone number).
• Between the shots of Peter looking through the package the screen cuts to him running through the woods looking anxiously behind him, as if there is somebody following in his footsteps. Faint noises and quick shots of a Mysterious Shadow appear on the path Peter has been running along, creeping up bushes and other foliage, and disappearing whenever Peter glances around. The Mysterious Shadow's identity isn't revealed though we know he carries a knife, and an over-the-shoulder shot shows him wearing a dark hood. Other shots of his fast-walking feet show he's also wearing dark jeans and trainers.
• At one point the camera follows Peter climbing up a steep slippery mud hill in a hurry as he drops the package but turns around to pick it up. This shows that Peter is money-orientated and desperately wants to keep the package though he has no idea of the other contents and the audience don't know why he 'stole' it.
• Peter then rests against a tree as he catches his breath. Voice over: He asks himself “Why me? Why me, the keep your head down, no fuss, always do as you’re told, unimportant cog. The one whose eyes you always avoid because otherwise you might actually have to acknowledge they exist. The bloke who melts in with the crowd. No one taking second notice!” This reveals Peter's true thoughts about himself.
• Then the audience are taken back into his apartment room where he takes out the final item in the package. It is a black gun, complete with loaded ammunition. In a moment of panic Peter hides the gun in his inner jacket pocket, as if he knows this will be of use to him later on.
• Then the audience return to the woods and see Peter turning to look back from behind the tree. A small silhouetted figure disappears in the distance behind another tree before the camera focuses on a small, insignificant, blood-red berry gracefully falling from a branch. Halfway as it slowly falls from above, the screen cuts to ice-cubes dropping into Peter's glass of whiskey. This cut joins the times and locations together (though will be tricky to film!)
• Peter's hand gently appears in shot as he clutches the glass and gulps down the contents in a nervous hurry. He arrogantly slams the emptied glass onto the desk in front of him, but almost instantly after can an even louder slam of the front door be heard. The audience now know there is someone else at present in the apartment as Peter worriedly glances at the door with fear.
• The darkness hides the identity of Peter's company, though as we cut to a shot of a shadow slowly walking along the grey apartment carpet the audience will recognise this shadow to be of the Mystery man. Also there will be reflection of light from the knife he's holding, which again shows that this is the same person who was following Peter through the forest earlier.
• The Mystery Shadow is walking very slowly as Peter follows his every move. The Mystery Shadow stops before the desk. Dialogue: “You know that stuff will kill you.” He speaks directly to Peter's face about the alcohol Peter has just be drinking.
• Every step the Mystery Shadow takes can be heard loudly as he slowly circles Peter with a casual manner about him. Peter's facial expressions reveal his nervous emotions as the contents of the package remain still on the desk before him. The shadow of the Mystery Man creeps up Peter's desk as he addresses the Mystery Man. Dialogue: “I suppose that’s your job then isn’t it. It was all set up. Right from the off.” His sarcastic tone doesn't hide his anxiety as he closes his eyes during his speech. The Mystery Shadow is staring directly at Peter, which disturbs him even more.
• The Mystery Shadow continues to walk until he is standing behind Peter, who remains still in his chair and is staring at the package contents in front of him. Dialogue: “Manipulation does indeed taste sweet in success. Whilst revenge on the other hand is best served cold. And it’s said that death is so very, very cold.” The Mystery Shadow is clearly in control of the situation though he speaks calmly and softly to demonstrate loneliness and that nobody else can hear or see him.
• The audience then see Peter draw the gun out of his jacket pocket, whilst the Mystery Shadow man leans forward to stab Peter in the back with his shiny sharp knife, reflecting in the dim light. Peter falls onto the floor and takes the Mystery Shadow with him. The package envelope is seen to fall gracefully on the floor amongst the vicious fighting below.The camera doesn't follow the two men as they fight because it stays focused on the package contents lying in the middle of Peter's desk. This reinforces the importance of the package and reminds the audience that this is responsible for the beginning of misery for Peter.
• 2 loud gunshots pierce the moment, sharp and sudden. The audience now know that either the Mystery Man or Peter has been killed, but who? This is not revealed as we left this to be the enigma. The screen then switches to a hand lying still on the floor with a note resting in it. The note reads 'Shadows Present' in a bold, black, handwritten format. This is the title our film noir, and the audience are lead to believe that this note was inside the package all along, amongst the various other contents. This also anaphorically references to the very beginning of our opening where the dead girl is lying on the floor in the woods, holding the package.

The enigma left for the rest of the film to reveal is who exactly has been murdered? Why was there more than just money in the package? Who was the Mystery Man and does he know Peter already? With all these enigmas (and more) the audience will want to watch on and resolve the problems seen in our film opening. The style we use (darkness, the Venetian blind effect, murder and blackmail) all reflect those used in neo-noir films.