For component 2, we had to work in assigned groups in order to create a short film of roughly 4-6 minutes in length with some leeway. We were given the freedom of basing the film around any genre/idea, so long as it including a telephone conversation as the main basis for the plot. Initially, each of us in my group had to come up with a synopsis and we would then vote on which synopsis to take forward into pre-production. We weren’t able to act in our films due to us having to take control of our roles, so aside from extras, we had to find actors to play in our film.
Here is the synopsis that I wrote:
Synopsis:
Screenplay Title: From Beyond The Well by Matthew Higginson.
Genre: Horror
Logline: Upon visiting a historic well in Leeds, a regular man considers whether his life is even worth living after being tormented by the dead.
Pitch paragraph:
Setting: An office of some kind filled with computers on the third floor of an unknown building.
Characters:
Kevin: A man torn apart by fear after he was cursed to be tormented by a young girl from beyond the grave…
Kevin’s Mum: A proud mother who loves her son very much. However, she begins to worry about whether her son is safe after he disappears from her life one evening.
Creepy Girl: A girl who was murdered at the bottom of a well centuries ago comes back for revenge to haunt the people who now house the lands in which she died.
Act 1:
The short film starts with a man sitting alone in a room. He looks upset/distressed, as if he hasn’t showered or slept in weeks. He has mud all over his face and his hair is dripping with grease. His clothes are stained with mud and blood. The camera cuts to behind him, spiralling around the room. Simultaneously, the angle gets increasingly narrower making the audience endure the sense of claustrophobia that the man is experiencing. He keeps glancing over at the clock. We are then presented with a rapid fire time-lapse of the man frantically panicking, strolling around the room, throwing paper, kicking the bin, pulling his hair, waving his hands in anger in the air, shouting into the abyss. He is sweating profusely. Suddenly, he pulls out a knife from his jacket pocket and puts it to his throat, he presses hard, but is unable to follow through. He is drooling slobber and sweat drops are gushing all over his face. The camera then pans to show a close-up of his eyes twitching all over the place, looking in all directions, afraid of the unknown. His eyes are raw red, and his veins are pulsating with adrenaline.
Act 2:
Then… his phone on the table starts ringing. He glances over at it, his eyes bulge in fright, looking like they’re about to jump out of the front of his face. He begins scratching his cheeks rapidly as a nervous tick. The camera pans over the top of the phone that reads: “No caller ID”. He goes to answer the phone, but hesitates, with a bit of self-discipline and courage, he finally answers it.
**BEEP**
“Kevin, Kevin! Please tell me that you’re okay. You haven’t been answering my calls for weeks. What the hell is going on?”
He gasps a huge sigh of relief. It’s his mum.
He murmurs: “Oh my God, I have never been so happy to hear you”.
Tears start dripping down his face.
“Don’t worry mum, I’m going to be okay. I’m going to fix this”.
Mum: “Fix what?”, she exclaims. “Are you in danger? Did someone hurt… please don’t tell me someone hurt my baby, please?”
Kevin: “Mum, stop jumping to conclusions, I’m fine, I’m just a little stressed – that’s all?”, he says rather collectively, as he manages to abruptly get his emotions together.
Mum: “Hmmmm, that’s not what it seems like”, she questions.
Kevin: “Look, I have to go, I’ll speak to you later, okay?”
Mum: “Huh, no, don’t go. Tell me what’s happening right this instant. You’re never like thi-
Kevin then hangs up the phone and tosses it in the bin.
Act 3:
He looks a little happier than he did at the start of the film and a small smile forms over his face. Hearing his mum for the first time since “the incident” gave him a huge sense of hope.
However, that hope vanishes in an instant when his phone starts ringing again. As soon as it does, the windows in the room magically burst open letting in huge gusts of wind.
Kevin exclaims out loud “Why? Why me? Why are you doing this? Please, I just want to go back to my regular, miserable day job. Anything is better than this hell. For love of God, LEAVE ME ALONE!”
Whilst he says this, a humming noise progressively starts getting louder and louder coming from the bin, of which is soon accompanied by the sounds of children playing and singing nursery rhymes. Fear embellishes Kevin’s entire body; he is fears puppet.
His eyes focus in on the bin and he picks it up to answer the phone with no hesitation.
A demonic girl answers the phone (all of her words are dragged out, she’s very high pitch and has background creepy adlibs to her chant. She repeats herself constantly, as she seems unearthly): “Oh… hey Kevin. It’s been a log time. Why don’t you want to play with me? All I want to do is play. Can you do that Kevin? Can you play with me? I need someone to play with Kevin!”
As she is speaking Kevin begins pacing around the room shouting “No, leave me alone, why me. Find someone else to play with, you demon!”
She continues chanting, sounding even more childish than before: “Playyie playie, fun-ny fun-ny. You like playing don’t you Kevin. Oooooahhhhh I know you dooooo. Well how about you play with me. PLAY. PLAY. PLAY. Play with me. Play. Play. What’s stopping you from playing Kevin? Why won’t you play? PLAY. Play. P-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-playyyyy. I know you want to playyyy Kevinnnnn. KEVIN do you want me to turn up the volume again, KEVIN, Kevin, play with me right now or you are forever trapped in purgatory under my command! Kevviiiinnnnnnn!”.
As the girl in droning on, the camera progressively zooms into the front of Kevin’s face, as it looks as if his soul is being torn away from his body.
He walks over to the windows that were opened earlier. Whilst he does so, the humming/sounds of children singing intensifies. He climbs up about to jump. The shot then cuts to black as you hear an impeding thump on the ground. You hear the screams of people below and someone shouts “Jesus Christ, not again!”
To conclude, the shot pans to a newspaper article with the headline: “Mysterious unexplained suicides in Leeds continue”. In subtext: “The death toll is up to 200 this month as the deranged suicides continue across the whole of Leeds. Scientists and police still have no answers. Although, there is one relative of Marlton Donald, one of the deceased, that claims that this is all because of a mysterious young girl by the name of Jill. If you have any leads or explanations about any strange activity in the city, please contact the police’s helpline for this case immediately at 0756346382748″.
The shot then pans to a little girl crying at the bottom of a well. Just be the camera is about to hit her face, she glances evilly at the camera as her fear ridden face fades to a smirk.
The end.
*Since it would be practically impossible to film the final shot of a girl in a well, this scene can be cut from the film if needs be.
Before my group went into pre-production, we over viewed a camera’s microphone setup to help learn the basics, as well discussed audio techniques.
For practice, I borrowed some camera equipment from University one night to practise film technique that would ultimately help during production.
Pre-Production
After all of my group had written their synopsis’s, we decided to not take my synopsis further due to a few reasons:
1.) 99% of the film is all shot in the same room so it would limit our creativity when it comes to shot types and execution.
2.) With us having to recruit our own actors, it might’ve been too hard to find a good enough actor that could play Kevin, as he has some really emotional moments.
3.) Without changing the scene entirely, it would’ve been next-to-near impossible to be able to film the final scene of the girl in the well.
We ended up deciding to use Casey’s synopsis for our video project. The film was to be called “RIPPER”.
We had 6 different roles to carry out during production: Director, Producer, Camera, Audio, and Lighting. Our group was supposed to consist of 6 people, but unfortunately two of our members were missing, of which meant that two of our members had to carry out double the roles to compensate. After some discussion – we decided on our roles. I was assigned the director for the project. Under this role, I had creative control over the project, so I had to write up a script based off of Casey’s synopsis, a storyboard to go a long with the script, and a shot list.
We created a group chat on WhatsApp for discussions surrounding the film:
Here is the prelude for the film from Casey’s synopsis. I changed it slightly to make it fit my vision.
Logline:
A combat veteran who left his military life behind receives an envelope from a mysterious courier, containing a mobile phone. After initially inspecting and dismissing it, it rings, and the person on the other end makes sure he listens.
Pitch paragraph –
SETTING: An office of some kind containing a work space and plenty of computers.
CHARACTERS:
AIDEN WEBB – A seemingly ordinary man with an implied military background. He walks confidently and speaks in short, to-the-point sentences when addressed by his colleagues. A chain of some kind is seen around his neck, presumably dog tags. After receiving a phone from a mysterious man, he answers a call only to get reminded of the life he left behind for a reason.
THE VOICE – A mysterious caller on the other side of the line. Seems to know a lot about Aidan’s military background and his “achievements” on the battlefield. Uses careful language to get into Aidan’s head and get him to feel multiple emotions, including guilt and anger, before trying to convince him to carry out a mission for him.
DAVID – Aidan’s co-worker and seemingly only friend. Implied to be intelligent and has worked out that Aidan may be in some kind of trouble but struggles to get more information out of him.
UNNAMED WOMAN (Aiden’s Boss) – Stern but she gets the job done and has great performance rates from her employees.
UNNAMED CO-WORKER OF AIDEN (They do not say a word)
THE COURIER – A man of little words that hands AIDEN the envelope containing the mission.
Once the prelude was tweaked, I then used Casey’s synopsis to write up a script that would be the building blocks for our film. I included information about the sounds present within each scene, the music, how the actors should perform, the shot types, the dialogue, location/weather, time of day, and some editing/post production information. I tried to make it as clear as possible for our actors and crew members to follow on-set.
Furthermore, I wrote an alternate ending to my script:
After discussing with my group for feedback, I ended up opting out of the idea of filming the alternate ending.
Within my script I included basic directions for the actors: their facial expressions, tone of voice, sometimes posture, accompanied by a rough summary for sounds/musical scores (coloured in red) to be implemented during the editing process. Also, I described each location to some degree that would help our producer and I scout for filming locations. To make it easier for the actors to follow, I colour coded everyone’s dialogue, and also included the prelude for the film at the start. The reason for this was to allow the actors to have a brief backstory on their role that would help them portray them. This was removed from the physical copy that we used onset, as it was unnecessary. All of the shot types were described in some depth within my script, although I went further in depth within my Shot List, as well as I dove further into the shot locations and audio aspects.
I then created a storyboard featuring a lot of (but not all) of the shots from my script in chronological order. I did this digitally and used it as a rough basis to display to my group/actors how I envisioned each of the shots to look.
After I finished writing my script, I sent it to my group so that I could discuss it with them and we could begin sorting out schedule plans.
To ensure that all of my group was on board and understood what they were doing, I organised a discord call.
We then organised a meeting at University.
I began to think about shooting locations. For the woodland environment, featured in scene 5, I visited a woodland just outside of Headingley Campus. It seemed perfect for atmosphere of the scene and I could already imagine where I wanted Aiden to position during each shot. After deciding on the location, I let my group know.
For the office, our producer thought of using the blue-screen room on Headingley Campus, after-all, Aiden could be working in a recording studio. Our group scouted the location and I discussed with them where/how I would want each shot to be. Initially, I had wanted to film this shot in one of the offices in the library, but after touring the location and thinking of where to film each shot, I felt like this would be better for us to film due to it being more spacious.
We decided to film the shot of David thinking that Aiden is dead in one of the library offices, as this would be a lot easier than us having to travel into the city centre. Instead of Aiden having a knife, we decided to have Aiden strangle David instead, so as to avoid any issues with carrying a knife on campus.
Casey offered to film the final scene in his house and we decided to film the monologue in the blue-screen room.
During pre-production, I also began to create a list of all of the props that would be necessary that I would later sort out.
After Casey (our producer) found actors to portray each of our roles, I discussed with him to see which characters they would best fit. After some discussion, we decided for Fillip to portray our main character Aiden. We decided to test filming scene 5 with Fillip, but after around 4 hours of attempting to film, we opted out of the idea and instead decided for him to play our secondary character – David. The reason for this is that he has no prior acting experience, so wasn’t suitable for some of Aiden’s emotional scenes. David has a lot less dialogue and little to no emotionally challenging scenes. Casey managed to get in contact with one of his friends, who has prior acting experience, and we decided for him to be our main character instead. The day that we were filming was also too gloomy for my liking. I originally wanted scene 5 to take place on a sunny day, but unfortunately the weather was always the opposite.
After we had decided on our locations and our actors, we figured out a shooting schedule based on when the rooms were available and when our group/actors were available. Once done, I began to write up a shot list. My shot lists included on overview of every single camera shot within every single scene that I wanted to execute. This allowed for our cameraman to read it over prior to us filming and know what equipment to bring and think of settings to use for each shot.
My shot list included further instructions to my actors that were further elaborated on than within my script (the camera movement). It also included more information on the audio side, the location types (INT/EXT), estimated times for how long the shots would take, and a brief description of each shot. My shot list was ordered by shooting shooting schedule and not by their appearance within the film. Date, timing, and location details were included for every shot.
Principle Photography / Filming
Once pre-production was completed, our team moved into the filming stage. We followed my shot list and shooting schedule.
I printed off a copy of the script and shot list that I brought with me every time we filmed. This helped aid our crew/actors.
During shooting, I explained to every actor what I wanted them to do for each shot. Here I was describing how Jack (the actor who plays Aiden) should run over to the forest. I wanted him to look paranoid and be glancing behind him.
We got lucky with filming the woods scene because it was extremely foggy that day. This gave the shots a really gloomy atmosphere that fit perfectly, as it made The Voice seem a lot creepier. I had initially wanted this scene to be sunny, as written in my script, but I actually much prefer this atmosphere, as it much better fits the film’s tone.
Not only did I advise the actors, but I also informed our camera man how I wanted each shot to look.
We filmed the monologue in the bluescreen room first and made the room dark. I made the suggestion to put the script up on the TV screen, with the camera positioned behind it, to make it easier for the actor to read.
Here we were about to take a photo of Aiden/David that Aiden burns.
During the filming stage, I was constantly thinking of new ideas for shots and would always discuss them with my group to get their thoughts.
Whilst physically filming some of the shots, I also thought of a lot of new ideas. One of those being after Aiden gets punched; we filmed a shot of him taking the elevator up to the toilet. Although, I didn’t end up using this, or a lot of these extra shots in my final edit, and just stuck to what was necessary for its storyline.
To make our film as perfect as it could possibly be, I brought in props to be placed on Aiden’s desk. A vase of lavender, tape, a webcam, an ID card, and some documents.
For the shots after Aiden is punched, I bought pasta sauce from the campus shop to smear onto his face. It actually looked pretty realistic, since it was quite dark in parts, so mimicked blood drying out.
I made sure with our producer that our actors were wearing appropriate clothing for every scene and I let Aiden borrow my leather jacket for the house scene.
When we filmed the shots in the house during the monologue, I brought my microphone in from home because we were unable to take mic’s out of campus.
Whilst filming, I introduced every single shot with the scene and shot number. This would made it easier for post production to label the clips. I also clapped to make it easier for to sync the audio and video together once editing.
I wrote up a copy of “THE VOICE” lines and sent them over to our producer to outsource.
During filming/sorting a schedule, I made sure to always communicate regularly with my group to ensure that everyone was always on board.
Via our producer, I made sure that all actors had read over a copy of the script prior to filming so that they would be able to turn up and know exactly what they were doing straight away.
Once filming was complete, I began to collect sound effects and music from open source forums online to use in my film. I also found non copyright ambient sounds of birds, computers humming, punch sound effects, wind, fire, etc. I also binge watched a tonne of a movies/TV shows for inspiration for how to edit my film.
Post Production/Editing:
Once we finished filming, our Producer sent us copies of all of the footage that he was holding onto. The first thing that I did was I sorted every single shot/audio clip by scene removing any unwanted clips.
I gave every single shot a number in order of appearance. This made it a lot easier to edit, as I could look down my shot list/script, and then easily be able to find the video/audio that corresponded.
After this was done, I began to edit the audio.
The first piece of audio that I edited was the lines for “THE VOICE”. Our group was sent a regular and a pitched down version of the dialogue, however, I didn’t like how they sounded. They sounded too unrealistic. To compensate, I edited the RAW audio myself in audacity to make them sound like they were via a phone call. I did this by applying a low-pass filter:
After this, I slightly pitched down the audio:
I also applied slight reverb to the audio:
After The Voice’s dialogue was fixed, I began to adjust the rest of the audio clips.
For a minuscule number of audio clips, they were accidentally recorded to be coming out of one earbud, and so I fixed them within audacity.
The first thing thing that I did to my audio was that I applied noise reduction to every single clip. This removed any unwanted background noise and made dialogue a lot clearer.
Moving on, I applied a handful of various other effects to make them sound clearer:
Finally, once the audio edited was done, I began to edit my film. Firstly, I ordered everything into media bins by scene and within Vegas Pro 17.
Once done, I created subclips for every shot trimming at around the start/end of where I wanted the clip to be.
I synced up all of audio by matching the claps in the audio channels.
For Aiden’s monologue at the end, I edited a spotlight effect over the centre of the screen to make it look a lot more professional. Here is the before and after:
I made sure to disable resample on all of the videos so as to not reduce the quality.
Once my group started to edit the film, we quickly realised that the woods and courier shots were filmed in 720p HD. I am not sure how exactly this happened. It was quite disappointing because those scenes looked amazing with the fog/cinematography and would’ve looked a lot better in 1080p. Our cameraman somehow made a mistake and didn’t realise it was set to 720p. They did know that they were supposed to be filming in 1080p, but I guess it was an easy mistake for them to overlook. Once I colour corrected the shots, the decreased quality was less noticeable, but it’s still evident.
Unfortunately, it was too late into post-production to re-film and our actors were no longer available. If the footage was checked sooner, we might’ve been able to re-film, but we were only given the footage too close to our post-production deadline. This was plenty of enough time for us to complete the edit, but it’s still unfortunate that none of our group caught this discrepancy sooner. If I were to ever work on a film again, I would make sure to double, triple, quadruple check that the cameraman is filming in 1080p for every scene.
Nevertheless, I continued to edit the film and generated a rough draft version. In doing so, I realised that my initial draft was way too long.
Below is a rough copy of my draft edit for the film. This is before I applied colour correction and shortened down the film. It was initially 12 minutes in length, however in my finished version I managed to cut it down to just above 6 minutes. By watching the rough draft, it allows for comparisons to my final edit in order to see what I decided was unnecessary and what was important. It also allows for a comparison between pre and post colour correction. There are various corrections needed to make to the edit, after all, it is a rough draft for a reason.
*Watch in 1080p
Despite this issue of the length, I managed to overcome the problem by removing any parts that were not necessary to the overall storytelling and did not linger on many shots for too long. Some of my group were struggling with condensing their film, so as the director, I did my job and gave them tips on how to edit the film and which shots to remove. Ultimately, it was up to them and their creativity for how they wanted to edit the film, but I felt as if this was definitely a useful thing to do.
I also made reductions to my shot log and script to only include the shots necessary and sent them to my group. This way, they could follow them whilst editing to make it easier.
In addion, I sent them a copy of my edit so that they could get ideas for how to cut it down:
I also sent this idea for their edit over to my group so that it wouldn’t look exactly like mine:
Alternatively, the shot of Aiden burning the photo could’ve been removed entirely, and the only plot twist would be Aiden’s friend plotting against him, as apposed to having a second plot in which he is actually still alive. There are plenty of ways that each of us could’ve gone about telling the story via what we filmed.
For some of the shots, they were slightly too shaky for my liking, and so I applied a stabilisation effect to try and limit that.
This is what my final edit looks like:
Once my edit was complete, I began to go through each shot and colour correct them accordingly:
Here are some before and afters:
After I did this, I made some minor tweaks to the saturation, contrast, and applied some minor grain removal to some of the shots.
Once I was happy with how all of my shots looked, I then rendered my film using the following settings:
*FINAL* VIDEO EDIT:
Within my final version, when Aiden says “And BOOM, I’m right back into the bloodshed” – I decided to edit in a gunshot noise to signify Aiden’s PTSD.
Since YouTube decompresses the quality, here is the direct download for the video file of my final edit: (Recommended)
https://mega.nz/#!EsBExAKJ!0-Wliaeomc03VJ_S2y9kAcb-Rkd6RkhwuuSFevZ1J6Q
Or you can watch here on YouTube:
Frame by Frame 
