Squadron – made up of media students Laura and Bonnie, and creative writers Sarah, Alex and Jackson – aimed to explore the key elements that make good thriller film through the creation of a trailer/teaser for our hypothetical feature, Black Flat. The idea stemmed from deciding on Warrandyte as a location and using the surroundings to inspire our characters, build our storyline and influence our shot decisions. We looked to other thriller and horror trailers for inspiration and went location scouting for the ideal, eerie vibe. From there, we developed prose for our overall concept and wrote a script for the two key scenes we eventually came to shoot.

Pre-production was an important step for our group in order to maximise our efficiency and level of preparedness. Between casting, permissions, call sheets, safety reports, storyboards, shot lists, and weekly timelines, we went to great lengths to ensure we had all bases covered. We also allocated crew roles, decided on the appropriate equipment with transportability and our skill set in mind, and organised wardrobe and props. Evidently, a lot of work went into the pre-production phase, but it was certainly all worthwhile and contributed to the creation of a higher quality product.

As for the shoot itself, we had endeavoured to film Tuesday of Week 9, which (quite literally) by the force of nature, we were forced to reschedule the shoot because of hail. This in hindsight was a blessing in disguise. It gave us a chance to regroup, and discuss important changes such as the addition of both male cast members – Chris and Scott.

Location One down by the river provided mixed weather conditions and Bonnie as camera operator had to ensure that the cloud coverage remained constant throughout the shots. This was to avoid cuts going from light to dark for the all important continuity element of the teaser. Progressing onto Location Two out at Black Flat, we knew time was of the essence. We managed to wrap the shoot on 3pm, but in hindsight we could have used more time in the morning to not be so rushed.

Sound recording and design was another crucial element of our production. Sarah was our designated sound operator, capturing both ambient sounds and of course the dialogue of all our actors. As our cast had varying levels of experience, this presented a few challenges as the varying volumes of their voices sometimes got lost amidst the sounds of nature. This was combatted however with a bit of vocal direction and simply waiting till disruptive sounds (ie. wind, water) had passed. In terms of sound design, Jackson composed an original score for the teaser by reimagining the original Teddy Bear’s Picnic. His resultant dark and creepy track was ideal for our production as it ticked the box for one of our aims: to investigate how sound can influence genre.

It was most logical to approach the editing process by structuring our scenes as they were written in the script, and to later experiment with the highlights and key moments of our footage captured to condense into a trailer (as seen in our screener). This process led us to acknowledge the importance of continuity as well as the power of audio editing and layering in the thriller genre.

Overall, our experience in this project was invaluable as we learnt a lot about collaboration and the necessary conduct for all stages of production. The challenges and successes we came to encounter will undoubtedly inform our future film and writing endeavours.

Please enjoy our final prototypes below:

Teaser Trailer: 

 Rough Cut Scene One (Full):

 Rough Cut Scene Two (Full):

The colour grading exercise was an effective way to gauge how the colour palette of a shot can change the mood, vibe, and even time of day associated with it. In this way, it had a similar effect to my ‘how music changes mood’ blog post, but of course by manipulating a different stylistic tool in post-production. The video below shows our original footage, followed by three different colour grades that I put together on Premiere Pro:

I attempted to create three dramatically different looks so it was easier to differentiate between what worked and what didn’t. I consciously set myself the challenge of colour matching the shot of Emily running with the subsequent close-up of the mobile phone. This particular shot was actually re-shot on a different camera, a different day and in a different location, and funnily enough they’re actually my hands instead of Christina’s. To me, these differences are obvious primarily due to the variation in colour (grass looks much more vibrant in the CU). With that, I wanted to see if colour grading would make the shots more continuous and seamless when put in conjunction with each other. In each example, you can see that I was able to achieve this level of continuity. This is reassuring for future shoots for when the colours across raw footage doesn’t match.

In the original footage, the colour palette is relatively cool and it appears around 10’oclock in the day. It’s a little dull and doesn’t look overly cinematic.

I then wanted to create a dramatic change to the original footage by adding a blue hue over the clips. This immediately transformed the shot as it now appears to be dusk and the mood is much more dark and eerie. While it may appear a bit over-the-top when juxtaposed by the original footage, I think this colour grade does a much better job of encapsulating the mood and time we were going for. It appears much more cinematic and would likely be the colour grade of my choice for this particular scene.

In the next clip, I upped the saturation and added a more warm, red/orange hue over the footage. Again, this dramatically changes the time of day and the mood. As it looks sunnier and warmer, it would likely be around midday, and the warmer tones suggest a more positive vibe. The hue also changes the colour of her skin tone significantly, which makes it appear quite unnatural. I know in Final Cut there are ways to isolate and adjust skin tones, and although I did not seek it out, I presume Premiere would have a similar feature. If we were using this colour grade, it would be necessary to take this step to make her skin tone look more natural in relation to her environment.

In my final colour grade, I went a bit crazy with green mid-tones and blue highlights. To me, this is purposely the most unnatural appearing of the three colour grades and looks almost alien-like. As the green of the grass is almost fluorescent, it detracts from the presence of main figure as the environment almost consumes her. I suppose this could be a look that someone might choose if they were going for something a bit less conventional, but for my practice it was a bit too left wing.

Evidently, this exercise taught me a lot about how colour grading can transform footage in terms of mood and time, as well as ensuring continuity. For our 1-minute screener for the upcoming Media Exhibition Day, I will endeavour to colour grade the footage as it makes SUCH a difference in terms of completeness and impact.

Apologies for continuously referring to content I had not yet posted! Without futher adieu, please enjoy our rough cuts for scene one and scene two of Black Flat. In this blog, I will break down each scene by identifying the highs, lows and learning curves associated with putting these two sequences together.

As you can see, scene one is the tense exchange between Emily and Damien in the lead up to their wedding. Emily is feeling apprehensive about their future together and lashes out at Damien in attempt to cope with her anxieties. Meanwhile, poor ol’ Damien is feeling rather belittled and hurt by his domineering fiancé. The pair are both on edge after their conversation by the river and viewers are led to wonder what will come of their future together.

Although I am mostly happy with scene, it turned out a little differently to how I had originally envisioned it. When the script went under revision, a few lines were cut which effectively made Emily come across as more aggressive than how she was first written. Damien on the otherhand becomes a bit of a pushover, claiming he was ‘kidding’ when merely suggesting they grab pizza for dinner. While this was not the original character profile that Jackson or I had planned, it served to create a new dynamic between these two characters, which effectively translated onto the screen.

In terms of shot composition and the like, originally we had planned to have the characters walk along the river side-by-side as they casually conversed. However, we deemed this would be too difficult to shoot as we would need three different backward tracking shots, requiring both Bonnie as the camera op and Sarah as the sound op. to be mobile. We unanimously agreed it would be wiser to have them stop somewhere for a conversation so that we could perfect the frame and have better control over sound. I think this shows through the technical qualities of what we were able to produce (note the frame composition, off-side lighting and well-balanced sound).

Editing this scene was relatively straightforward for the most part, yet few sound and continuity issues limited the number of cuts we could make. For example, when Damien says ‘Babe…’ and ‘What?’ we were unable to cut back to his face as Emily’s hand placement kept changing. Nonetheless, we made the best of the footage we had to produce something mostly continuous.

Admittedly, this scene was not originally intended to come across as overly dramatic, instead aiming to simply set the scene for what was later to come. As we did not get the chance to film the really thrilling content however, Jackson and I thought we should play around with his score to see how we could transform a relatively calm scene to make it more intense. Through the addition of the music, we were able to achieve this effect, despite it coming across as slightly exaggerated and over-the-top.

Nonetheless, we are pleased overall with how this scene turned out and will take the above issues on as something to learn from.

Scene two is the intentionally uncomfortable and slightly creepy encounter between Emily and Ted. As Emily goes for a run to clear her head, her phone dies and she finds herself unsure of which path to take when faced with a fork in the track. Along comes creepy Ted, who stops Emily to ask her what she is doing out there all alone. Ted seems nice, yet something is not quite right about him.

This scene was certainly the most fun to shoot and edit as the relationship between these two characters is so awkward and cringe worthy. In this scene, we see the vulnerable side of Emily (quite the contrast to the previous) as we sense overt fear, apprehension and angst within her. Ted on the other hand, whilst appearing quite friendly on the surface, leads viewers to think that there’s more to him than what meets the eye. Ted’s true colours (ie. his inner psychopath) would’ve been further explored in the later scenes we unfortunately didn’t get a chance to film.

When it came to shooting this scene, time was of the essence. We stuck pretty close to the script but we did make few changes on the fly as we noted words or phrases that worked better, eg. ‘sweetness’ was creepier than ‘sweetheart’ (thanks for that one Scott). As the scene was quite long and wordy, the two shot was perhaps the most time consuming as it took a while to get a seamless take. The handheld shot of Emily running up the hill also took time, as it was difficult to perfect the framing whilst doing the reverse tracking shot. The fact that this took five takes or so to get it right made me very relieved we hadn’t attempted to get the same type of shot for the conversation between Emily and Damien! In terms of framing and composition, we made use of some purposeful shot types to make the characters look a certain way to the viewer. For the close-up on Ted, we used a low angle to make him appear domineering and powerful, whilst doing the opposite for Emily to have the reverse effect.

This scene was also relatively simple to structure in the editing suites as we had select shots that needed to be simply ordered, timed and layered appropriately. There were also a few additional shots that I later gathered on my own (establishing shots, the CU of the phone, POV shot of Emily looking left to right) which conveniently matched the shots with which they were juxtaposed quite well. If we had the time to colour grade, this would’ve made these shots appear even more fluent and seamless in conjunction with each other.

Overall, I think this scene does an excellent job of fulfilling its sole purpose of establishing the relationship between these two characters. Viewers sense that something dark will come from this exchange, but the question of what remains.

Ta daaa! These scenes are essentially what we spent the entire semester working towards. While there is always room for improvement, I’m proud of what we were able to achieve and feel as though we came a long way in a short span of time. Go team!

Thursday’s presentation was essentially an overview and narrative of our experiences in our group – the challenges, the successes and everything in between. It also provided the chance to showcase our creations to the rest of the class.

The following are the slides for our presentation. I acknowledge that some of them won’t make sense without the context of what we were saying, so I will explain briefly what each group member was exploring below:

Sarah began by providing an overview of our previous presentation to refresh everyone’s memory of our objectives. She also outlined our subsequent pre-production preparation and the allocation of crew roles.

Bonnie took over to explain the reason behind our new film name ‘Black Flat’ whilst showcasing our ‘official’ film poster. She then when into detail about how our shoot played out in relation to scheduling and time, film techniques and coping with the nature of a public, outdoor environment.

Sarah chimed in again with her experience as sound operator –recording ambient sounds, managing the sound pickup of our cast, the challenges of disruptive sounds ie. wind and water, and so on.

Alex then talked about the relationship between script editing and directing, and what she had learned through her participation across these two roles. Whilst Alex was speaking, we played scene one of Black Flat on mute in the background as unfortunately we didn’t have enough time to show the whole thing.

I was up next and explained how Jackson and I tackled editing process, specifically in relation to the structure and organisation of shots, continuity and audio editing and layering (see previous blog post for my full spoken piece). We then screened scene two of our film, Emily’s exchange with creepy Ted, which seemed to be really well received by the audience

Jackson concluded our presentation by talking about the score he wrote and produced for our film. Inspired by the original Teddy’s Bear Picnic, Jackson reimagined the track into a really dark, eerie version that fitted our footage seamlessly.

Overall, I think our presentation went really well as we provided an in-depth insight into Squadron’s last six weeks of working together. We made sure that we covered all of bases of the production process to give listeners a well-rounded understanding of our work, including pre-production, shooting, sound recording, editing and sound design. It was unfortunate that we were unable to screen both scenes due to time limitations, but we made the best of the time available by enabling each person a considerable length of time to speak, whilst still being able to screen the full version of scene two. Despite the thrilling nature of our work, I think we did a good job of keeping the presentation light and entertaining, as this is what audiences tend to appreciate the most.

It was interesting to see how everyone else’s production journeys had progressed through listening to other groups’ presentations. While some stuck closely to their original intentions, others took quite a different turn to what they had originally set out to do. It was reassuring to find out that we were not the only ones who encountered a few complications and setbacks, but nonetheless, all groups were able to take something away from the experience that will ultimately guide their approach to future filmic endeavours.

I think we all deserve a pat on the back for what we were able to achieve this semester. It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster ride to say the least, but at the end of the day we’ve managed to pull through and produce some great content.