3. Week 1 and 2: Proposal and Context
I started the FMP by writing the proposal for my project. I outlined the story idea, making sure
to talk about the themes of the story. This is when I decided that I wanted to make the monster
invisible as I think this will challenge me and allow me to work creatively to get the vision to
succeed. After receiving feedback for this task that stated that the rationale needed to include
information about the style of the film. This is when I decided to look at Guillermo del Toro in the
context document because his films have a darker style.
For the context document I wanted to focus primarily on fantasy films that have a broadly
developed fantasy work with lots of details and interesting creatures. This is because I felt like
this was the area that I would struggle with the most as it is the area of this project I am least
familiar with. I think these elements will be important for me to explore in the research. I got
some basic information about the films that included characters and their traits and what themes
were explored.
4. Week 3: Research
To start my research I wanted to complete the production section. This included looking at all the
different ways to film like looking at shot types, special effects and colour grading. I wanted to have a
list of shot types so that I can reference to this whilst making my shot list and storyboard. I also
needed to start thinking about how I was going to create the effects for the invisible monster. I
watched some YouTube tutorials to get a better understanding of how to use a green screen suit and
to figure out if I think it will be possible for me in the final production. After this I did some research into
the theme of my project where I looked at the book “Monsters in the Closet” which is the concept that
inspired my project initially. I also looked at some genre research to get some information about codes
and conventions of the fantasy and horror genres in order to make sure that I can achieve this. This
goes with the research I did about subverting the audiences expectations as, in order to do this
successfully, I have to make sure that the film is a conventional horror film so the audience thinks they
know what to expect. After some feedback I decided to put the theme research at the beginning of my
research document rather than the production research so as to introduced you to the idea straight
away. I think this makes my project a lot clearer as initially there was some confusion about what my
project was actually going to be.
5. Week 4: Research
For the second week of research I carried out my existing product research. I started by looking at
Spirited away in order to get an Idea about creating good fantasy worldbuilding. My film obviously
wont have as much detail but I wanted to use this film as an example of good worldbuilding to help
spark inspiration for my own. I then looked at How to Train Your Dragon as a way to look at creating
lovable characters that are initially perceived as monsters. This was a good example to use as it is a
family friendly film and I feel like the second part of my film will turn this way too so its good to look at
how a film, aimed at kids, make dragons likeable. To finish this off I analysed a scene from The
Invisible Man. This is a drastic change in theme from the other films I looked at but I wanted to look at
how they built suspense and fear of an invisible antagonist. This will help for the beginning of my film
as I want the audience to fear the monster initially. I also thought this would give me some ideas of
how I can represent the invisible monster in my own film as I am a little concerned about how I will do
this. I will need to make sure I include an object or objects that the monster will be able to interact
with in order to show the audience it’s there. This will be similar to the sink in The Invisible Man that
tells us he is in the room as he has turned it on.
I then received some feedback which suggested that I also do some analysis of a short film. In addition
to this I decided to research some short film writing techniques in the production section as I was
worried about my ability to tell a full story in a short time. I then applied this to my analysis of David
Sandberg's Closet Space and looked at how he created tension and completed a story in such a short
time. My main take away from this was that I need to make sure I introduce the important points for
the plot very early in the story so there is no waisted time. It needs to be simple to understand so that
the audience pick up on what happening in the first few seconds.
6. Week 5: Problem solving
For this week I wanted to focus on my contingency plan. I
decided to split it up into sections with practical/technical
issues and theoretical/creative problems. This helped me to
ensure I had enough in all of the sections.
When I felt confident that I had enough of this I started
planning what I would do for my video experiments. I know I
will need to have some practise with this before final
production as I have not used this Item before. The first step
was ordering the suit. I made sure to look at reviews to make
sure I get one that wont break. I settled on one from amazon
and placed the order. It will come tomorrow in time to film
some practise shots. In the meantime I will watch some
YouTube tutorials to get an idea of how I will film with it.
I filmed all the clips and edited them on the Sunday. I tried to
film her picking up a cup in the hopes to make it look like it
was flying. This did not work. You could still see the outline of
the green screen suit even though it was transparent. I
realised that this was because It had not been lit fully so
shadows were still visible. The suit was also a little big on her
which created wrinkles on the arms. These become very
prominent when trying to key out the green suit.
7. Week 5: Problem Solving
At the start of the second week I took some more footage with the green screen suit and edited in
college. I filmed one of the clips outside to get as much lighting on the suit as possible. I defiantly
think that this improved the quality but the suit is still visible. I think that I will have to make
sure to only use parts of the suit in my final production so I can focus on making sure that this
section of the suit looks good. I think focusing on a small section of the suit will make it a lot
more manageable and I will be able to get it right.
I then practised doing the day to night editing and compared this to filming at night. I found that
day to night filming would be the best option for night shots but there was another problem that
occurred. When filming day to night you cant have any sky in the shot as this gives away that it
isn’t actually night, taking away the effect. When I went to the woods I realised that the trees
were much more sparse than I first imagined making it very difficult to film here. I didn’t want to
change the location so I decided to cut out the day to night altogether and have is set during the
day. I defiantly think that this was a good idea and I think that the story worked just as well
without being set at night.
8. Week 6: Planning
The first thing that I completed for my planning was my schedule. I wanted to make sure that it was
detailed and contained information for the weeks before production as well as during. This was so I
could follow a schedule that allowed me to complete all my planning before starting production. This is
something that I have struggled with in the past so sticking to a strict schedule should allow this to go
a lot better. I then got started with the creative planning where I plan set designs, characterisation and
costume designs. Planning for the costumes was quite easy to do as I already new what my
inspirations were. I wanted to play into the tropes quite a bit to make her job role in this film easily
recognisable to the audience. I wanted to make sure that I chose an outfit for its functionality rather
than looks. Her outfit shows that she is dressed practically for the environment she works in. This is
similar to films with the same look and feel for example, the hunger games. The audience will
consciously or sub-consciously make this connection making them understand the story better. I also
wanted to write down some of my ideas for the invisible monster and some areas that I got inspiration
from. This was more difficult as the monster is invisible. I got the idea from Lizaflos from the Nintendo
game The Legends of Zelda: Breath of the Wild as they have the ability to camouflage themselves,
much like chameleons, into their environment. The only difference is that Lizaflos turn out of their
camouflaged form when attacking, they are also not entirely invisible. This is just where I got the idea
to have a completely invisible monster from. I also thought that this would be useful for a low budget
film as I don’t actually have to create the monster.
9. Week 7: Planning
After this I moved onto the organisational planning. This is where I planned locations, going through
the potential hazards and risks of these sites, and created my shot lists and storyboards. Before
writing the shot list I decided to write out a draft of the story that is written more like a book so that I
had the entire story mapped out. I referenced this whilst making the shot list. When making my draft of
the story I encountered an issue with the montage. I struggled a lot with thinking of ideas to make this part of
the film good. It is important to include the montage footage as it is necessary to the storyline as
it wouldn’t make sense without it. This is the moment that we see her bond with the monster and decide that
keeping the monster alive is more important than her job. We see that she doesn’t leave with the bow showing
to the audience that she is leaving this career path and no longer seeks to kill monsters. This shows the
audience that she is not just deciding to let this monster live, but she is abandoning her future as a monster
hunter. I struggled with coming up with ideas to fill this time but ended up settling on a few ideas that were
inspired from how my cat plays with toys. This technique of giving lovable monsters in films pet like quality's is
used to help the audience connect and bond with the monster. This can be seen in the children's animated film
How to Train Your Dragon. Seeing the monster playing with tree branches and the ball, will tell the audience
that the monster is playful. They will start to sympathise with the monster and they won't want it to die. After
finishing my story outline, I wrote my shot list. I wanted to make sure to include the audio on the list to make
recording and editing the audio a lot easier. I've included information on when music needs to come in and
what sound effects I need to make. I also included the equipment needed for each shot which helped me make
equipment and prop lists for each day of filming.
10. Week 7: Planning
After completing my shot list I was able to start work on a storyboard. I decided not to create a
storyboard for each shot because there were 75 shots in total so this would have taken a very long
time and isn't exactly necessary for every shot. I decided it was best to only draw for the more
complicated parts of the film where I thought the description would be better to understand with a
visual.
The final part of my planning which I completed, was thinking about the ways that I can make the
props that I need for the film. I think it's good to have an idea before I start making them so I can
ensure that I will have everything I need to make them. This way if I need to order anything, I'll have
plenty of time to get them. I decided to make inspiration boards for everything I need to create along
with equipment lists that include if I need to buy anything and how much that will cost. I think I already
own a lot of the items needed but I thought it was better to do this just in case.
11. Week 8: Designing
The first thing that I needed to design was the emblem for the
monster hunting company. The logo is an important detail for the
story because it indicates a higher power that owns and controls
everything. It is who she works for and the publisher of the books she
reads showing that they give her all of her information. This was quite
a tedious job as I needed to draw it myself. I started by getting an
outline of a badge and the head of a dragon. I traced the head of the
dragon and got another head of a dragon that faced the other way. I
then used a picture of the body of a snake to trace the body of the
double headed dragon. This was easy enough to do and I didn’t have
any issues with it, It just took a long time to complete. I do think that
the quality of the badge is quite poor but I didn’t think to needed to be
too detailed as there won't be many close-ups on it so the audience
won't see it too much. If I had more time, I would have completed this
to better quality.
After having this emblem completed I created the letter. I was playing
around with fonts for a bit but settled on one that looks like fancy
calligraphy. I also downloaded a font that looks like a stamp. This was
supposed to make it look like the name of the monster and the items
needed have been added on after the fact. I wanted to add small
things like this to allude to the larger world beyond what we see in
this film to make the fantasy world feel more developed. I did see
what it looked like in all the same font but decided to stick to the
stamp as I felt like doing this would make it feel more detailed. I also
chose to have the main colour of a letter be an off white/cream
colour. I thought that this made it feel more like the inspiration
pictures and gives it a more old timey feel. I think that this is
recognized by audiences and linked with the genre. We see this in
films like harry potter. Most of the books and letters that are received
in Harry Potter have this old look even if they aren’t.
12. Week 8: Designing
The final thing that I wanted to design was the book cover and book
pages. The first thing I needed to do was take the measurements of a
book of choice so that, when designing in photoshop, I can set it to the
correct size. I chose to use an old cooking book that we already owned
as I liked the size and thickness of the book. I wanted the cover to have a
darker theme so I went with a black and dark green colour palette. This is
to show that the book Is portraying the monsters as scary. This tells us
about the books contents without actually seeing any of the pages telling
the audience that the monsters are bad and something to be feared. I
also added a gold trimming to make the book look more official and
expensive. This shows that monster hunting is something she is
passionate about since she doesn’t live in a big apartment or have many
belongings besides her monster hunting gear. To get the cover to stay on
the book I added extra space to make flaps that wrap around the front
and back cover and put a little blue tack to make sure that it stays put.
I also needed to make the designs for the book pages for the shot with
the close up of the book. I need to include some text that describes the
monster as a way to communicate the story to the audience. This is a
very important prop as without it the story wouldn’t make any sense. The
second page for the book tells us that, in order to distract the monster,
you must wave your torch around on the ground. This is useful later on
when she is getting disorientated by the monster. There will be close-up
of this page as a flash back later on in the story. For the rest of the
writing, I filled it in with lorem ipsum to save time writing the entire book. I
will try to film the pages in a way that disguises this from the audience by
drawing attention to the writing. I also used the stamp font to put at the
top of the page. This further shows the audience that the monster is
invisible because there is no photograph of it.
13. Week 9: Designing Props
The first prop that I made what the letter box that needs to go on
the wall. It is a cardboard box that is painted white and then I cut
out the font to make a flap that pops forward. The main thing with
this is I want to make sure that it functions easily during filming so I
can get a clean shot where she isn’t messing around with the box
too much. I also printed the emblem to stick on the front. The box
was simple to make but I’m having trouble keeping it up on the
wall. I need to make sure that it would stay on the wall long enough
to get the takes. To work around this problem I am adding lots of
blue tack to the back of the box and I will make sure the keep re-
applying this between takes.
The next prop I wanted to make was the arrows. For this I had help
from my dad. We measured some bamboo sticks and we had to
make sure that they would be long enough to stick out the top of
the bag. He sawed down the to the same height. After this we
decided that the best way to make the ends of the arrows was to
cut down some slits in the top of the arrows so we could insert card
in the middle. This was a slightly tricky job but was do-able. After
this we cut out some shapes from the card, painted them black and
pushed them into the ends. I am happy with the way that they
turned out as I think they matched the reference photos. They don’t
look too realistic but these props aren’t going to be used in any
takes and also won’t have any close ups on them so I thought it
would look fine as they are.
14. Weeks 9: Designing Props
Making the envelope was very easy as all I did was
take a regular envelope and stick the emblem to it.
The tricky part was creating the wax seal. I wanted to
include the seal because I feel it gives it that more
authentic look but I couldn’t really seal it because I
wouldn’t be able to retake it. I know I could have made
multiple versions of the envelope but I didn’t want to
print out more logos than necessary to save printer ink
as it was running low. In order to keep the wax seal
but still re-use it, I melted the wax onto a piece of
paper and peeled it off. I then put blue tack on it to
stick it to the top of the envelope.
The final prop that I wanted to make was the extra
books that are seen on her shelf. I took three books
and got their measurements in order to ensure that
they will fit. I designed a couple of other book spines
but didn’t do the covers as these books wont actually
be interacted with so the cover wasn’t necessary. I
originally kept the book colour wrapped around the
paper so that no white would show but decided against
this as the printer ink was running low. In order to get
the spines to stay I put small amounts of blue tack on
them.
17. Week 10: Editing
For the first day of editing I started by laying out all the
video clips into the sequence. This process took quite a long
time because there was quite a lot of footage to get through.
Once this was done I was able to start the colour correction
process. The first thing I wanted to do was make sure that
the exposure levels were even across all the footage. I made
sure to even out any video clips that I thought looked under
or over exposed. This was to make sure that the lighting is
consistent all the way through. This was quite simple for the
interior footage as I was able to use a light to ensure all the
footage was well lit. This was quiet different for the exterior
footage because the scenes were lit by sunlight. This means
it was inconsistent between shots because the comes in and
out from the clouds. There were also some days that were
more overcast than others so the colour correction process
helped to even this out. To help with this it is important to
keep comparing the clips to each other in order to make sure
they look even. I also needed to make sure to alter the levels
of warmth between shots and to take away any yellow tones
that a few clips had.
18. Week 10: Editing
For the second day of editing I decided to finish the colour correction and start colour grading. This
meant I took the colour corrected footage and started to create a colour scheme to create a unified
look. This is also how I added a distinctive style as I wanted it to look underexposed so it looks a little
more spooky. The method that I ended up using was adding a colour matching technique. You go to
the colour settings and select an option that allows you to do a scene comparison. I chose a shot that
I thought looked good and applied a match to an adjustment layer. This meant that I could apply this
colour grade to the rest of my film. I felt like this made the colour look a lot better as it added more
depth to the shot. I looked at the before and after of the colour and realised that the shots before
looked very flat and washed out. I asked my peers for opinions and they also agreed that the updated
version was a much bigger improvement, so I settled on this for the final colour grade.
19. Week 11: Foley
Before recording any audio, I watched through my video many
times and made a list of every sound effect that would need to
be re-created. This assisted me throughout recording and made
sure I didn’t miss out any bits of audio. All of the audio was
recorded on a microphone straight into garageband where we
could check for any mistakes and edit the audio clips down. The
headphones were connected with the microphone so I could
listen along with the action and make sure everything sounded
right. Once it was recorded we could export it into Itunes ready
to be emailed to myself. This is where we encountered the first
issue where the sounds in Itunes were much louder than in
garageband. This meant the first few sound effects were too
loud to be brought into premiere pro. This was easy to fix as we
could turn down the sound on the ones we had already created
and turned down the microphone volume whilst recording.
20. Week 11: Foley
Most of the sound effect were fairly simple to get. The ones that I
had the most difficulty with were the footsteps and ambient sounds for
the exterior shots. The first problem that I encountered with the
footsteps was that it didn’t sound right when filmed indoors. This was
because the wooden floors sounded off and you could hear the spring
from under the floorboards. We tried to record some in different areas
of the house with different flooring but all of them sounded wrong. The
only way to get it to sound right was going outside to film
which meant that I couldn’t record the audio that lined up with the
footage. This can be really helpful because it simplifies the editing
process as you can just drag the audio clip straight in and it will all
line up. We couldn’t do this outside as the video was on the computer
inside. This meant I had to record some generic footsteps outside and
edit out ones that included any background noise. I then had to edit
each step individually in premiere pro and get them to match up with
the footage. This way is do-able, but it is very tedious and takes a lot
of time. The other audio that was very difficult to record was the
ambient sounds. This was because every remote location in the area
that I live has busy roads nearby meaning the distant sounds of cars
can always be heard. At first, I thought that these sounds could pass
as wind but when I put it into premiere pro and listened it was way
too obvious, and you could barely hear the bird sounds. This is why I
made the decision to use royalty free sound effects that have been
found online instead. I found some good recordings on the BBC sounds
website and downloaded them. I think that this choice was good as it
made the outdoor scenes feel much more realistic.
21. Week : Foley
For the next day of audio recording I got the whistle sound effects. For this sound I needed to create
the whistle sound she makes, and the response from the monster. For the monsters response we
added some reverb in garage band and a bit of echo to make it sound like it was coming from more of
a distance. I also made sure that, when editing, I made the response quieter than her whistle to make
sure that it was effective. I think that this sound effect worked really well. After this we got all of the
other sound effects. There weren't any issues with this but it was difficult because it took so long to
collect all the audio needed.
After this I needed to get all the music for the video. The tense music that you can hear in the
beginning was very easy to do and we sorted that very early on. The more difficult music to get was
the montage footage. We went through a few different options before settling on the one we chose. I
found it quite difficult to express what I wanted for the music and how to communicate this to my dad
who was making it. The first couple of song choices had a lot of string instruments but I then ended up
realising that this might be what I didn’t like about them. After realising this I decided to change to
woodwind instruments and this sounded a lot better. I also wanted the song to be simplified so we
took out some notes and ended up creating the final piece that made it in the film. We also created
some music that wasn’t initially meant to be there. This was the moment the ball rolls into the frame.
The music during this sequence was supposed to diffuse the tension whilst showing how she is
becoming interested and confused by the actions of the monster. I think the music shows this
perfectly.
22. Week 11: Audio
This was the last of the foley sound effects and the only things left for the audio was the voiceover at the
end and the robotic voice that says "monster terminated". For the robotic voice when she presses her
watch, I used a website called eleven labs. This uses AI technology to translate anything you type into a
computer generated voice. You can then download this voice for your own use. I wanted to use a voice that
sounded more like siri or text to speech filters, but I struggled to find a website that would do this for me. All
the ones on eleven labs were more realistic than I had hoped. Since I couldn’t find anything else I decided
to settle for this. I don't think that this was necessarily a bad choice but I would have preferred it to be more
robotic sounding. We decided to not create any music for the credits as I thought it was much more
impactful to continue the forest sounds into the credits. I think this choice represents how she feels at peace
as she chose to leave violence behind her by not killing the monster.
After this I recorded voiceover with my actress for the dialogue at the end. I was originally going to use a
microphone but, due to time restraints, I went to a quiet part of college and used my phones voice note app
instead. I thought that this sounded alright in premiere but after I got home and watched it with different
speakers the sound quality of the voice was considerably worse. I decided that this would not do for the
final piece so I researched into ways of editing audio in premiere pro. This is how I learned about the voice
pre-sets In the effects panel. There were many options to pick from making the voices clearer to making the
voice sound further away. This ended up being the best option for me as I felt it made the voice blend into
the environment better.
