We would also have to produce a title sequence for the film, which would stand alone as a separate typographical design solution.
Now, as luck would have it, Gemma had come across a location a few weeks before that had really fired her imagination - and ours, when we saw the photographs she had taken . At the time, we had all said that it would make a great location for a horror film - and here we were, being handed the choice of doing that very same thing - so that settled the choice of genre for us, pretty much straight away . Dawn decided to come on board for this one, and Carys also asked if she could join us - so there we were - a team of 5 .
We discussed the 'feel' we would like the film to have - at Gemma's suggestion, I watched 'Silent Hill', and other films we discussed were The Village' and 'The Blaire Witch Project' . We had a meeting where we tossed around idea's for the story line, and gradually, the idea emerged of starting off the film in a somewhat misleading way - Gemma, Dave and myself would literally 'play' ourselves, and we would start the film with us discussing the actual brief, in the university, complaining about it and struggling for idea's. Finally, we appear to settle for Gemma's idea of a documentary about caravanning holidays in North Wales, on the grounds that we can't think of anything else. This leads to us setting off one morning, to interview the owner of a caravan park, in Talacre - where things go badly wrong, we end up stumbling across the location Gemma had found - and we all meet a sticky end - courtesy of 'The Beast'. Gemma came up with a script, after she and Dave did a recce to the location, and Dave and Dawn started to storyboard the film out. We listed props needed, and got them together, and we gave Stewart a copy of the basic outline of the film, and also checked it with Simon . Dawn and Carys had elected to do the filming rather than appear in the actual film, so, all gear assembled, we were ready to roll.
Sheer luck had it that the day we set off to film the bulk of the action, it could have been made to order, for a horror film - thick fog swirled around the car as we made our way to the caravan park, very atmospheric !
A very frustrating interview follows, where we owe big Thanks to Colin who played the site owner to perfection, and we abandon the plans to continue with the documentary and decide to explore instead. Very deliberately, we have chosen to put in several lines that will (hopefully) throw any audience off track and have them wondering if they are actually watching a documentary or a comedy by this point . (The opening scenes in the uni canteen, and the interview with Colin were filmed about 2 weeks later )
The location Gemma had found was absolutely amazing ! A walk along a public footpath, leading across a field from a caravan park, is edged by a high stone wall. Quite a way down it, is a hole, which we climbed through, and then 'fought' our way through a wood, extremely overgrown with brambles and wild garlic, down a steep hill - and eventually come into a grave yard - Yes, an actual, real graveyard. Near by is an old abbey, which has now been converted into a private residence, and one assumes that this graveyard was once connected to that. The graves are (all but one) marked with simple metal crosses . . .
... which as you can see, are all overgrown with thick foliage and brambles.
The dates on them ranged - as far as we could tell - from around 1930, to 1987 - but the place looked like it had been abandoned for centuries.
Behind the graveyard is a two storey, crumbling tower - however, for the purpose of the film we don't spot this until Gemma and I are making our way out of the graveyard - and Dave decides to play a trick.
Now, we knew Dave was going to jump out at us ! We had discussed it, it was in the script - and still it took 4 or 5 takes, because every time, Gemma and I jumped out of our skins and reacted as though we hadn't a clue what was coming - which led to us dissolving into puddles of laughter ! And I'd like to apologise to Dave at this point, for what happened in the second take - I am so sorry Dave, I just reacted instinctively, and I didn't mean the nasty name I called you - nor did I mean to throw the tripod on your foot !
At this point, once we finally got the scene right, and Dave and I are having a heated argument, Gemma spots the stone tower - in reality, it is so overgrown that its virtually impossible to get a clear picture of it from standing directly in front - the best you can do is get a shot from the graveyard . . .
. . . and even then, its pretty hard to make out .
The argument forgotten, we decide to enter the tower and explore - the doorway opposite us leads to a steep, worn staircase, with a tiny little 'cubby' type room at the bottom, and just one room at the top - a room with a ruddy great hole in the floor .
We walk around the side of the tower, and gain entry to the downstairs room via a window - and find ourselves in what is in reality, an amazing - but strange - room. The walls are thickly plastered in shells - ranging from small cockle and razor clam shells, to massive conch shells, and chunks of quartz and fossils -
The Shell Room - notice the fireplace, and the stone carved chaise long
One of the several odd carvings in the wall
Some of the shells
Gemma sits on the chaise - even the very realistic looking pillow was carved from stone .
As we are exiting this building, through a very strange shaped doorway . . .
. . . yet more evidence of 'The Beast' emerges - but we brush it off!
We exit and are wandering on, when Dave makes the (it turns out) fatal decision to go for a pee - Bye Dave !
Gemma and I are just wondering where the heck Dave has got to, when we are startled by certain noises, which lead us to assume that Dave is once again playing tricks, and as the noise seems to emanate from a cave like entrance to yet another stone building, in we go, determined to give him a piece of our minds.
It was at this point that we began to realise that we had made lives pretty difficult for ourselves, in terms of filming . The interior of this building was incredibly dark in places - and yes we had brought torches - but as it turned out later, not enough !
Back to the plot, and Gemma and I just happen to have torches on us (magic, eh? ) and we make our way down a another stone staircase, at the bottom of which is an archway, which leads us down, further underground, to a small, cell like room - in which is sitting a life sized stone carving of a seated monk - minus his head !
Not surprisingly, this gives us a bit of a shock , especially when we notice Dave's camcorder sitting on its lap !
Convinced that Dave is still setting us up, we head back up the stairs - at the top, I spot that the passage goes on, and suggest we head that way to find Dave - only as she turns to follow, Gemma feels her coat 'grabbed' by something, and struggling out of her coat, starts to run - till I discover that she had actually, only snagged it on a rock !
We carry on up the passageway, and fail to notice the ominous black shadow that moves across the wall behind us .
We have to at this point, cross a room minus its ceiling - where upon we find ourselves in the 'room' that we had taken to calling 'The Grotto'.
All ready, this place had amazed me by its bizarre and strange appearance, and the carvings. I didn't see how this could be part of the old abbey - if anything, it was more pagan, in feel - and this room took that to new heights. It was cave like, with an exit to outside at the far end, steep steps on the opposite wall from where we entered, and had strangely carved stone pillars and shelves around it - which we decked out in candles!
All around the walls of the rest of the grotto, were the most bizarre carvings .
We think this is a bears head?
A boars head?
And a Cyclops !
At the exit, is another pillar, with four carved stone legs at the base, and a shelf with a hole behind it. If you walk around the front of this pillar, you find a winged creature - and if you put a light on the shelf behind, it shines through the creature's open mouth
So - back to the plot and film!
Gemma and I enter the grotto, see all the candles and jump to the conclusion that Dave is still setting us up. I decide to take some photo's, Gemma retires to the 'alcove' with the camcorder and starts reviewing what has been filmed. As I take photographs, the batteries inexplicably die in my camera - and Gemma, looking at the camcorder, finally sees evidence that Dave is not behind any of what's going on - and is in fact, probably dead ! She shouts for me to come and see, and as I make my way towards her, I hear her scream - rushing up, she is stood there, with 3 talon like slashes across her arm, and we - sensibly - decide to get out of there . As we go to leave, a noise makes us look up - and there we see something that scares us- again sensibly, we scream blue murder - and run!
On exiting the cave, Gemma streaks ahead of me - and I fall flat on my face! (as a side note, how the hell did I end up being the one who had to do the fall? I mean - at my age? The two takes it took left me covered with bruises, and aching in places that I didn't know I had! )
Rising to my feet, I realise that I have ripped my jeans - and my leg - open. I hear Gemma give a piercing scream - and its Bye Gemma !
I start to run/limp through the wood (uphill, I may add, and again I wonder, why me - at my age ! ) and start to hear some very scary noises. Reaching the hole in the wall, as I back away, The Beast is seen properly,. for the first time, as it approaches to the sound of creepy heartbeats and slithers - and its Bye Sue, - and the end of the film.
Some photographs of us filming - Dawn and Dave in the graveyard .
Dawn and Gemma outside the Grotto
Dawn at the entrance to the steps to the Monks Cell
Outside the stone tower - note Dave's lovely warm headgear
We stopped for fish and chips, and made our way home - funniest moment of the day - my kids faces when I limped into the house, filthy, bruised, with torn jeans and covered in fake blood .
We hadn't expected to get all the footage in one day, and were congratulating ourselves - until we reviewed the footage later. We discovered that firstly, we hadn't made enough use of the tripod - and it showed. Secondly, we had several scenes, in the Monks cell, and the Grotto, that were just too dark . Thirdly, The scene we had filmed in the grotto, where Gemma and I see the 'something scary' just didn't work - we had originally chose to spot the skeleton on the wall, and scream at that - but, considering the headless monk and everything else, it made no sense that a mere carving would send us into a blind panic - we needed something 'scarier'. And lastly, we realised we were missing some filler shots and footage that we would need to edit the film together - there was no choice, we had to go back!
Due to the Paris trip, it was two weeks before we got back on location - Carys was unable to make this day, due to a prior appointment, so just Dave, Gemma, Dawn and myself. We made sure we were wearing the same clothes, for continuity - and Oh boy - did we suffer for that! Remember the first days filming in heavy fog and icy cold weather - two weeks later, and it was the hottest day of the year so far! And we were decked in thermal jackets, scarves - and in Dave's case, that wonderful hat with ear flaps! We hoped the sweat on our brows would pass for skin clammy with fear . . .
We had taken extra torches, and paid a lot more attention to lighting the scenes. We got all the filler shots we wanted, and we used the tripod a lot more . And after coming up with a 'scarier' idea to cause Gemma and I to flee the grotto, we reshot that scene, too . We had to re-shoot the scene where I exit the tower - this time using a tripod and I sustained another injury, when in 'reacting' to the noise I hear, I managed to run head first into a wooden lintel - OUCH ! . Although we couldn't use the clip where I nearly brained myself, other than that, the footage we got on the second day was 100% better - thank Goodness .
We also, around this time, shot the footage in the canteen, and the footage with Colin as the camp site owner - the canteen shoot went smoothly, but the scene with Colin took several takes - he has to make a very rude and nasty remark to Gemma and I - and we just couldn't take it seriously and reacted with laughter, instead of outrage, time and time again. We had also had to 'make do', last minute, with a different location to that we had planned for Colin's office - this made for some crafty camera work, as the room we had to use was way too big - so we had to film Colin at a desk with a wall behind - then mirror image the contents of the desk, with Gemma, Dave and I against the wall, to make it look like we were in a small room. We did make one mistake, we later found - Gemma in asking Colin questions is looking in the wrong direction - but that is a lesson learned for next time !
We had just got the filming done, when Dave had to depart - he got married and jetted off on a 3 week honeymoon - Congratulations, Dave and Julie xxx Before he left, Dave, bless him, converted all our camcorder footage to a media we could use on final cut.
However, up till now, Dave had been the most knowledgeable and competent at editing, and though he had been fantastic at sharing what he knew with Gemma and I, in the limited time we had had for the other projects we had done as a group, Gemma and I knew we had a stiff task ahead of us to complete the editing. And Carys and Dawn hadn't had the chance to even pick up the amount of limited experience Gemma and I had.
So - the editing promised to be fun.
But less fun when completely unavoidable and unforeseen events meant Gemma was absent, and unable to take part in the editing for several days. Dawn and Carys were able to be there for some of it, and when they were, they offered several good suggestions and ideas , but mostly, I just had to get on with it.
The first three weeks - and yes, I did say THREE weeks - were one hell of a learning curve for me. For the first time, we had made a film with a lot of dialogue - in advance we had booked the sound equipment out from the hub for filming - but on going to collect it, it was missing, and with Paris coming up and Dave's wedding, we had been unable to postpone the filming . That caused a major headache with a lot of the editing, and I spent hours tweaking and altering sound levels, to try and get it even throughout the film. The scenes filmed in darkness had to be tweaked - we could have done with just one or two more torches, after all. I found myself learning to make transitions, which - if used correctly - are a great tool for suggesting the passage of time, or for moving into a change of location within the film. I also learned how to make J and L cuts ( I discovered that one for myself, and only learned the correct terms for them later ! ), so we could incorporate some of the great filler shots we had filmed, and have dialogue from the preceding or following clips running over the top of them . I thanked my lucky stars that - after learning a lesson in our previous project, 'Dark Symmetry' - we had recorded several minutes of ambient sound in the woods - because that turned out to be an absolute God send at times.
Add to all this, we had been very ambitious in deciding to use lots of sound effects - and had asked in advance about if we could incorporate some other film effects too. Dawn sourced out a huge list of sound effects that Gemma and I had presented her with - and she did a fabulous job - and then I was left to try and insert them into the film at the appropriate points. In some cases, I ended up working with 8 or 9 layers of sound, including the dialogue, ambient sound, sound effects and music. And at times, I had to add echo, deepen, lengthen and fade sounds in and out - all new stuff to me.
Plus in using our own camcorders, we discovered that one had, by mistake, been set to 'normal', instead of 'fine' quality - this caused major headaches, with odd pauses happening after transitions, as Final Cut struggled to cope with the poor quality - this meant that certain portions of the film had to be converted to quick time, then put back into the sequence in final cut, and then have the transitions and so on added - and we had to be sure we had the editing right before we converted the clips.
It got to the stage where after an 8 hour day, sat at the mac, I would go home and every time I closed my eyes, I'd see little razor blades and 'snapping' tools float across my closed lids !
Once Gemma was able to return, it was much easier - although I had finished the bulk of the editing, sound and visual by then, she was brilliant in helping me 'tidy it up', and make the flow of the film better - it really helps, when you are practically a novice at this sort of thing, to have someone just to take an overview and help you get some distance from what you are doing. I also want to thank Dave Robinson, Dave 'Mandy' Kelly, Simon and Colin who had endless patience with the messes I got into, and offered some assistance, lots of advice and some really useful feedback !
Then - on to the special effects we wanted to put in. We had used some footage that we had filmed with the camcorder that you see myself, Dave and Gemma carrying at various times, in the film - we wanted to mark this out by inserting a flashing red dot, and 'rec' in red on that footage - Simon introduced us to After Effects - the first time we had used this - and showed us how to do this - complicated, for novices like ourselves, and we were very appreciative of his help.
The second effect we needed was to transfer the footage of Dave meeting a sticky end onto the screen of the camcorder that Gemma looks at in the grotto - in filming Gemma looking at the screen, we had tried to play this clip on the camcorder as Gem was holding it, and film it - but we couldn't pick up anything other than a fuzzy grey screen. This was an incredibly complex thing to sort, and no way are we at the stage where we could even attempt it - so again, Thank you Simon :)
And at the very end of the film, in the close up of The Beast we wanted the picture to distort, accompanied by 'static' - then just 'pop' to black - and again, thanks to Si, we were able to accomplish this.
In the end, the film was just under 12 minutes long, which caused us some panic - it was over by more than 3 minutes - but we had been so careful scripting it, so the start would be 'misleading' and only gradually would it become apparent that this was a 'horror' film, we didn't see how we could lose any of it without losing the flow of the story - so a quick check with Marisse, and then Stewart came and looked at what we had- and we were told that it wasn't problem :)
The 'tidying up' of the sound, and the work in after effects took just over another week to finish - and then it was time to think about end credits and the title sequence.
Gemma had really clear idea's about the end credits, which, when she explained them, would obviously work really well - but, it involved using after effects again - Thank you Dave R, who taught Gemma how to acheive the effect we wanted, and she passed the knowledge onto me, though this was Gemma's 'baby' - and she did the bulk of the work. I have to say - it looked fabulous and the heavy metal song she chose to accompany it worked brilliantly! And thank you to Dave for bringing in the blood splatter and burst plug ins for us to use - they looked wicked :)
Meanwhile, I took on the Title Sequence - we wanted it to mislead, but somehow incorporate the feel of a horror film too - we had discussed it in advance, and I came up with the idea of a montage of photographs, taken of the vans at the caravan park, either faded down or turned to a sepia tint. We discussed the font - mine had to be as close as damn it to whatever Gemma used in the end credits, and we decided that it would work quite well if we used a choral rendition of 'We'll keep a Welcome in the Hillside' - we loved the contrast that made with the music style we wanted for the end credits. The title of the film was also settled - we figured 'The Wrong way' made sense - but didn't give anything away.
We also decided to give our group a name and a logo - I came up with '4sight', and based on the ideas that Dawn and I had, Dawn started to design a logo for us.
Which then evolved into this . . .
Which was pretty much what we all liked - but it just needed 'tidying up' .
I used windows movie maker to create the sequence, and photoshop to edit the photographs and add text . .
We felt that as the film was in colour, we couldn't use black and white for the title sequence - we wanted something that would be a bit creepy - but that could also be taken to indicate a 'caravan holiday in Wales' - sepia seemed to work. The music chosen reflected the misleading 'caravan in Wales' holiday theme - but also was just sombre sounding enough to work with a horror film.
We also wanted to insert pictures of the cast, fading in and out over the pictures as they blurred from one image to another - Dave told us it was possible to do, and offered to help us achieve this with after effects - we decided just to use pictures of the cast - but, not to include any reference to The Beast in the title sequence, as this would give the game away.
So, the Easter break saw me working at home to put the title sequence together. It wasn't as hard as I imagined it would be - getting the size of the font right took a couple of attempts in some cases, and finding a transition from photograph to photograph that didn't look too obvious took a little while - but it went surprising smoothly, and I ended up with a title sequence, just over one and a half minutes long - which I hoped would be about right, given the length of the film. Later, I went back and added vignetted edges to the photographs - this seemed to make the transitions smoother, as well as adding to the 'feel' I wanted.
Because the size of the photographs meant they didn't fit exactly into movie maker, I had to make the depth of the vignette wider along the side edges, than the bottom - fiddly, but I think it was worth it !
Next, back into Photoshop to prepare the shots of the 'cast' - these were to fade in, over the shots of the caravans, alongside cast names, then to fade out again, and this effect had to be done in After Effects, after the holiday, I hoped ! I just had to prepare them by extracting the cast 'figures' out of photographs that I'd taken during the filming.
Then I got brave - and decided to to try adding the images of the cast myself - and I have to say, I was pretty pleased with the result - by starting with a 4 second photograph of the name . . .
I was pretty happy with the effect - and so went on to add the music.
A little more 'fiddling about' once the music was in, to make sure the picture montage worked with the tempo, and I fired off a copy to Gemma, to see if she could make any suggestions, or if she was happy about it.
Meanwhile, Gemma had had some idea's on the logo - and had come up with this . . .
I really liked this - but although I thought it would really well with a horror film, was slightly worried about using it on any other projects we had, because to me it had a real 'Gothic' feel to it. But in the end, it fitted the film so well, we decided to stick with it.
After a few exchanges of e mails with Gemma, and Dave who had now returned from his honeymoon, I managed to get the title sequence completed in a way that we all liked, minus the vignettes (after all that bloody work, in the end, it turned out the sequence looked better without them! ) in time for the return to uni after the Easter break. Gemma cracked on with the end credit sequence, and within 2 days it was finished - we all loved the way it totally contrasted with the title sequence, but both still managed to 'fit' the feel of the finished film.
Lessons learned - sound was the biggest issue from my point of view. The fact that the recording equipment we had booked wasn't available on the day created some massive problems with editing the sound. It took masses of work to get the dialogue sound up to a standard we were happy with. But - I learnt so much about using the software because of that. We had never been so ambitious with sound effects before, and again, there was a massive amount of effort put into getting that right - I discovered that the amount of planning we had put into that was worth the end result, and I think it made me so aware of the importance of sound in a film, to create atmosphere and tension and mood.
We did make some mistakes with the filming - but I think its a sign of our progression that we spotted them, and I know that we have learned from them. There's a continuity glitch that screams at me, every time I watch - but though we have let a couple of people see the finished film, not one has picked up on it - however, its there, and it annoys me, and it will make me be more careful in future. I'll also be more careful in POV shots, to make sure that the subject we are filming is looking exactly in the right direction!
The importance of cut away shots came home to me - we filmed dozens and dozens, and they made a huge difference when editing - we didn't use them all, but it was worth having so many available, as their inclusion not only makes the overall effect of the film more interesting, they were a great way of moving between scenes in a far more visually pleasing manner than a straight edit - and they occasionally are very useful, for covering up mistakes.
The pre-production planning was also worth all the effort - the difference it made to the finished film was apparent to us all. It increased the attention to details, and 'solved' a lot of problems in advance.
I also found I very much appreciated communication within the group - the exchange of ideas, and the fact that no one hesitated to be honest, or suggest changes (and no one resented the honesty or suggestions) again made for a better end production. Although I was 'solo' on the title sequence in terms of actually sitting down and creating it, and the same goes for Gemma with the end credits, the feedback received during the making of them, I found to be of immense help.
In the end, post production took nearly six weeks of concentrated work. Whilst some of this was down to mistakes in filming, and certainly, down to the fact that the recording equipment wasn't available for the time we had booked it, the bulk of this was down to the fact that we simply wanted this film to be good, and a lot of effort went into the sound and special effects we used.
And so endeth this incredibly LONG blog - sorry about the length, but I wanted to record every detail because I feel the work we put in was worth recording - and thats as much for the fact that its going to be useful for me to look back on, and remind me of the effort, the mistakes and the time involved when embarking on other projects.
Oh - one more thing - the finished film . . .
