Day 1 - today was the first meet up of our production group. In this meeting we aimed to establish the idea that we would be using and who would be playing each role. The idea that we came up with was a house party which then lead to an argument between two friends because they didn't tell each other that they were going. This then lead to a further argument and got heated which resulted in an accidental murder. We established that Joe was going to be director and camera operator 1 because he was good at developing ideas and shots and he also wanted to take on the role of using the camera. We also established that I would be the person to get killed early off in the film because the group wanted me to also be camera operator.

Day 2 - we found out today that we are not allowed to continue with our initial idea of the house party because the other group in our class was also doing that idea. Our teacher did not want two of the same idea so because they had the idea first, we had to come up with a new idea. This actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise because we all settled on the idea of having a murder mystery in a college/school environment. As we are all students in the group, we know that some relationships and friendships and college are very toxic, so we are now able to use this to are advantage and make that the main motive of our killer. In this lesson, the group wanted to get a solid foundation of what we were going to be filming, so then we could build up from a simple idea. As we were forced to start from scratch, it made us all panic because we thought that we would be very far behind and not make any of the deadlines because we had to do the brainstorming process all over again. This is why we desperately wanted to get an idea down so we could work up from it. We did get the idea of the college environment and toxic relationships, however the next meeting that we have, we are hoping to decide who will have each role in the plot.

Day 3 - Today was a very successful meeting for our group. We achieved what we wanted to and we have now moved onto the Pre-Production process. From today's meeting we established who each of the characters were going to be, who is going to play them and what their personalities are like. This was a major part of the our meeting because we were then able to further plan the plot and decide who would have certain alibi for the murder, and who we could use as red herrings in order to throw the audience off. This was crucial to include this because it would not be a typical murder mystery film if it did not have some red herrings or devices which were used to deter the audience from the truth. Towards the end of the meeting today, we assigned each person of the group a couple of pieces of Pre-production to finish/work on, so we could now initiate the process of making this film. Each person had two pieces of pre-production to finish by the end of the week, so we could then begin production on the next week. Finally, we were told that we were not able to film in college during the Half Term week, which threw off our production schedule as we ideally wanted to get the entirety of production finished during the week off. Because of this, we needed to postpone everything a week in advance, meaning we had an extra week to complete pre-production.

Day 4 - Today we handed in all of the pre-production that we had finished. We also showed each other things that may needed to be edited, such as correcting dates on the production schedule, changing the prices on the budget list and giving the correct names for equipment on the equipment list. We decided to create a One Drive where we could store all of our pre-production in one place, while all being able to access each file and adapt it if necessary. This way, we were all able to see what has been made and what still needs to be done. I figured out that we had still not finished the Production Schedule so I decided to team up with Jake and Jay in order to finish it with other people's help. Also, we realised that we had not yet made a Shooting Script for each day, so we decided that Joe (director) should make these because he had the full idea in his head and he knew what days we would be filming certain parts. We had now finished all of the Pre-Production so we established that we all needed to bring in costume next lesson so we could start to film.

Day 5 (first day of production) - considering it was the first day of production, it was not the most successful day we have had during this process. The first hurdle that we had was some of the people in our group was late, and we couldn't start filming without them because the continuity would have been ruined. So we had to set up the equipment and framing and just wait for them to arrive. This was really frustrating because it meant that we lost about 15 mins filming time, when we could've finished the entire classroom scene in that time. When they did arrive, people were forgetting lines so it made the whole process much more frustrating because we had to do roughly 8 takes before we got the first shot right. By the time this was done, we had already used up an hour and a half of our three hour time frame to film. It then reached the time where college students were on their 15 minute break so there would be people walking about in the background of our shots, so we decided to take a break ourselves. When we arrived back on our break we decided that we should get all of the interior shots of Scene 2 finished today, as it means we can forget about it and move onto the external scenes tomorrow. This was a good idea because it meant the risk of continuity errors were reduced as the room was already set up and we did not have to adjust it, we just had to act the next scene with all of the furniture in the same place. We got a lot of footage filmed in the last hour and a half and we were all very happy with it, but we deiced that tomorrow that we need to get scene 2 finished and get all of the external shots filmed.

Day 6 - today was a much more successful day as everyone was early to shooting location and we were filming within the first 5 minutes. This was good because it meant that we were able to film much more footage today, without stressing that we were running out of time, unlike yesterday. Today, we finished filming all of the scenes where the characters go on their breaks, and this was because we filmed all of the internal scenes yesterday. So when we piece all of the footage together in editing, it will be in a chronological order with every piece of footage filmed successfully. We decided to do it in this order because we felt that it would make more sense filming all of the internal scenes at once and getting that out of the way as soon as possible, so we could then move onto the breaks and get some more exciting footage as it is in different locations. This benefitted us massively because if we had not done this then we definitely would've faced continuity errors. there was one shot during todays shoot where i had to manipulate the camera settings because i wanted to pull to a very shallow focus. Its a low shot where Jake walks past and the focus is pulled to a plant on the ground as he walks past it. The aperture was f/18 but I changed it to f/2.8. This allowed me to get a much shallower depth of field, but I needed to increase the shutter speed to 1/1000 as there was too much light being let in, due to the wide aperture.                                                                                                                                                                               
Day 7 - this was the third day of filming and at this point in time we had finished the first main scene. We established at an earlier date that we would not want to film any extra footage for the trailer or the title sequence because we wanted it to be the same footage as the scenes, so we knew what would be included and we wouldn't risk ruining the plot by including parts from other episodes that would not be shown. Also, it would've been too time consuming to film other footage as we needed to get our scenes finished as that was priority. As we had finished filming for the day, we decided that we wanted to have a look over all of the footage we got, as a group, because this way we were able to decide what shots were good and if any needed to be redone. Luckily we did this because we found out that all of the shots using Joe's camera were extremely Noisy and Grainy. To fix this, as we had time we decided to reshoot that scene. It was the opening scene where all of the classmates are walking out of the classroom to go on their breaks and we realised that we didn't have the light on in the first take. So we turned on the lights and lowered the ISO from 1600 to 800 in order to reduce the image noise, yet still have an adequate amount of light entering the camera from the classroom lights. This didn't take much time at all because it was only one clip and we knew what we were doing, so because we liked everything about the clip, other than the noise, we kept the shutter speed and aperture at roughly 1/400 and f/5.6 because these are average settings which gave us the clearest and easiest image to work with.

Day 8 - today was the fourth and final day of filming and we had scheduled to finish the final scene within the 3 hours that we had to do so. We were able to achieve this because it was a much simpler scene which didn't include any detailed shots or much movement. The scene took place in a classroom and the only part that we needed to film outside the classroom was the flashback of the drug deal that the Culprit did. We had to change the camera settings in order to film outside because we had adjusted the settings to suit the dark classroom by decreasing the shutter speed and the aperture, so when we got outside it was extremely overexposed. We used a shutter speed and aperture of 1/200 and f/4, and we adjusted it to 1/1250 and f/18 to counteract the harsh light. The shot that we wanted to achieve for the drug deal was a telescopic shot, to make it look like Eugene was looking at the action from a distance, and these camera settings allowed us to achieve that. We also had a very low ISO in order to reduce the light intake but also reduce the image noise. Today's shoot was reasonably easy and we didn't really face many issues other than getting the correct camera settings. As this is not a single camera, when we were filming the interrogation scene, we set up two cameras so we could capture two angles of the action. This would make it much more interesting to watch because we are following the 30 degree rule and not shooting from one POV all the time. Also, this saved us a lot of time because we did not need to act out the scene more than once to capture different POV's because we had two cameras rolling at once. When we finished filming we decided to do the same thing that we did yesterday and watch all of the footage back, and we were all happy with the shots so we came to the decision to conclude the production process. 

Day 9 – as we had finished filming I decided that I should import all of the footage that we had, as I knew it would take a while and there is a lot of footage to get through. One thing that we made a mistake on as a group was not deleting pointless shots on the day. This would’ve made the editing process much easier as we would’ve then know that all of the clips were usable for the final cut. However, we did not do this so we had to organise all of the files we had, which consequently cost us a lot of time. If we were to start the process again as a group, this is probably the thing that I would do most differently, purely because of how much time it cost me during the editing process. Once I had all of the files sorted and I knew what files I was able to use, I decided to create four separate folders on my laptop, one for each film that we had to make (e.g. scene one, scene two, trailer and title sequence). This actually sped up my editing process because I then knew that I could go straight to the folder to find the clips that I needed for that scene. The main objective for today was to organise all of my files as much as possible, because I knew it would then help me in the future and save me a lot of precious time.

                                                                                                                                                                     Day 10 – today I wanted to focus on getting as much of the first scene done as possible. This is the main scene of the Murder Mystery because it involves all of the characters going on their breaks, and also includes the murder scene. I wanted to edit for pace as much as I could because I feel like that is what makes a good murder mystery, when the audience is on edge and there is a lot happening throughout the duration of the scene, therefore pulling the audience’s attention to other areas of action. Initially I tried to include as much of each characters breaks as possible, however I soon found out that I would be very far over the time limit so I needed to find another way of editing in order to reduce the time. I decided to go for a fast paced edit similar to the style of (SIMON PEG FILM) as it is very jumpy and includes fast cuts, however the audience knows exactly what has happened during the scene, it is just a faster way of showing it. I adapted to this style by cropping the clips down as much as possible and including the crucial parts only, meaning I would be reducing the duration of the scene and staying in the 3-minute time limit that the brief specifies. I chose a song with a punchy bassline so I could edit to the pace of the bass, creating a link between the editing transitions and the audio for the audience to enjoy. As you can see from the screenshot below, the length of the clips are significantly shorter as the music starts. This gives the impression of a montage which is exactly what I was aiming for. It creates pace and gives the audience something to enjoy.
                                                                                                                                                                  

                                                                                                                                                                Also, I have finished the montage at the point where the murder occurs, but more importantly I have matched the spikes in the audio of the music to the bang where the murderer slams the door (see screenshot below). I think this works very well to create tension because it resembles the fact that everything has come to a complete standstill, foreshadowing that the victim’s life is about to come to a standstill. I was happy with the amount of progress that I made today, as I managed to finish roughly half of the biggest scene in the film. Next lesson I will aim to finish the scene completely and move onto editing the next scene of our murder mystery.

                                                                                                                                                                   

                                                                                                                                                                   
Day 11  – today I wanted to finish the whole of this scene so I could move onto the next one and I am happy that I achieved this. Today I was focussing on the actual murder as it is the final part of this scene but arguably the most important. The entire purpose of a murder mystery film is for the murderer’s identity to be disclosed, so we had to make sure we didn’t include any of Kira’s clothes in the shot while she was committing the crime otherwise it would give away who it is. Unfortunately, while I was editing, I noticed that in one of the most crucial shots of the murder, you can see Kira’s clothes. This was a roadblock that I had to overcome so I decided to slightly crop the frame in order to remove the view of her outfit from the edge.

                                                                                                                                                                   

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Before                                                                                                        After                                                                                                                                                                                                    It was very important that I fixed this problem because there was a high chance that the audience would have notice it, then the whole plot of the film would’ve been ruined. 
Although this is the official murder of the film, I still have to edit for pace to keep the tension high and to stay within the time limit that the brief desires. There were too many clips that I needed to use, so I needed to find a way to keep the time short but also include all of the clips that I needed. To overcome this I decided to fade clips over the top of other clips. Essentially there were two clips playing at the same time, but the opacity of both of them was reduced, meaning both of them could be visible at the same time. I like how this turned out because it is quite abstract as there are two things happening on screen at once, not only does this build tension but it also heightens the audience’s senses, making them pay attention more and pulls them into the narrative.

I also added black screens which were synched with the heartbeats that I added. This was purely for pace and tension as it breaks the clips up puts the audience on edge once again.                                                                                                                                                                                                         

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

Finally, at the very end of the murder, Kira slams the victims head on the table to finish her victim off. During the filming process, she was struggling to push my head really fast to make it look like she had the intent of killing me. So in order to fix this and make it look and sound more realistic, I kept the clip the same however I sped it up and heightened the audio of the slam by 400%, making it look and sound much more aggressive like she had ill intention.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

 When I watched the edited scene back for the first time, I felt that the best way to finish it would be on a cliff hanger, because it is the pilot episode of the series and a murder has just happened. Therefore, if there is a cliff hanger the audience will want to come back to watch more episodes. I have made sure that the last line of the scene is where the teacher says “Shut the door, shut the fucking door”. This is a key sentence to end on and once again it builds suspense.  I have also added a ‘Fade to black’ at the end to add to the tension, and as it is a dark mood anyway so this links to more darkness in the future.

Day 12 – today I wanted to get the majority of the second scene finished as I would then be able to move onto the trailer and title sequence. I wanted this to be a much more timid and simple scene with much fewer cuts and transitions, therefore I have made the durations of the shots a bit longer, but tried to break up the stationary shots with either some movement or some shots that follow the 30-degree rule. This scene has much less action in it because it is an interrogation scene to find out who committed the murder. Because we knew it would have been rather boring if there were no differential shots in the scene, so we decided to include a flashback while the murderer explains her story. To symbolise it is a flashback, I have edited the clips to be black and white as this is the typical way in film to show that a particular event has happened in the past. I also decided to add a blur transition between the interrogation and the flashback because it looks like a warp effect, resembling a warp in time which is what the audience is currently experiencing while watching the flashback. While editing the flashback, I had to detach the audio of the flashback clips and delete them because they were not needed. Then I needed to detach the audio from the interrogation clips and lay them over the top of of the flashback clips. This allowed the audio of the interrogation to play whilst the flashback was being showed. I felt this was the best way to show the flashback because the murderer is talking about her while it is being displayed to the audience on screen.

I ran out of time to finish this scene in the hour and a half lesson that we had so I will need to finish and add the final touches to the scene in the next lesson. I am glad I finished most of this scene, especially the flashback because that is one of the main parts of this scene. In the next lesson I will need to add and crop the final two clips and then export the final file.

Day 13 – today I am aimed to finish the final scene and I am glad that I achieved it. I only faced one issue with the editing today and that was the fact that one of my files had corrupted for the final clip of the scene. It was a wide shot of all of the characters and then the teacher says the line “call the police”, which would conclude the scene. However, it would not allow me to open the file because an error message came up saying ‘Data for file not found’. This was very frustrating because it was the shot that I wanted to include, however it turned out to be a blessing in disguise because we filmed a close up shot of Jack saying the same line and I believe it works much better than the wide shot that I originally intended to use. This is because it adds much more suspense to the scene as it concludes the entire pilot episode with an ECU shot which creates a better mood. Overall I am happy with how the editing process turned out with this scene because I didn’t face any extreme issues. I backtracked on one of my decisions which turned out to be a better choice as I originally had music in the background of the interrogation however when watching it back for the first time, I felt like the music pulled the mood from the atmosphere as it was not as natural as just the noise in the room.

                                                                                                                                                                   
Day 14 – today I started to edit the trailer of the Murder mystery series. I have finished the two scenes so my next task is either the trailer or the title sequence. I decided to do the trailer first because it then means that I can make the title sequence out of key clips that need to be shown. Before I even started the editing process of the trailer I knew I wanted to use the song ‘Bellbottoms’ because it was used in the opening scene of Baby Driver and I really like how they edited for pace while using that particular song. In the song there are harsh beats throughout the instrumental, and I wanted to edit to these beats because it would increase the pace of the edit and make it much more enjoyable for the audience to watch, and ultimately it would make them want to come and watch the series. In order to edit to the beats, I needed to synchronise the cuts of the footage to the audio spikes in the sound file. This made all of the video files very short, at an average of 1.9 seconds each, and I actually really like how this looks because it is almost like every clip is a cliffhanger and to find out more, you need to watch the actual series. This is the sole purpose of a trailer so I believe this has worked perfectly for my trailer. As you can see from the screenshot below, the audio spikes are positioned where each cut is, making it a lot more ‘punchy’ to watch and it actually adds a bit more tension to the trailer.

                                                                                                                                                                       

 I also wanted to include title screens throughout the duration of the trailer because I felt that every successful has some form of visual narration on screen, so I wanted to include the same and see how it looked. I actually really like how it looked because not only did it break up the video clips, but it gave me a way to connect with the audience and almost talk to them, get them to think about what I want them to think about. Also, they fit perfectly into the quiet parts of the audio, so when there is no music distracting the audience, they are able to focus on the title screens. I have decided to keep the title screens short because one of my biggest hates in film trailers is when the title screens are too long, because I feel though it pulls the audience from what is happening on screen.

                                                                                                                                                                  The other major piece of editing that I did was that I detached the audio from all of the files included in the trailer. This is because I think the music does a good job of filling the trailer and there is no need for dialogue, because it would get lost in the music and it is not important for the audience to hear. All they need to see is the action on screen, the dialogue has potential to ruin the plot and it just isn’t necessary. So all I did to get rid of the audio was mute all of the clips, this way there would be no audio coming from the video files.

Day 15 – this was the final day of editing and I wanted to have the title sequence finished by the end of the day. I was able to achieve this because the title sequence is only 30 seconds long and I cannot make it too long because the brief specifies it can’t be longer than 30 seconds, also it will be annoying to watch a long intro at the start of every episode. I wanted to make this different to the trailer because if it was similar then it wouldn’t be as effective. To do this, I have included crucial parts of the episode to be shown but I have also made everything black and white. The reason why I have done this is to create a different art style, something that the audience would not usually see, and I also wanted to mix up how my editing looked, as my other edits have been linear. To make all of the clips black and white, I needed to highlight all of them and then reduce the colour to the minimum.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

I also decided to add a fade from black and a fade to black at the start and end of the title sequence, because I feel it starts and ends the intro in a much more professional way. I found that leaving it just coming to an end didn’t look very good because it would go from a clip, and then jump into a title screen. Using a fade to black makes it look like it has come to the end and it is the start of the actual episode. I also used the same technique that I used in the trailer and detached all of the audio and let the music take over. This is because all of the footage was in a non-chronological order, so if the audio was on it wouldn’t make sense to the audience. I also feel a title sequence should only be music anyway because it is a montage of what is going to be shown.

Overall, this was a trouble free editing experience as I did not run into any issues, I just needed to include a lot of trial and error in order to synch the audio spikes with the visuals, just like in the trailer.