Research.

Whilst I'm waiting for help with this hard drive, I've decided to do a little research on the films that are inspiring my own.

I will begin with The Blair Witch Project. I'm using this film for inspiration because of the use of handheld shots throughout the film, as it makes it look like the film is captured by a character as opposed to an actor or somebody operating a camera.

Filming began in October 1997 and went for eight days. Most of the movie was filmed in tiny Seneca Creek State Park in Montgomery County, Maryland, although a few scenes were filmed in the real town of Burkittsville. Some of the townspeople interviewed in the film were not actors, and some were planted actors, unknown to the main cast. Donahue had never operated a camera before, and spent two days in a "crash course". Donahue said she modeled her character after a director she once worked with, citing the character's self assuredness when everything went as planned, and confusion during crisis.

During filming, the actors were given clues as to their next location through messages given in milk crates found with Global Positioning Satellite systems. They were given individual instructions that they would use to help improvise the action of the day. The directors rationed the food of the cast, causing Donahue to suffer eczema outbreaks as filming progressed. Teeth were obtained from a Maryland dentist for use as human remains in the film. Influenced by producer Gregg Hale's memories of his military training, in which "enemy soldiers" would hunt a trainee through wild terrain for three days, the directors moved the characters far during the day, harassing them by night and depriving them of food. No legal actions were ever taken against the director or the film crew.

Almost 19 hours of usable footage was recorded which had to be edited down to 90 minutes. The editing in post production took more than eight months. Originally it was hoped that the movie would make it on to cable television, and the filmmakers did not anticipate wide release. The initial investment by the three University of Central Florida filmmakers was about US$35,000. Artisan acquired the film for US$1.1 million but spent US$25 million to market it. The actors signed a "small" agreement to receive some of the profits from the film's release.

^{[Taken from Wikipedia]}

Hmm

The idea of today was to spent a couple of hours editing my footage in iMovie, to eventually be able to put something onto YouTube for feedback.
However I'm currently having problems with a hard drive, so this action has been suspended for now..

iMovie

I've started putting different pieces of footage together using the program iMovie. I toyed with using sound effects on top of the footage to see what I could create. It doesn't look brilliant just yet, but I needed some time to play around and get used to the program. My next step will be to create a YouTube channel so I can upload some prototypes I have created and hopefully gain some feedback from others.

Putting my skills to the test..

Yesterday I visited the shore near me to capture some footage for the trailer. I will probably only use these ones as establishing shots but I need to practice editing footage. So this is what I'm going to be doing today.
I wish I could have gotten some more filming done but it was very windy and raining heavily! I will have to make a few more trips back there, at least it isn't far.

The Plot.

I've had a few ideas about the plot for the trailer. I'm pretty set on the locations, involving Gundymore wood by the South Downs college and a shore near by where I live, so I've built the plot around these places.
I want to use a lot of handheld camera shots to go for that Blair Witch/Cloverfield style and it adds to the realism.

Okay so the plot isn't 100% just yet but it will involve several friends around 18/19, taking a trip to the beach to go camping. The film will be shot as if they are filming the whole trip on their own camera, thus they will capture something on their camera which will cause them all to panic.
I'm trying to think of what that something could be at the moment!

Plan B in action..

What with my recent setback of not being able to get any footage abroad, I've had to think locally. I've decided to use a nearby shore as one of my locations, as I think this area, teamed with the current weather conditions, could create something quite dark and hopefully even a little scary.
The main problem I'm having is trying to think up a decent storyline to go with what I have available. I'm limited with people to use in the trailer, and they are mainly all in the same age bracket.

A few 'minor' set-backs..

I'm back from a holiday in Turkey but I've found myself very behind with my work after a few set-backs. Firstly, having left my camera at home when I'd planned to get as much footage abroad as possible, and secondly due to becoming ill earlier last week.
Now I have a lot of work to catch up on, and will have to think of a Plan B for new footage, as I had intended on capturing footage of the plane and different locations in Turkey, as they would have been very different to what I would find at home.

S.