Possible main movie titles

When it came to deciding the main movie titles, I wanted something original and non-cliche. Many period dramas use the protagonist's name as the main title,  however I didn't want to completely follow the codes and conventions. I looked at some titles for inspiration which can be seen below:

Eventually, I put together a list of english titles together but none of them felt right:

The Hunt

The Witch Hunt

The Irish Witch

The Islandmagee Witches

The Islandmagee Witch Trials

Therefore, I decided to go with something more in-keeping with the Irish theme by using gaelic to present our titles, much like the polish titling in Joan Mother of Angels. Below are a few of the possible main titles:

an Hunt

An Hunt Cailleach An Cailleach na hÉireann Na Witches Islandmagee Na Trialacha Cailleach Islandmagee

Eventually, we decided to go with the following which is a variation of "The Witch Hunt" in Irish:

Redraft: Recce

Changes in Location:

After the first round of filming failed because of location issues, we had to find a new one. The issue with the previous (Bangor Abbey) was that it was so far out of reach for us, that by the time we got there it would be dark and/or the camera batteries would've died. However, we still wanted somewhere similar to this and therefore we chose the Lagan Meadow. This provided huge areas of forestry for us and was only five minutes away from my home, meaning it was very easily accessible.
Below are pictures of the new location:

Creating the Props:

The letter: The letter was originally just an A4 piece of paper which I stained with a tea bag, crumbled up and burnt at the edges to give it an old and worn effect. I then sealed the end by burning a red candle, pouring it on and sealing it with a ring. The letter gave details of the conviction, however one issue that we encountered was that when the sun hit the letter, the camera didn't pick up the letters.
The letter is vital in the opening sequence and creates enigma, as the protagonist is clearly upset at it but we don't know why.

The Burning stick:
For this, we simply got a wooden stick from off a tree and then rapped it in a cloth material. We then had to douse the material in lighter fluid as the vodka didn't work. We used safety matches to light it and had the camera at ready because we knew that we only had limited time to shoot this scene. We ended up having two takes by the time we had finished. The first failed due to continuity errors, there was graffiti in the background of one of the shots, which obviously would not correlate with the codes and conventions of the period drama.

Sound

Sound design and mixing:

After all of the sounds were recorded, they were imported onto final cut pro and had to be placed in sync with each piece of film. This meant that there were a lot of tracks and I had to take it one at a time. I started out with the atmospheric sounds, fadein them in after the final ident. Then I did the foley on top of this. Various sounds were added such as the crow at the beginning and the burning of the stick. These came from an SFX Library (Incompetech) built within the editing software.

style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> One of the hardest parts of the sound design was creating a juxtaposition in environments. The forest sounded different to the shots with the antagonist, obviously as he was burning a stick for one but more importantly because the shots were taken beside a river. Therefore, we had to wild track this river.
Faders had to be added in to make the sounds more natural in parallel with the video. The process for this is below:
 1) Select track name:

Take down the volume of the original track to 0 Decibels.

 2) Select Modify > Add keyframe

3) Fix the keyframes:

Wild Track:

As we were filming outside on an SLR camera, with no access to mic and booms, a lot of the original footage was unusable as when the wind hit the mic, the sound distorted. Therefore, a lot of the sound had to come from wild tracks that were taken after the original film. The definition for this is below:

We wild tracked Emer's crying and also the atmospheric forest sounds. This was done to make everything sound more natural and the tracks could be synced up alongside the film.

Foley:

Emer's footsteps as she ran through the forest didn't pick up well on the camera's internal mic and therefore, had to be recreated in a recording studio. We set up a plastic bag with hard leaves and paper and then used a sure SM57 dynamic mic plugged into cubase. We mixed and mastered the track and then imported it to Final Cut Pro, our editing software.
The definition of foley is below and here is a picture of how we produced the sound and the link to the track also:

Soundtrack:

The soundtrack showed that our main protagonist's life may possibly be coming to an end. Our soundtrack was recorded on Garageband with a midi keyboard which, as a result, caused the soundtrack to sound very professional. Our group did the best we could to make it sound original and make the music fit the opening sequence. The kick drum helped to emphasise the urgency and state of panic as well as the violence that could potentially occur. It helped to make the clips with the fire seem truly terrifying and the audience would therefore feel fear for our main protagonist and her safety.
A brief musical analysis:

We started off recording lower strings, playing within the scale of D minor our track is in 4/4 and we basically played semibreve notes through out.
We then started recording the higher strings playing mostly D Db and C. These chromaticism's help to build tension in our track so we started the higher strings around 15 seconds after the lower strings started in order to build the texture of our soundtrack.
The tracks sounded slightly bare so I dropped the midi keyboard by an octave and added a drone from the start to the end of the track, I added a D drone in order to bulk out the track a bit more and to  create the atmosphere that we wanted the film to have.
Finally I decided to add a kick drum every 4 beats in order to build the tension of the witch hunt and I really like the stereotypical 'kill the witch' type soundtrack so I really liked the drums.
A similar sound track to this is Jane Eyre (2011) so we worked off of inspiration from this soundtrack.
Below are screenshots of the recording process and the links to our final product on soundcloud:

Titling

In order to get an accurate feel for what titles would look authentic alongside our film, we had to look at the codes and conventions of titling for period dramas. One thing we found that all period dramas had in common was that often, the titles are in white font against a black background. This is slick and formal. As well as looking at the various styles associated with titling, we also decided to look at the running order for all of the titles. Before adding our own titles in the editing stage, we made a rough plan of what order they should be in and where exactly they should be in connection with the shot.
This can be seen below:

1. Idents: Film 4, Irish Film Board, UK Film council, Bronze age films
2. A film4 production
3. In association with Irish Film Board, Uk Film Council, Bronze age films
4. Starring Emer O’Kane
5. guest starring Andrew Murray
6. Directed by Ellie Wildman
7. Produced by Caoimhe Beare
8. Cinematography by Eimear McCann and Charlie Beare
9. Sound design by Ellie Wildman
10. Original Score by Eimear McCann
11. Editing by Ellie Wildman
12. Production design by Dan Miskimmon
13. Main movie titles

Here are all of our titles:

Whilst we followed the typical codes and conventions for titling period dramas by having our titles positioned around the film in white font. However, we wanted to have our own edge on the film, therefore we added the 'feature' effect on editor so that each letter would fade in. I felt like this would give it an eerie effect which was in parallel with the tone I was trying to create. As well as this, I transitioned the main movie titles into negative, to create something new and atmospheric.

Below are the title sequences of my five films that I analysed for inspiration:

1) Mother Joan of Angels:

The text was in white and the titling came at the start of the movie. The language was in Polish as that is where the movie was made. We followed this to a degree with our main movie title, which is in Irish, adding to the description of our film. The text came over the film, however the movie is in black and white and so the movie still stood out.

2) The New World:

The start of this movie is purely film as though an introduction of some sort and then there is a small animatic section where the soundtrack also starts, this is where the titles are shown, beginning with the main movie titles. The font is standard and in white.

3) The Young Victoria:

The opening to this film has a short introductory section and then the titles are shown in medium, white font.

4) Jane Eyre:

Unlike the other films the font in Jane Eyre is gold like fading embers. It fades in and out lightly much like the soundtracking, creating an overall tone and mood for the film.

5) The Duchess:

The titles for this film wipe in from the right of the screen and the font is medium white ground on a black background. However, the main movie title is in white and shows alongside the film.

Redraft: Risk assesment

The final risk assessment has been changed to suit the new and definitive location; The Lagan Meadows. I had to take everything into account, from costume to landscape. As well as what has been displayed below, we will have a phone with a list of emergency contacts just in case anything was to happen. As well as this, we will carry a standard first aid kit with plasters, antiseptic and bandages.

Redraft: timetable/ schedule

Obviously a new timetable had to be set in place as we had to find a new location due to the complications that we found. We needed to set back everything a week to allow us time for filming. As well as this, we had to find all new roles and some more props. e.g. The torch stick with lighting fluid all had to be taken into account. Below is a copy of our new timetable and our new schedule:

Schedule for day of shooting:
9:00 - Pick up and travel to location
10:00 - on location
11:00 - Ready for shooting. Camera and sound set up. Actor in costume. Risk assessments taken place
12:00 - 14:00 - Actual Filming
14:00 - Look through footage
14:30 - Re-film any adjustments that are needed

Schedule for editing:
Week beginning...
Monday 23rd March: Uploading the video contents from the camera onto the computer. Begin by deciphering which shots will be used and then blading them down to keep them within the two minute guideline. By the end of the week we hope to have a skeletal film with all of the colour balance and stabilisation done.

Monday 30th March: Work on sound design and mixing. Any soundtracking that needs to be done will be sampled through a midi keyboard onto 'Garageband'. Any Foley and/or wild tracks that need to be rerecorded will be done through dynamic and condenser mice with cubase. I will then add faders and blade each audio track until it fits alongside the film.

Monday 6th April: Titling of cast and crew and also, the main title will be added now, along with any other effects and changes/ final adjustments to be made.