Wrapping it up

We have finally finished our project. It was quite challenging since this, unlike our other class assignments, was a pretty big deal. Every aspect of this project took up a lot of our time but luckily we managed to stay within the time we were given to complete this. The idea itself took its time. Even though it had the typical "kidnapped" scene, we wanted to create a story that was quite different and unpredictable and discussed how we could add a twist to this plot.

 Pre-production to post-production

After spending quite some time brainstorming, we decided to base this plot on a naive teenager who ends up on the dark and gruesome side of the Internet and ends up dealing with the wrong person who later on would kidnap the teen due to many reasons (which we decided to slightly base our flashbacks on).

We watched a few youtube videos  based on the dark web. The links are given below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYc3P1xctzI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Vb9gxrjmm0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HG2VVIOKno


The interesting thing about choosing this topic is that it is quite real and based on real events. The dark web does actually exist and people have made videos and posted stories of their own personal experiences on various social media platforms. This helped me to come up with new ideas which could be slightly close to these experiences that people actually had, but still would be original. Also I personally was and still am fascinated by the deep hidden parts of the internet and mentioned how fun it would be to actually make an opening scene based on this.

I personally gained alot of experience from this project, as a script writer and as a director. Other than brainstorming and creating a script, I also got to direct it and put it into action. The scripting and storyboarding wasn't that hard, as I got to work on an idea I personally liked. Getting the place and actors ready for the shoot wasn't that hard either, as I had the locations sorted beforehand and had enough makeup to make our actor look as miserable and injured as possible! We didn't need many props, but the few that we did need were provided by our editor and producer. The slightly challenging part in the pre-production process was working according to our actors schedules. That did effect our timeframe and planning a little, but we managed.  The most challenging part was editing our footage and luckily I got to work with someone who was willing to accept any challenge and did his best to make it happen. We knew from the start that editing will be quite challenging for this idea, so me and the editor managed our time according to that. He agreed to meet with me as much as possible to perfect our film opening, whether it was on Skype or my place. Overall, everything well and it was a great learning experience.

Behind the scenes

 

 Mursal Junaid Rehman  Playing our "victim".

                                                                            Osama Saeed Jahangir  Playing our "torturer"

  

                                                          Me doing our actors makeup

Our actors enjoying their roles

   A not so good shot of me directing..and our actor bored out of his mind.

                                        Right before we spilled fake blood all over his shirt

   Snapchat promotion

                                     

                                        

                                           

                                                    

Editing (part 2)

We have edited our main footage, colour graded and added our sound. Since our project required alot of editing, we also had to use aftereffects. Below our some screenshots showing that with some detail underneath each.

                                                         

"Timeline productions"
The name of our production company...in progress.

"Black Hat"
The title for our opening scene.

Film Credits in progress

                         

Adding our credits to our footage.

 We were now left with a perfectly edited video with no sound whatsoever. (which later turned out to be quite challenging...something we didn't expect). We decided to use an external software called "filmstro" for the soundtrack.

 

Composing music in Filmstro.

   DONE. 

Finally done!