Something else that we didn't do from the storyboard was the use of the tracking shots that we planned on doing. We didn't do these shots because of the fact that we didn't have a tripod to make the shots stable and professional looking, we were doing them handheld, which is very risky. What we did was we used a combination of different shots of Lucy's walking from and to different places from different angles. We did use a tracking shot though, when Lucy went into the bathroom and turned on the shower and then her phone rings, all of this was one continuous movement of the camera. We did a one-take shot which took several tries, but then we finally got it. Down below is this tracking shot that I mentioned above.
Now moving on to the editing portion of the film opening. I have been using iMovie for years and I am very comfortable using it since I know how to do everything. First of all, we had to place all of the clips in the correct order and then shorten the beginnings and ends of them in order for the video to be continuous. When Lucy was walking to the couch from one angle and then when it would switch to another angle, we had to make sure that the actions flowed. Then with the tracking shot we didn't have to worry about the continuity since it was taken all in one shot. But then, at the very end of the film opening, the clip where Lucy had her eyes closed and no makeup, and the other clip when Lucy suddenly has the veins drawn on and she opens her eyes and she has the red contacts on, needed to be precisely connected so that there wasn't a noticeable cut in between the two.
Next, this was by far, the hardest and most annoying part of the whole editing process. This was making the text messages pop up on the side of the video. Since we knew we were going to include the text conversation on the screen on this video, we made sure to use the rule of thirds to make sure that Lucy was to the left of the screen and leave an empty space on the right side where the text messages would be popping up. Since the start, we knew that we were going to use the application After Effects to make the text-message conversation appear on the screen. SO, both my partner and I signed up for the free trial and began playing around with it in order to make the conversation. After an EXTREMELY long time trying and trying, we realized that it was too hard to use this application. We thought it was over and we were getting scared. But then we thought of searching up on YouTube how to do use this complicated app, but we still had lots of difficulties. Thus, we decided to try a different way. We decided we would use a app on my phone called Fake Conversation in order to make the fake group chat. In this fake group chat I was able to add images to each name and name the group chat "Girliesss" with many feminine emojis at the end. I saved this screen recording and then layered it over the clip of Lucy texting. Then I placed the conversation to the right of the video to make sure that both of the sides were visible. Down below is the final product of the text message conversation.
Moving on to the music and sound effects. For all of the sounds that were made in the video, we remade those sounds and recorded them on my phone. For instance, the sound effects of Lucy typing, the typical iPhone SMS messages sound when they send or receive, the typical iPhone ringtones (Marimba), and the shower turning on. We recorded these sound effects ourselves by recreating them because it was more efficient than having to search online for royalty free sound effects and they might not even sound realistic. What we did is my partner would perform the action of the sound effect and I would record it. Such as, she would turn on the shower, or she would type on notes to get the texting sound we wanted. Then, we placed these sound effects in iMovie and aligned them perfectly with the part of the video the they needed to be in. The hard part about this was having to align every single message that was sent and received with their specific sound effect because they would go really quick and the alignment needed to be perfect. We muted out most of the real sound from the videos since the background noise would have been too loud and it would take away from the tension that the silence creates in horror films. The only video clip where we left the actual audio in is the part of the news broadcast because we wanted it to sound realistic. After rewatching our film opening over and over again, we knew that there was more potential for it. Yes, it sounded really spooky for the film to silent most of the time, but we felt that with some suspenseful background music, it could sound even better. We searched and searched online for royalty free suspenseful music, but there weren't any that we truly thought fit for our film opening. So, we heard some of the iMovie music and found the perfect one, it is called "Drone Dark Suspense 1" for the background music throughout the whole opening. The last sound effect that we added was at the very end when Lucy opened her eyes and became possessed. We used the sound effect "Creepy Transitions (152)" from the website https://www.soundsnap.com. Lastly, we added our title "The Call" to the end to the film opening. We left the sound effect of the shower until the title on purpose. This is because it leaves the audience with tension and wondering what happened to Lucy.
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