Group: Wilderness Woods Short

• To start with, we had a huge number of still establishing shots to set the location of our plot, and provide exposition at some points. We had to carefully select the best clips to use in our opening montage, and Mishaal used After Effects to edit in a dead body and a blood stain in one shot, which created a sense of threat, and constructed meaning when the main protagonist was revealed with blood on his face, denoting that he had murdered someone.
• Early on in the filming process I had come up with the idea of sudden blackout edits being used during the final scene in which the protagonist is shot, as they would add to the tension and visceral pleasure of the scene, and also be a stylistic feature. Although in practice this wasn't as effective as I'd have liked it to be, it still definitely had a positive effect on the scene and broke up the regularity of the edits.
• The whole piece was edited in continuity, which meant we had to consider this even when shooting. Whilst the plot was basic, we attempted to present it in as much depth as we could, which meant shooting and editing to create meaning. An example of this is the gunshot sound effects we added in post production that denoted how the protagonist was being chased by a violent antagonist.
• The idea of the protagonist having murdered someone also gave him the denotation of being an antihero, something conventional of thriller films.
• From the start of our production process, one of our biggest inspirations was the Kill Bill series, an icon of violent revenge thrillers, and we wanted to pay homage to the opening of Volume 1 with the black and white vignette style and the high angle shot of the vulnerable, blood-stained character on the ground. (This also involved a lot of intense acting skill on my [Taran's] part.)
• Mishaal took it upon himself to colour grade the footage, enhancing the colours of the woody area such as the greens and browns, but also emphasising the red of the blood to further highlight it to the audience, and connote its importance in constructing meaning.
• The monochrome edit that falls over the footage after the protagonist's shooting scene was a stylistic decision on both our parts, which was intended both to be a part of our homage to Tarantino, but in the end turned out to be effective throughout that whole scene in terms of tension and giving the scene a gritty spectacle. We also discovered that the blood looked far more realistic and intense in the black and white filter.