I think it's fair to say, we all found it extremely annoying working with a tape during our Prelim task, and having it cut off random parts of our footage. This time round, we had to convert the files from their raw canon format so that we could work with them in Final cut without having to render all the time. This definitely saved us time and effort compared to if we would've worked with the old non professional cameras.
Editing Session 1
This session mainly consisted of getting a skeleton draft of our opening and importing footage. First we imported all the shots we had available so we had a variety to work with and renamed them also. Before we made any big decisions it was important to us to get everything in the correct order according to what we had planned in the story board. I think we felt confident with the footage we had, for the reason that we took as much as possible to ensure we wouldn't have to return. Whilst this was an option,financially it would be difficult considering we'd already paid a significant sum of money to get as far as we had done. By the end of this session we pretty much had everything in order. I think we started considering the role of sound at this stage, realising we would have to download and insert the appropriate diagetic train sounds later. After we got everything in order we then started to edit the sequence so it would fit in the time frame and think about the pace.
Editing Session 2
During this session we really started to think about the flow of shots in general and spent a little time cutting the sequence down even more. We all started to discuss the role of sound in our movie a little more in depth this time round. Playing through the sequence constantly we thought about what diagetic sounds we wanted and what kind of music we heard. I made a separate post on this previously, discussing how we came upon the artist "Moby" who produces music for non-profit film makers. We complied a list of possible songs that we thought would fit the mood of our film and I applied for a permit to download the songs the next day. Our group also downloaded some background underground sounds to apply to our film which we felt were needed. Listening it through the contrast of the sound we managed to capture to the lack of sound was just too drastic and we decided we'd need to download some diagetic sound to add in. In addition to this we started to think about credits and production companies. Our group created a VKLC Productions logo which we used in the initial seconds of our film.
Editing Session 3
I think we managed to get a lot done during this session in terms of decision making. We debated a little bit on where the music should begin and what to do with it, but I thought it would maybe be a good idea to insert all the sound tracks we had and then figure out what sounded out of place and what should be taken out, so we decided on keeping the track running throughout for the time being. The titles are another thing we decided upon. From the very initial meetings, we had a vision of incorporating titles into the scenery of our shots, this is called the "Fringe effect". However when we looked up the tutorial that showed us the end result, I think we all agreed is was a little too much for our film opening. In our heads, we probably had something that drew less attention to itself, and we wanted the audience to be focused on what was occurring in the scene rather than be distracted by the overly flamboyant titles. Most people in our group also agreed is looked slightly too cliché for our film, which was something we were desperately trying to avoid. We inserted the official title at the very end of our sequence also. Just as the rest of the credits, the title served the purpose of communicating and setting the mood of the film as well as establishing the title through the choice of font, size and positioning. Due to the fact that we were going for something more dramatic, we opted to have it centre screen in a generic temporary font, before we decided officially. Keeley had also created a voice over draft which we cut up line by line and inserted to fit our sequence. She helpfully recorded the track with breaks in between each line so that we had the choice of cutting up the track and reordering things if necessary. In the end we took out the line "Is that even possible? I ask myself everyday" because we thought it was simply not needed or vital to the script. We had planned to rerecord this track to tweak certain emphasis on words and the pace, but in the end decided this was also not necessary.
Editing Session 4 + Session 5
We mostly perfected the sound during these two sessions as we were still having problems with a couple things. A sound build up was added as we initially planned, which we had to tweak slightly in terms of positioning this track to correspond with the music which we had to cut back a bit. We also adjusted the sound levels to make the voice over heard over the two layers of diagetic and non-diagetic sound, and heightened some of the diagetic sound we had in our sequence. The typography was also decided upon. I have made a separate post on this previously also explaining our decision process and the representation behind the choice of font. Towards the end of the sessions we discovered how to animate our titles. As this was something that we didn't plan on incorporating in our story board we kept the effect fairly simple but effective. I didn't think it looked visually appealing enough having the plain fade-in fade-out effect applied which is what we had before. We quickly discovered the tracking and leading controls on each slug that allowed simple effects to be applied. The credits still faded in and out but this time spreading out as they faded away. This provided the equilibrium we were looking for: something simple enough not to draw attention away from the events occurring but interesting enough that manages to uphold the attention of the audience watching.
Editing Session 6
This was the session where we all began to feel the pressure with the deadline just around the corner. A vital decision we made was moving the title to an earlier point in our sequence to reduce it's trailer appearance. We picked a shot which wasn't too "busy" and kept the title central to make it obvious to the viewers this was the title of the film. Additionally the font was increased in size and spaces were added between the letters for layout and emphasis purposes. We also agreed on keeping the soundtrack running through the entire film only starting a little later than originally. Our diagetic sounds start with the production logo to enhance the verisimilitude. When discussing this we all thought that a movie felt so much more real and you became quickly absorbed when the diagetic sounds started with the production company titles rather than having the leitmotif. Also we added an aspect ratio and colour graded our film to enhance its cinematic appearance and as a result increase is visual appeal to our audience. Firstly came the aspect ratio which was the common use of 2:35:1. This created a wide screen effect, however altered some of the framing of some of our shots which we couldn't figure out how to alter due to the small amount of time available to us- we did however change the framing of some of the credits. Once we moved on to the colour grading aspect we experimented a little to get the hang of where everything was and how it works. In the end we opted for a bluey-yellow filter. This brought out the best in the natural lighting, enriching the colour and evoking a cinematic feel. Despite the fact that a convention of colour in action films was a sepia/yellow tone we wanted to combine the coldness of the blur hue supporting our theme of isolation yet again.
Editing Session 7
...we exported our film and uploaded it to youtube. Fin.
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