Editing: Day 13

This week is going to be dedicated to tidying up loose ends and getting as close to perfect as we can with this piece of coursework.

Today we managed to fix the ambient sound problems that we had with our previous draft of the film, and now the difference in background sound between shots is practically unnoticeable. We have also sorted out the opening credits and adjusted the font, positioning and timings of them. We just need this weekend in order to shoot some more footage for the ending of our film and then all of the suggestions that we received during our feedback session will have been addressed.

Feedback

Today we were given our class feedback after everybody had watched our film opening and we gave feedback to others. The mistakes in our film that others spotted we’re things that we otherwise would not have picked up ourselves, so this is a chance for us to really neaten up any loose ends.

We were given a list of improvements that could be made to our film opening that we are definitely going to take on board and set right:

1. We have to make the background noise sound the same through each shot in the film, where appropriate.
2. We need to completely remodel the titles – change the font, the duration, the positioning in the film.
3. We need to find a way to make the ending of our film less abrupt.
4. We need to hold focus on the dead body for longer, in order to give viewers a chance to see that the person is dead.
5. We need to change the actor of the dead girl (she doesn’t look dead).
6. We need to change the ending of the film, so that the narrative is obvious.

All of these are changes which can be quite easily made, apart from the last one. For the ending we have decided to re-film it all and to have the main actor being arrested, so that the storyline is more obvious. Other than that, we’re done, but we still have a fair bit of work left to do!

Editing: Day 12

This is the last day of editing before our first screening on Monday, so I’ve just been making sure that the narrative makes sense and I’ve added in some temporary titles while Coupy is off ill, since our first draft of the film:

I’m glad to say that a lot has changed since then and that our film is now close to being finished.

Editing: Day 11

I spent yesterday adding the final touches to my ‘Doodle Dog’ and the lettering that is going to be animated. Yesterday consisted of taking pictures of the Doodle Dog, with each individual letter added one shot at a time in order to create the effect of them appearing on screen. I got these images onto the Mac and began editing the times for which the letters were on screen, on FinalCut, so that they would appear to be animated. After this, I added a clicking sound when each letter appeared, almost to give the effect that the word was being typed out, with a bark at the end of the ident.

Editing: Day 9

So I’ve decided to scrap the ‘Jack & Jill Productions’ idea because to be honest, it looked rubbish and I’ve had a strike of inspiration. My new idea is ‘Doodle Dog Productions’ and its going to be bigger and better than ever. I’ve spent today drawing up my image, so that I can start sorting out the text tomorrow.

Editing: Day 8

Ident planning began today and it took me a fairly long time to even come up with an idea to start with (creative block, I think it’s called). But once I got my first idea down on paper, ‘Jack & Jill Productions’, the process of working on it from there became easier. At first I wanted a boy and a girl to be stood next to a well as my image idea, but later realised that this would be too complex for me to create. So I then decided upon just having the wishing well with the text underneath. I started by taking this image and stencilling it onto Motion so I could then add text.

Ident Research

When it comes to the ident, we’re trying to keep things simple, and I thought this video shows perfectly how simple yet effective an ident can be:

From this, I can see that my best bet will be to focus on making the text for my ident interesting, and to keep the background or image simple and possibly motionless. However, when I looked around for idents followed by a film in the crime genre, I found this:

This showed me that sound is also important and that I would think about what sounds I would need to consider for my own ident.

Coupy and I decided that it would be time efficient for us to do one ident each, with one separate idea each, this will allow for us to get a bit creative and do some individual work on our project.

Editing: Day 7

We’ve finally managed to get all of the colour correction sorted, although we might have to make a few adjustments once we’ve had some feedback from people others. We also decided that today was a good time to start looking into some ident research so that we could get an idea of what we wanted ours to look like, so I plan to start doing some research at home tonight. Obviously we’re going to want some pretty simple ident ideas that we can make using the programmes that we have at school, so nothing too fancy, but hopefully they will look professional as possible none the less.

Editing: Day 6

Most of today’s lesson was spent playing with the colours in our film and mostly just learning how to use the colour adjustment tools. By the end of the lesson we had matched up a few slides so that the colours looked the same throughout, but we still have a lot more to do, due to changing light conditions whilst filming. It was also noticed today that our final few shots didn’t have the sound quality we were hoping for because of the wind whilst filming, so our plan is to re-record the voices of the actors in a quiet room and put that sound in over the top of the original recording.

Editing: Day 5

Well, over the weekend, Coupy and I managed to get all of the shots for the section in the house re-filmed that needed doing. Phew! That’s a weight off of our shoulders! We spent today’s lesson matching up these clips with the gaps in our film opening so far, and adjusting the length of clips we already had in order to make allowances for the new ones. Overall, our film is starting to look a lot better!