Final Editing Pt. 4

The final editing session for this opening sequence filled me with such a sense of relief. I finished the whole sequence, the sound effects and audio was synchronised properly, I reduced the 2:20 duration so that it so not far off from the 2 minute target. There was very little to do so I was able to take my time to do it.

I applied quite a number of sound effects to make the death of the protagonist seem slightly realistic considering there was a lack of blood. To insinuate what happened, I used a scream followed by ‘neck breaking’ and ‘chest cracking open’ to clarify what had happened. Obviously, I could not physically depict that so I placed the sound effects during the title shot to signify the climax of the sequence – or so the audience thinks.

Following this, added the shot of his limp corpse, sitting propped up against the door for a few moments before the antagonist rises from the bottom of the screen in an attempt to startle the audience further. I found a perfect sound effect (below) which really helps to build tension in that scene followed by a violent scream.

http://soundbible.com/162-Demons-Screaming-In-Hell.html

Final Editing Pt. 3

Fortunately, I was able to rectify my previous issue regarding the viewfinder simply by removing the clip, deleting it from the computer and then getting it back off of my memory stick and re-importing it and as a result, I was able to stick to the initial plans without having to worry any further about the viewfinder.

I also managed to find a good balance of lighting and contrast to darken each shot to the same levels during my previous session and so was able to prevent the lights inside being too bright hence retaining an eerie atmosphere. In this editing session, I went ahead and applied these filters and effects to all of the appropriate shots and so finishing all of the visuals of the opening sequence.

My next focus, having completed the visuals, was obviously to complete the audio. I watched and listened to the whole sequence and noticed that there were quite a few continuity issues regarding the audio; during the titles there were definite silences and during the footage, there was noise. Not ordinary noise, no one had necessarily been talking nor was there anything necessarily happening to produce noise, however it was not silent. So, to fill these voids of silence between titles, I looped whatever little background noise there was and extended the noise throughout the whole sequence thus solving a majority of the issues regarding audio continuity.

So far, my best editing session – the final production was really beginning to come together.

Final Editing Pt. 2

During the second editing session, I filled in all of the titles and all of the shots but two. Fortunately, I filled the target duration of 2 minutes and, to my surprise, surpassed it by 20 seconds which meant some shots were cut down slightly but luckily did not jeopardise the build up of tension.

Not only was I able to fill a bulk of the footage, I had time to begin experimenting with filters and lighting without the intent of saving my work, merely to work out how things should look and attempt to rectify the unfortunate mistakes discussed in my previous posts. My attempts were futile to say the least.

However, during my experimentation, I discovered that, in one of my shots, the viewfinder looks very different to that of the others. The image above illustrates the viewfinder which did not differ between shots, aside from the one shot (below) where the viewfinder takes a much thinner form for a reason which was unexplained. This left me concerned, wondering whether or not to scrap the idea of using view finders completely or only put them on shots from a different angle.

A successful editing session despite the glitch with the viewfinder which I intend to rectify during the next session.

Final Editing Pt. 1

During my first editing session, I realised that there were a couple of unfortunate mishaps which I am unable to help. The session itself went smoothly, no problems regarding ‘Final Cut Express’ nor was there any problems with footage. I was confident that this whole process would go smoothly; however, I noticed two big issues once I had reviewed the footage.

One of which being that once the camera angle had switched to being inside the house, there was quite clearly a shadow, casted against the door, of the tripod and camera. Obviously, this is clearly not a good example of lighting but fortunately, once the light is turned on, the shadow disappears completely.

Consequently, the second issue arises because the fishing line is made visible to the camera – a possible issue which I had highlighted in my mind when thinking up my initial ideas but soon disregarded with the idea that the fishing line would be thin enough and clear enough to not show up as visible on camera – an idea which was reinforced and left me reassured by the staff in the shop. They made a recommendation as to which fishing line I should by for the particular job.

Aside from these mishaps, the editing session was successful. I was able to edit a bulk of the editing at the start of the sequence and I managed to get a better idea of how my production will look, immediately realising how much better it would be in comparison to my first edit.

The Make-up Time-lapse

I decided to film a time-lapse of my actress doing her ghostly make-up in order to illustrate the significant transformation.

Filming The Final

In contrast to my previous experience regarding the filming for my first edit, fewer complications and challenges took place during the filming for the final production. The only real obstacle I experienced was my main actor pulling out due to a last minute family gathering in London. Fortunately, I was able to cast a new male actor very quickly. Aside from that, we had no mishaps.

Once the filming session commenced, I made sure to bare in mind what was said by the focus group and my peers about the varying the shot types throughout the sequence. I predominantly filmed from two main angles once we had gotten into the house. Also, I’d filmed from higher angles than the initial plan due to the nature of a ‘view-finder’ shot.

  

In terms of the props, I’d decided not to use a knife for the murder because my film is a supernatural horror – a genre which entails little being seen.

We were fortunate enough to be able to complete all of the filming in one session which was very convenient as finding another time to film would have been particularly difficult due to external matters.

 

The First Edit

I am very disappointed with this first edit although, it did not fall short of how I expected it to look as a result of the lack of footage.

There are a number of flaws with this first edit, the biggest being that it looks nothing like how I pictured it. My opening sequence was predominantly inspired by paranormal activities but there was no signs of any supernatural action taking place, there was no sense of storyline and the relationship between the characters was not conveyed properly. More of the flaws are as follows:

• The editing is too choppy and not continuous.
• The titles each last too long and are very boring to look at.
• The audio is not continuous, nor is there much of it – a lot of the shots consist of pure silence.

The final edit will definitely look extremely different as I intend to work on each of these elements.

Editing Pt. 2

I finished editing the remaining footage together during my day 2 of editing. Unfortunately, I was unable to obtain the rest of the footage that was required to fill the gaps so I was made to work with what little I had and, as you probably imagine, resulted in a poor final product. Each title had to be extended to 7 seconds to help try and meet the time requirement of 2 minutes. Consequently, a lot of the tension I am trying to simulate is simply being broken down and frankly, leading to a loss of interest because the titles are, near enough, between every single shot.

Simulating continuity techniques was also made difficult as a result of my lack of footage however, I was able to implement them all aside from the ‘eye-line match.’ In terms of audio, a majority of the film is silent as the audio is not suitable. Contrary to what I initially thought, the lack of sound does not actually disrupt the tension too much, maybe, for my final edit, I will use only natural sounds in order to convey a sense of tension.

As a result of my loss of footage, I had little chance to achieve my jump scare. In attempts to compromise, I edited a voice over of the male actor screaming in horror as he’s being brutally murdered into the title shot of the film. A few moments pass before this is heard, similar to how I wanted my initial idea to look. Having edited in the voice over, I finally finished my editing and had a complete first edit.

Editing Pt. 1

Day 1 of editing commences. Already slightly behind schedule, I utilise my free periods to catch up on the editing so I don’t fall behind. On the night of filming, I made sure to transfer all my footage from an SD card and from my phone onto one memory stick so that it was easier to upload them at school. However, half of my footage appeared to be missing so I have to make do with what footage I have until the next editing session by which point I will have hopefully recovered the footage.

During my first editing session, I realised that there will be far too many silences and not enough ambient sound throughout the opening sequence as a whole. There was no rain, we could not simulate rain and as a result, there were no rain sound effects incorporated in the film. Background rain made up a bulk of the ambient sound which helps to convey an eerie atmosphere in my opening sequence and, as you can imagine, not having that sound will, more likely than not, spoil my opening sequence.

Aside from these slight mishaps, the editing itself ran smoothly; thankfully, ‘final cut express’ did not present any issues. I got the bulk of the footage placed into sequence and it is slowly forming to look similar to the image in my head. I do think, however, that the dialogue could have been clearer and the acting could have been performed better.

Filming Pt. 1

So, initially, I’d intended to film on Wednesday, 26th November and, since I have so few shots, I would have been able to finish filming in the one session. However, I was told on the day of filming that the house in which the opening sequence is set, would not be available to film in. Consequently, I forced to rearrange the filming date to a week later as well as arrange a new location and as a knock-on effect of the new date, the person who was originally cast to play the role of the antagonist was not available to film. Obviously, this meant that I needed a new actress which was easy enough.

A lot went wrong during the filming process; three separate SD cards ‘locked’ halfway through the filming session and, despite being fully charged throughout the day, the camera had also cut out midway through filming which resulted in me having to use my iPhone to film the rest of the footage. There were also time restrictions which meant that we had to rush the filming as the location would not have been available again for a number of weeks past the deadline of the first edit of the sequence.

It was also bought to my attention, by my actors, that it would make more sense to use a knife as a prop as opposed the death being caused by nothing but a mere stare.

Some shots had to be cut out due to us being pushed for time as well as the fact that some of the scenes depicted made my actors uncomfortable e.g. where the actress has to lean in for a kiss and others where flirting had to take place.

In spite of all these challenges that took place, some positives had risen. For example, the shot of the chair rolling across the room was replaced with a horse rocking backward and forward which, I believe, had much more of an eerie effect on the film as well as being quite a conventional event to occur in a horror film. We’d also managed to film enough footage to fill the time requirement and should hopefully allow me to create a good first edit.

I will, however, re-film every shot to greatly improve my film during the Christmas holidays, hopefully following my initial plan in terms of location and actors used.