The Editing Process 2 - 12/12/11

This is our final week to finish our 2 minute film opening of 'Necrophobia' and we are both confident that we're going to be able to do this by Wednesday's lesson, or if not the end of the week. We had 2 hours of Media Studies lesson time this morning to get some more editing done using the Final Cut programme at school, and in todays lessons we:

• Focussed on the sound of the scenes - this meant we had to insert some more audio clips and change a few around depending on what they sounded like
• Added all of our titles - we inserted them to the right scenes, referring back to our storyboard, and we had to edit the black background so that it was slightly blurred and the white writing stood out against the scene
• Cut some more scenes - every new lesson we always watch through what we did in the previous lessons, not only to refresh our memories, but so that we have a clear mind so we can pick up any mistakes or parts we need to change. In this case, we needed to cut some of the audio and timing from some scenes
• Video transitions - we were mainly using 'cross dissolve' and 'fading' techniques in our film opening, due the whole mysterious and scary edge that we want our film to create
• Classmate feedback - in todays lesson we did allow some of our classmates, including our teachers, to watch our product so far to see what they thought of it. I think our teachers enjoyed it, and were able to give some critical feedback for us to work on, which we did straight away. I also think our classmates enjoyed the product we had so far, and some of the comments we recieved were that it was 'really well put together' 'really scary' and 'excited to see the finished version'. I think it was good for us to allow other people to watch back over what we had done so far, as we always welcome honest opinions and we can learn and expand from other people's views

This was most of what we accomplished in todays Media lessons, plus the 2 hours that we stayed behind afterwards. Tomorrow we have no lessons, but we are going to spend 1 hour of our free time working on it again, putting the final pieces of music into place and the last credit we need. At the moment, everything is going according to plan and we are mostly on top of everything that we need to be.

Week 11 Action Plan

This is our final week, which means it's our last chance to do everything we want, which is:

• Continue editing - we are going to add credits, add background music, add sound effects, change lighting, and keep changing/re-creating parts so that it all looks good together
• Start on our evaluation - which we are going to meet up and continue with over the Christmas break

The Editing Process - 7/12/11

In Monday's lessons we:

• Managed to convert all of our movie scenes from Laura's camera into the school system, which did take quite a while, but once we were finished, we put them all into the system Final Cut ready to start
• Our next task was to go through the hundreds of filming shots we had taken and pick out the best ones and remove the ones we weren't using. This meant we had to watch every single clip at least twice to figure out whether it was perfect or wrong in some way
• We then had to go through all of the clips and, referring back to our storyboard and script, we had to cut down some scenes so that they fit the timing that we needed and cut out some unneccesary moments before and after each scene (e.g. us couting in the timing, the actors remaining still, etc)
• After we had gone through every single clip and editted them individually, we put them all together in Final Cut so that we could play them all through and see how it looked running one after another
• After, we had to insert our own clip of the productions company that we created, which was 'Legend Productions', and also our chosen institution, which was 'Twisted Pictures'.

This was all that we completed on Monday as we did spend most of our time trying to convert the files from Laura's camera into the computer, and this was because we used Laura's own camera instead of the school's and the computer wasn't familiar with these types of clips.

In todays Media lessons we:

• Familiarised ourselves with what we had achieved in the last lessons by watching the whole project through to see what it's like so far, and if we missed anything on monday
• Made an aim for the lesson, which was to focus on the audio of the clips and try and put in as many sound effects and background music that we can in the 2 hours - this meant we used our songs we had created on the software Garage Band and the clips we had converted from Youtube too.
• Once we had done this, we focused on the audio of our own created insitution which is 'Legend Productions' and for this we had made a song using Garage Band to fit the 6 seconds that we had planned it for
• After we had put the audio in for the 'Legend Productions' clip, we had to edit the clip itself so that it zoomed out from the actual words into the snowy, mountainous surroundings. At first we didn't know how to do this, so we asked our media teacher for some help on where we should look, and we soon had the clip working with it zooming out from exactly where we had wanted it
• We then had to go through some of the clips we had noticed had audio which wasn't wanted, and we had to delete some of the background noise that was overheard (e.g. some cars, footsteps that we didnt want). We did this by simply unlooping the audio from the video, and then deleting it.
• Our final action of the lessons was that we were going to convert them all into the 'black and white' imagery that we had decided on, so that it looks like it's being set in the past. We did this by 'desaturating' all of our clips, and we played it through all together to make sure it looked just as good in black and white, which it did!

As I said before, we are going to be using our 2 hours of spare time tomorrow to continue with this, and we're going to go through the whole opening and see if we need to cut any clips to make them even sharper, then go through the audio and remove/change any unneeded ones, then carry on with the audio for the rest of the scenes, and then focus on the credits and how they're going to appear. Hopefully, we should get most of this done by tomorrow, and then in next monday's lesson we can use it to complete the finishing touches, and then fingers crossed we can start our evaluation in the wednesdays double lesson!

Here are some images that I took during todays editing process:

This shows the view of what was happening on Laura's computer today. It shows the Final Cut software open and running, with all our clips placed in order of shot. From this you can also see the different windows we have open (this including us editing each individual clip, one where we can watch them all, one where we upload them all into and another where we put them in order).

This shows the view of what was happening on my computer today. This shows me having the software Garage Band up and running, as well as potential sound effects and sound clips on the right hand side, which is what I drag and drop into the main part to edit and put it all together. As we had the main project loaded up on Laura's computer, we used the access of the computers well by having me creating the sound/audio clips and the credits on my computer, and then transferring them via a memory stick to Laura's computer so that she can put them straight into the clip.

I think that the way we worked today was very quick and effective and we got most of what we wanted to do of editing actually completed today. We now just have to remember the other points we need to work on for tomorrow and next week, and it's all work, work, work to try and get it finished!

Our Thank-you's - 5/12/11

Now we have finished filming, we decided that it would be a nice gesture to buy a little something for all of our actors that were in our film, for putting in their time and effort to help us with our coursework. These were given to Kiran Saghir, Tayla Powell, Conor Willis, Nicola Ho and Chloe King for starring in 'Necrophobia'. At the weekend, we brought some chocolate boxes to say thank-you to each of them, and as we predicted, they were much appreciated by them!

Final Credit Fonts - 5/12/11

In our media lesson today, I showed Laura the credit fonts that I had picked out from the website www.dafont.com and we both chose which one was our favourite. We picked the 6th one I previously talked about, which was this:

(http://www.dafont.com/cgf-off-road.font)

We both liked this one because of the unique background effect it had to it, but also the simplicity and informative type of font that it is. We think it suits our genre, our synopsis, our characters and our already chosen title font so this is what we are going to use.

Here are the credits that we are going to feature, showing what they will look like inverted (a black background, white writing) so that they stand out against our shots:

Our opening on-screen text:



Our Actors:



As our film is going to be edited into black and white, we're going to have to think about whether we're keeping the colour of this black still or changing it to white depending on how it stands out against the background images. Though, we're both really happy with this decision and hopefully sometime this week we can put them into our clips and make our minds up on the colour!

WHY HAVE WE DONE THIS?

It was important to configure together about which font we were using so that we both agreed and were happy with it. Also, the titles are an extremely important part of the opening, as from the research and analysis we've already done, we've seen that the titles should represent everything the film is about, which is what we've tried to do.

Week 10 Action Plan

We are going to:

• Decide on which Credits font we are using 
• Make a good start on our editing of our film
• Think about starting our evaluation process

Filming Day 4 - 2/12/11

A few hours ago we completed the last few scenes that we had left to film at Laura's house, with our main 3 victims Nicola Ho - http://nicolaastleyasmedia.blogspot.com/ - Chloe King - http://chloeastleyasmedia.blogspot.com/ - and Tayla Powell - http://taylaastleyasmedia.blogspot.com/. We filmed (Scene 7, Shot 1) (Scene 8, Shot 1) and (Scene 10, Shot 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6) which involved our victim characters doing some short 2 second shots, as well as some longer 5/6 second shots too.

For this filming shoot, we needed to remember these:



• Other people - as the scenes we were shooting today were set all in Laura's house, this was the reason for our delay in this days filming and the reason why we only had a set time period we could complete it in. Other people being Laura's family members were in the house whilst we were filming, so in order for them to not be disturbed or for them to not disturb us we clearly told them what we were doing and made sure they weren't in any scene.
• Health and Safety - there was a point in todays filming that did require us to look at our previous risk assesments of outside and change the way in which we did it because we thought one of our actors could get hurt (there's a picture below which shows what we did!)
• Props/household equipment - Laura's house obviously had very up-to-date items and household appliances in them so before we could begin we had to remove everything that wouldn't be available in and before the year 2001 (which is when our film is set) so that it's realistic.
• Our call list - our call list for this was: Equipment - Camera, Tripod, Charger, Tape. Notes - Storyboard, Script. Crew - Actors, Directors, Costume, Refreshments. 

The Filming 
We knew that some of our actors were on a tight time schedule due to other arrangements, and we only had the location for a certain amount of time, so we decided to get the more involved scenes out of the way first. This meant we filmed all of Scene 10 first so that the actors that needed to leave earlier could leave because we were finished with them, and because this did involve lots of movement as well as sound we had quite a few practice tries. The next scenes we shot after were (Scene 7, Shot 1) and (Scene 8, Shot 1) which were both fast 2 second cuts, including the under the bed and being thrown against the wall actions. These were all successful after quite a lot of practice tries and re-runs and it took us just over an hour to complete these all to the standard that we wanted them.


This shows what we all did on the filming shoot today:

Myself and Laura setting up the tripod before we start

Laura focussing the camera and getting it aligned right so it matches our storyboard

This was the change that we made to stick to our Health and Safety rules, and we decided that because Tayla was repetively throwing herself against a brick wall, we placed a cushion underneath her cardigan (which wasn't visible) so that she didn't hurt herself!

This shows me holding the storyboard and Tayla in position ready to practice

This is Laura holding the Camera getting ready to film this final shot

At last, we have finally finished all filming of 'Necrophobia' meaning all we have to spend the next few weeks left is editing, editing, editing! Beginning on Monday 5th December, we're going to be using the Final Cut and Garage Band software to wrap it all up!