Friday, 12 February 2016
Edit 3
The content of this video is the same as that of our final product but we have decided that Paramount would not be a suitable distributor for our film as it doesn't fit the rest of the sequence and looks very out of place, therefore we have decided to have Vertigo be the producer and UK distributor for our film.
Thursday, 11 February 2016
Editing Diaries
Editing Diary 1
After our first session of editing, we managed to import all of our footage from filming into the iMovie programme. We had already been through most of the clips and selected the best ones to put into the final product, but we still had a few that we couldn't decide between until we put them into the rest of the sequence. Once we had ordered the clips they came to about 4 minutes long, and so we knew that it was going to be a difficult job to edit down, even after cutting out all of the unnecessary bits from the beginning and end of each clip.
During our next session, we will need to start shortening these clips and make the last couple of decisions on which are the best pieces of footage to use.
Editing Diary 2
Coming back to the film today we could see that there were some clips which didn't fit in where they had been placed. This has meant that we needed to do some reshuffling with the clips so that they made sense in the narrative. We started cutting out the parts of the shots which were too long or weren't needed in the sequence and this has taken ages and ages to do because we had to somehow get it down to about 2 minutes. This took a few sessions to do, and finally we got it down to 2 minutes and 11 seconds. I have written on the blog post under Edit 1 what the feedback from out teachers was and that has given us a starting point for the next session.
Editing Diary 3
Today we tried putting music the chosen music in to our sequence. It took a little while to work out how to get the music to go onto iMovie because the music file type wasn't compatible and so we had to use a programme called Clip Converter to make the file an MP3 to go into iMovie. After adding this in, we decided that actually the music was a bit to festive and christmassy for an opening sequence that is actually quite saddening and is supposed to evoke empathy and sympathy from out audience, therefore we took the music out and tried looking for another choice of music. Annoyingly, before we thought about it we took the old music file out and put the new music file in before we saved a copy of it so w weren't able to put an edit of this on our blog. On top of this however, we have also decided that there are certain parts of the sequence, like the match on action scene with the candle being lit, that are too disjointed and need refilming, so we've decided to organise a date to refilm these parts.
Editing Diary 4
Since our last editing session a few days ago, none of us have been free on the same day so we haven't managed to refilm these parts yet but there were lots of other things that needed to be edited this session. We made the titles for the actors, etc a bit longer because from our feedback from peers, no one had long enough to read them properly. So we did this, and also when trying to make digital typography for the more important titles such as director and producer, we realised that they looked out of place in the sequence and so in a way it was a good thing that we hadn't refilmed already because we then decided to do more ambient titles for these roles too.
Editing Diary 5
Over the holiday period we managed to schedule a time for re-filming where we re-did some footage and also came up with some more alternative and creative ways to display the end titles. In this session we have managed to replace all of the shots which weren't shot well enough originally, and also add in the titles at the end, and the institution titles at the beginning. The project finally started to look like it is coming together when we added in our new choice of music which is slower and more downbeat and so suits the atmosphere of our opening sequence a lot more. This version of our edit can be seen under Edit 2 under the construction header on the blog.
Editing Diary 6
When re-watching this edit with our teachers, they said that they felt that something was missing from the sequence to bring it all together, and that was something to frame the sequence and make it seem more like it was telling a story over the time given. On top of this, they said that the main title which we tried to do using online typography looked very strange in contrast to all of the other titles in the sequence, no matter where in the sequence it was placed. So to overcome this problem we decided to use the idea of a calendar to document time passing over the month and to outline the build up to her Christmas, and that we were going to gradually cross out days on the calendar all the way up to Christmas eve, where we would write the main title of our film. So in this session , we made a lot of important decisions for the sequence, and also did a bit more tweaking to try and make it look as smooth, tidy and professional as we could.
Editing Diary 7
As the most convenient time for us to film soon was when we were all in school together, we used the school's photography studio to film the calendar aspect of our sequence. This took about an hour and I brought in some Christmas decorations to tie it in with the film. In our this editing session we put these clips into the film sequence to see what it looked like and it ended up looking quite good. However we did put all of them at the beginning of the sequence and then only two at the end and we felt that this looked a bit strange so we spread them out more equally about the sequence, which also made us realise that putting the title of the film at the end of it made it look a bit too much like a trailer, so we decided to put it in just after the main actors at the beginning of the sequence. This complied to the conventions of films in that this is the usual order of titles, and so we felt that this looked the most professional.
Editing Diary 8
This was the final editing session we had and so Ella and I decided to go back and do the last few tweaks on the final product to neaten it up a bit more. This was really important for us as there was a blip in the end of the sequence where two of the files had been corrupted since the last session. So, to overcome this we took these two clips out of the sequence and edited them back in a few times until finally the file played correctly. This final edit can be seen on my blog under the Final Product header.
After our first session of editing, we managed to import all of our footage from filming into the iMovie programme. We had already been through most of the clips and selected the best ones to put into the final product, but we still had a few that we couldn't decide between until we put them into the rest of the sequence. Once we had ordered the clips they came to about 4 minutes long, and so we knew that it was going to be a difficult job to edit down, even after cutting out all of the unnecessary bits from the beginning and end of each clip.
During our next session, we will need to start shortening these clips and make the last couple of decisions on which are the best pieces of footage to use.
Editing Diary 2
Coming back to the film today we could see that there were some clips which didn't fit in where they had been placed. This has meant that we needed to do some reshuffling with the clips so that they made sense in the narrative. We started cutting out the parts of the shots which were too long or weren't needed in the sequence and this has taken ages and ages to do because we had to somehow get it down to about 2 minutes. This took a few sessions to do, and finally we got it down to 2 minutes and 11 seconds. I have written on the blog post under Edit 1 what the feedback from out teachers was and that has given us a starting point for the next session.
Editing Diary 3
Today we tried putting music the chosen music in to our sequence. It took a little while to work out how to get the music to go onto iMovie because the music file type wasn't compatible and so we had to use a programme called Clip Converter to make the file an MP3 to go into iMovie. After adding this in, we decided that actually the music was a bit to festive and christmassy for an opening sequence that is actually quite saddening and is supposed to evoke empathy and sympathy from out audience, therefore we took the music out and tried looking for another choice of music. Annoyingly, before we thought about it we took the old music file out and put the new music file in before we saved a copy of it so w weren't able to put an edit of this on our blog. On top of this however, we have also decided that there are certain parts of the sequence, like the match on action scene with the candle being lit, that are too disjointed and need refilming, so we've decided to organise a date to refilm these parts.
Editing Diary 4
Since our last editing session a few days ago, none of us have been free on the same day so we haven't managed to refilm these parts yet but there were lots of other things that needed to be edited this session. We made the titles for the actors, etc a bit longer because from our feedback from peers, no one had long enough to read them properly. So we did this, and also when trying to make digital typography for the more important titles such as director and producer, we realised that they looked out of place in the sequence and so in a way it was a good thing that we hadn't refilmed already because we then decided to do more ambient titles for these roles too.
Editing Diary 5
Over the holiday period we managed to schedule a time for re-filming where we re-did some footage and also came up with some more alternative and creative ways to display the end titles. In this session we have managed to replace all of the shots which weren't shot well enough originally, and also add in the titles at the end, and the institution titles at the beginning. The project finally started to look like it is coming together when we added in our new choice of music which is slower and more downbeat and so suits the atmosphere of our opening sequence a lot more. This version of our edit can be seen under Edit 2 under the construction header on the blog.
Editing Diary 6
When re-watching this edit with our teachers, they said that they felt that something was missing from the sequence to bring it all together, and that was something to frame the sequence and make it seem more like it was telling a story over the time given. On top of this, they said that the main title which we tried to do using online typography looked very strange in contrast to all of the other titles in the sequence, no matter where in the sequence it was placed. So to overcome this problem we decided to use the idea of a calendar to document time passing over the month and to outline the build up to her Christmas, and that we were going to gradually cross out days on the calendar all the way up to Christmas eve, where we would write the main title of our film. So in this session , we made a lot of important decisions for the sequence, and also did a bit more tweaking to try and make it look as smooth, tidy and professional as we could.
Editing Diary 7
As the most convenient time for us to film soon was when we were all in school together, we used the school's photography studio to film the calendar aspect of our sequence. This took about an hour and I brought in some Christmas decorations to tie it in with the film. In our this editing session we put these clips into the film sequence to see what it looked like and it ended up looking quite good. However we did put all of them at the beginning of the sequence and then only two at the end and we felt that this looked a bit strange so we spread them out more equally about the sequence, which also made us realise that putting the title of the film at the end of it made it look a bit too much like a trailer, so we decided to put it in just after the main actors at the beginning of the sequence. This complied to the conventions of films in that this is the usual order of titles, and so we felt that this looked the most professional.
Editing Diary 8
This was the final editing session we had and so Ella and I decided to go back and do the last few tweaks on the final product to neaten it up a bit more. This was really important for us as there was a blip in the end of the sequence where two of the files had been corrupted since the last session. So, to overcome this we took these two clips out of the sequence and edited them back in a few times until finally the file played correctly. This final edit can be seen on my blog under the Final Product header.
Wednesday, 10 February 2016
Final Product
Below this you can click on the video to see the final product of our media coursework:
Thursday, 21 January 2016
Edit 1
The first cut we have done is showing the first draft we have made for our film and how it is going.
This version of our editing is good but we know that it is still missing a few key elements. For example it is missing music, the titles and a few key techniques like match on action and shot reverse shot that makes the flow of the opening sequence a more continuous effect.
Learning Comment:
The music that we would be using is the music that we had chosen on the music section of my blog. However when getting feedback from our peers and teachers, we have concluded that the music choice is a bit too christmassy for our opening sequence, so we are going to use a more mllow, but still christmassy themed song. Despite the rhythm of the song fitting with the cuts between shots, it doesn't sum up the mood and atmosphere quite right for the sequence.
On top of this we have noticed that the match on action part of our sequence isn't smooth enough and so doesn't help towards creating a sense of continuity throughout the sequence. Therefore we are going to meet up again and just film a couple more parts of the sequence that need making smoother on top of some extra shots for the most important titles - the director, writer and producer, editor and the name of the film, but in a creative way like we have filmed the others.
The original idea for our titles was to have a mixture of those that were creatively filmed and handwritten, and then others that were elegantly typed and edited into the footage. However, on reflection, we have concluded that this would make the sequence disjointed and that the edited titles wouldn't be as effective as those that were done during filming. Consequently, when we re-film the other small parts of the sequence, we are going to also come up with some more ideas as to how we are going to work the other titles in and amongst the footage.
Finally we are going to lengthen the time of which the titles are up on screen for because, when given feedback, we realized that the shots with the titles weren't on screen long enough for the audience to take in the information, so in our next editing session we will increase the length of time that these shots show for. On top of this the speech part where Victoria is on the phone to Chris has a two second part on the end in which there is no speech, so we will need to cut this out in order to make room for the addition of new shots.
This version of our editing is good but we know that it is still missing a few key elements. For example it is missing music, the titles and a few key techniques like match on action and shot reverse shot that makes the flow of the opening sequence a more continuous effect.
Learning Comment:
The music that we would be using is the music that we had chosen on the music section of my blog. However when getting feedback from our peers and teachers, we have concluded that the music choice is a bit too christmassy for our opening sequence, so we are going to use a more mllow, but still christmassy themed song. Despite the rhythm of the song fitting with the cuts between shots, it doesn't sum up the mood and atmosphere quite right for the sequence.
On top of this we have noticed that the match on action part of our sequence isn't smooth enough and so doesn't help towards creating a sense of continuity throughout the sequence. Therefore we are going to meet up again and just film a couple more parts of the sequence that need making smoother on top of some extra shots for the most important titles - the director, writer and producer, editor and the name of the film, but in a creative way like we have filmed the others.
The original idea for our titles was to have a mixture of those that were creatively filmed and handwritten, and then others that were elegantly typed and edited into the footage. However, on reflection, we have concluded that this would make the sequence disjointed and that the edited titles wouldn't be as effective as those that were done during filming. Consequently, when we re-film the other small parts of the sequence, we are going to also come up with some more ideas as to how we are going to work the other titles in and amongst the footage.
Finally we are going to lengthen the time of which the titles are up on screen for because, when given feedback, we realized that the shots with the titles weren't on screen long enough for the audience to take in the information, so in our next editing session we will increase the length of time that these shots show for. On top of this the speech part where Victoria is on the phone to Chris has a two second part on the end in which there is no speech, so we will need to cut this out in order to make room for the addition of new shots.
Sunday, 17 January 2016
Filming Diaries: Lonely This Christmas
Day of filming 1: Tues 22nd Dec
Today was the first session we have had filming for our new coming of age film idea. We used Ella's living room as the location for all of the filming today. We did it in the morning to overcome the bad quality picture and lighting issues that usually come with filming inside, and it wasn't lessened.
The filming went really well today as we managed to film all of the cross-cuts we need for the titles and to break up the bits of speech. We also filmed the still images, establishing shot and all of the other scenes without the actress as she was unavailable until the evening, which wouldn't have worked.
Some of our shots however, did not look the way we had hoped for so we made the necessary tweaks where necessary throughout the filming, for example the diagonal pan across the tree was very rough and jumpy, and it took so long, so we've had to change it to a tilt shortly across in order to make it fit.
The changes we made were only small e.g shot type and we did a couple more shots that we had originally planned to do in the original recording session. Overall, the filming went well and the next time we have scheduled to film is on Saturday morning.
Ella & Megan at filming
Saturday, 16 January 2016
Sound: Lonely This Christmas
For this task we researched and looked into different options of royalty free music for our opening sequence:
Stage 1:
To fit the christmas theme of our opening sequence, we figured that using christmas music would be the best way to go. So when we narrowed it down to these three options, we decided that the one we liked the most was the third clip "Deck the Halls", but when we went to put the music over the top of the sequence, the cost was far to high as we had to buy the rights to the clip from the website. Therefore we then had to choose the top one because we thought that that would be the most fitting from the remaining two. However when we asked a group of people from the target audience they said that it made the clip too cheesy and happy when the atmosphere overall was supposed to be more subdued. Then after a discussion with our teachers, we came to the conclusion that we should start sound research again.
Stage 2:
The three clips shown under the stage 2 heading are the songs we chose that were more calm and toned down to reflect the mood of the protagonist in our sequence, and were the music choice we had to choose from for our final product. We tried all three pieces of music over the top but overall we decided from feedback from our classmates and teachers that either the top or the bottom clip would be the most successful. Between the three of us we chose the bottom royalty free clip for our sequence because it seemed to provoke more sympathy for the main character, who we want our audience to empathise with, and made the video more effective and made it look more professional than the others because the timing of the notes syncs well with the length of our shots.
Annoyingly, since choosing this royalty free piece of music, it has been deleted from YouTube, so now it is unable to be viewed, but you can listen to it as the piece of music used to frame our opening title sequence in the final product.
Stage 1:
To fit the christmas theme of our opening sequence, we figured that using christmas music would be the best way to go. So when we narrowed it down to these three options, we decided that the one we liked the most was the third clip "Deck the Halls", but when we went to put the music over the top of the sequence, the cost was far to high as we had to buy the rights to the clip from the website. Therefore we then had to choose the top one because we thought that that would be the most fitting from the remaining two. However when we asked a group of people from the target audience they said that it made the clip too cheesy and happy when the atmosphere overall was supposed to be more subdued. Then after a discussion with our teachers, we came to the conclusion that we should start sound research again.
Stage 2:
The three clips shown under the stage 2 heading are the songs we chose that were more calm and toned down to reflect the mood of the protagonist in our sequence, and were the music choice we had to choose from for our final product. We tried all three pieces of music over the top but overall we decided from feedback from our classmates and teachers that either the top or the bottom clip would be the most successful. Between the three of us we chose the bottom royalty free clip for our sequence because it seemed to provoke more sympathy for the main character, who we want our audience to empathise with, and made the video more effective and made it look more professional than the others because the timing of the notes syncs well with the length of our shots.
Annoyingly, since choosing this royalty free piece of music, it has been deleted from YouTube, so now it is unable to be viewed, but you can listen to it as the piece of music used to frame our opening title sequence in the final product.
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