Completion of final piece

Yesterday I finally completed my final piece which falls just under 12 minutes (with credits). I mainly used my time to tweak a few things, mainly to do with the sound, but other than that I was very pleased with the outcome.

The first general development was using the pen tool to make the sound fade in and out to a more professional standard, rather than using the cross fade effect.

The screenshot shows how, especially with the voiceover sections, I faded the sound in and out with the pen tool to clear it up and give it a more professional standard. I also dipped the audio levels of the sound track where necessary, to give more emphasis on the voiceover.

However I did have problems with the soundtrack of 'Air France - No excuses' because when I tried to use the pen tool, it would insist on cutting the beginning of the song out, which was the section of the song I wanted.

This screenshot shows how I ended up keeping the cross fade at the beginning of the song because it had the correct result I was wanting.

Another attempt at improving the piece was to reduce the transitions between interview cuts, and to use cutaways instead. The following 2 screenshots show this.


I felt that the use of cutaways in this part felt lost because they weren't really relevant to what Hussain the interviewee was saying, and the only one I could find that remotely seemed relevant just seemed pointless on its own. In the end I decided to remove the cutaway, and rather than go back to using a cross dissolve effect like before hand, I didn't insert anything and left it how it was. I was pleased with the end result and felt it worked better.

Inspiration behind the editing

I thought it would be a good point to talk about some of the films I have watched which have helped to inspire me throughout the whole process of producing my final piece.

Salesman
This film has been a great inspiration behind the making of the film. This starts from the camera techniques it uses, to which all of it is handheld. This is a big theme running throughout the film, especially during the interviews. I also liked the way it never has a presenter in the documentary, and with this is mind, this was always the idea to not include a presenter in my documentary. To get around this, I decided to use a voiceover/narrator to explain everything that is going on. I felt this was necessary because an explanation was needed as to what we were doing, why we were talking to the people we did, and what we learnt. However there is a shot near the end that I will be putting in tommorrow whereby the narrator and some of the production crew are in fact in the frame, but the reasoning behind this was that as the voiceover explains what we have learnt, I felt it was a good technique to show us all working on set, as a cutaway. I think this will work really well, and I aim to use one wide locked off shot, mixed in with a couple of closer shots to add emphasis onto 'us' the filmmakers.

Mark in Time
I like the way this film approaches its subject, and the way that the subject talks towards the camera, sometimes seemingly straight at it and almost addressing the viewer. I liked the editing to it, and again the camera work seemed to be mostly handheld.

Music
I also thought it would be appropriate to mention the reasoning behind the music. My first choice is FC Kahuna - Hayling, which only plays a few seconds at the start of the song. This is repeated several times throughout the film for parts where the future of media students looks grim, and connects well with the mood this creates. My next choice was Air France - No excuses, which creates a rather upbeat intro to the film once it really gets going. The aim of this is to create more of an optimistic feel when talking about Sheffield and the Media Courses it offers. After that I use Moulinex - Breakchops to bring the tone back down again once the public start talking about whats wrong with media students and why they shouldn't be doing that course. This creates a more serious section of the film, where what they are talking about is really quite concerning and addresses the whole problem to which we are documenting about media students and the struggle they have getting into the industry. The final choice is by The Whitest Boy Alive - Golden Cage(Fred Falke Remix) which was the perfect choice for the conclusion I feel. It creates an upbeat glow to the final section of the film where we round off the postiives of what we have learnt, and hope to conclude them in an inspirational way. I feel that all my song choices are justified and make a real difference to the documentary, something that many documentaries over the years have done and acheived.

Here is the latest screenshot of the edit I have been doing. It is supposed to be a maximum of 10 minutes long, but at the moment it is over that so I am having to continue to cut it down.
A lot more has been added, including music to give the piece a lot more feel, and there has been a lot more cutaways used. These give the piece a much better rhythm to it and it is really coming along considerably. Now I am just awaiting the voiceovers that will be used to introduce each new part to the documentary. Once I have these, it will start to gel together as a whole and I will be able to see the outline of the final product.

The final thing to think about is how I am going to conclude this piece. Obviously I am pushed for room to fit new things in as I am already over 10 minutes at the moment, so maybe I might use the positive things that the public have said at the end, in a sort of montage way. Another idea was to get the narrator to be interviewed himself, whereby he would sum up everything that we have found out. The style of this would be so that he is talking to someone just to the side of the camera, but you will never hear their voice. However I have not decided on this as of yet, and with the deadline being pushed back a week, I have plenty of time to decide.

Main Production Piece

My main production piece that I will be presenting is a Documentary between 5-10 minutes. It is basically about young filmmakers, and how hard it is to break into the industry and what opportunities there are for recent graduates in media related courses in the Sheffield area. The film has been produced in a group of 4 of us, and this is my version of the edit.

Below is my first attempt to create a structure to the film, with a few establishing shots being narrowed down at the beginning (out of screenshot), to then picking out the best parts of the interviews we conducted with the public in Sheffield city centre.

Later, I cut down the interviews with the public to around 2 and a half mintues, and they are really starting to look good.

I also decided to include a part at the beginning of the film whereby the interviewer would ask 'How would you describe a typical media student?' to which the interviewees' natural responses are 'erm,' and this creates an opening that instantly explains what the film entails. I like its straight-to-the-point attitude, and the quick change after that to the establishing shots of Sheffield. These would then lead onto the voiceover which will be edited later on.

'Mark in Time' - Paper Edit

After having watched the documentary 'Mark in Time,' we were required to make a paper edit on the things we would change about it. On the whole I was quite pleased with the film and so the changes made are quite minor. Below is a list of what I thought would improve it:

• 1min : 47secs John is introducing himself. I like the use of the close up of the phone, and also the following long shot of him. However, I would hold on to this shot for a while rather than cutting to different angles of him because I don't feel the rhythm is right.
• 2:00 - I would then probably cut to a close up of his face to give it some emphasis just as he says "I just thought you could make one about me."
• 5:50 - cut out the beginning of the shot with the clapper board as I don't think this is necessary in the film. This happens on numerous occasions.
  
• 7:42 - Cut a couple of seconds off the beginning of the shot where he asks if the sound is on.
• 9:15 - Cut out the unnecessary shot of the woman.
  
• 14:47 - 15:00 - This is a shot of another man wearing a mask, but I would cut this out completely because the next part he explains about the mask and why he wears it, therefore it would make more sense if the shot wasn't used.
  

Relativity

Last week we started the task of editing the 'Relativity' footage. At first I found this quite difficult as the image and the sound were non-sync, and so it became much more of a challenge than 'Night Journey' was. I aimed to pick the shots first, and these would be ones that I thought would create the right emotion for the piece. Once I was happy with the shot choice, I would then find the sound that matches up to it which wasn't always easy.


I think the editing to which I have completed so far has achieved the right emotion and an appropriate balance of rhythem with it also. Certainly it could still do with some improvement to it, to which I will be doing later on. These improvements would include adding more shot reverse shots in it between the mother, daughter, and what I assume to be the husband, or partner. This would add to the tension that is there between the three characters, and I think it would improve the tempo of the edit.

In terms of the sound I have used, I have only really put in dialogue, with the occasional extra sounds that are there in the background. At this moment in time I haven't had a chance to experiment with it much, nor have I looked to see if there are other possible sounds to include. This is also something I will look to improve on.

'The Fall'

This week I started to do some film research into different editing techniques that have been used in the films I watch. The first I will write about is directed by Tarsem Singh called 'The Fall' (2006). This is a very imaginative fairytale like film about an injured man in hospital telling a story to a little girl about 5 mythical heroes set in an exotic far off land.

The film switches between the real time of the man in hospital and the fairytale element of the film, and often purposely confuses the two. In observing the way that the film blends the two elements, the first method is the use of sound. The man begins to tell the story, and as he does, the visuals switch to the other part of the film (like in the picture above) and he becomes a voiceover, telling the story. This smooths the transition between the two. Furthermore, later in the film the characters begin to interact with the voiceover, and even further in the film, the man and the child become characters in the fairy tale. I like this element of it because it does really make it feel like a fairy tale.

The film also uses a lot of extreme long shots in the fairytale part of the film to establish a setting to the scene. An example of this is above and below. These work really well with the rest of the visuals in the film, to give it that 'fairytale' look.

I really enjoy watching this film, mainly for the visuals. However I think as I am currently doing post production, it is interesting to take note of the way different films make the transition in one way or another, and in this case it is between two completely different realms. I think the whole element of the voiceover is something which I can take into account when editing the footage from Night Journey.