Editing

We began editing our piece and already had an understanding of Final Cut Pro from the pre-lim task. In the first two lessons of editing, we managed to log and capture everything get the first scene roughly put together. As we had so many shots it was difficult to log and capture, as we had some shots that were about a second long and it took us a while to get used to it and all of our shots.

We then watched all of our shots to see if we had everything we needed and then discussed them and colour coded our shots so it would be easier to tell which one was our best shot when putting it all together. We began to mark in and mark out our shots from the first scene and put them together quite quickly. We experimented with the order of our shots to see what worked most effectively. We all contributed our opinions equally and even though we sometimes had different opinions, we listened to each others' ideas and made decisions together. We then had a click around and found the cross dissolve effect, which we ended up using quite a lot in our opening.

We began to create the sound but decided it would be much easier when we finish the editing as we can export the video to Soundtrack Pro so everything fits. We did however, spend some time writing down some sounds/music that we liked and could be suitable for our thriller (drone machine, clock, force field, ambient sound, camera sound, typing sound). We then began to edit our email scene, taking away the shot where you can see the woman's feet walking because it was less effective. 



She shot of the camera was a bit bright so we tried to adjust the colour but it still looked too bright and was orange. Soon, we managed to get to the end of our opening without editing the shots much. We got feedback from our teacher and she said that the pace was a bit slow so we cut some shots and sped some up. We then put our clocks in and sped them up too. We could hear ourselves talking in some shots where there is meant to be no dialogue and will sort this out before making the soundtrack. 



We liked how our beginning was quite slow because it built up tension but we decided that the walking shots should be a lot quicker to contrast with it. We made the clock shots shorter and took away the shot of Jack in the phone booth as it didn't fit very well with everything. We also took away our final shot, where the woman 2 snatches the picture and walks away because we thought it would be more effective to end on her line "You know exactly what I want...". We then made a rough cut of our thriller, which was exactly 3 minutes, to evaluate and make appropriate changes.

Rough cut:

Thriller Rough Cut from BDC on Vimeo.

At this stage in our editing we made a rough cut of our opening, which we managed to get to the end of it what we wanted. Obviously we need to add music and titles. We made a list of everything we needed to do from here:

- Fix over exposed shots (1:04, 1:32, 2:48)

- Speed up shot that pans from the computer screen to woman 2's face. (0:38)

- Make some shots look more "gritty" as some give too much verisimilitude.

- Add titles.

- Add music using Soundtrack Pro.

- Fix audio where you can hear us behind the camera and dip louder sounds like the van going past.

- Make the picture taking more obvious as it is very important. Maybe put the still image of the photo in there.

-Decide on what to call our Thriller.

We looked at experimenting with colours and managed to fix our overexposed shots, although they still looked quite bright, that was the best we could do without them looking too orange.

We then managed to layer a black and white shot over our shot which we mixed to make our inside shots more appealing as the scene with in the classroom looked too cheerful with yellow walls and sunlight pouring in, so we used this effect for a more threatening mood. We also decided to add this to most of our brighter outside shots as well as it made our shots more consistent. 

We used the razor tool to split she shot where woman 2 smiles so that we could speed up the beginning of it and keep the rest the same. Then, we shortened some more shots for a more speedy pace.

We began to add titles and had some trouble with picking an appropriate font as we wanted something plain but not too boring. We decided on a sans serif font at first, which I thought looked a bit too plain and curvy for a thriller film, but we wrote all our titles, placing them randomly so we can sort them out next lesson.

Titles (in order):

An AAC production

In association with LOCK Studios

Jack Smart

Hannah Mellows

Sophie Banks

Title of our thriller

We spend the rest of the lesson thinking about what to call our thriller. We looked in a thesaurus for words that mean unseen but didn't find anything that we really liked. We then decided to relate our title to the most important thing in our opening - the photograph. We thought SNAPSHOT had a good ring to it.

Final edited title

When creating our titles we couldn't find an effective font our the title of our film and didn't have enough time to go through every font. Therefore, I went through every font on my computer at home and picked out a few of my favourites. I made all of the titles bold and in capital letters so that it would stand out. I then e-mailed Sophie and Jack the image below and they helped to make a final decision on the font, which I edited to make it look more interesting.

Options for a title

I then used the photo taken from the shoot (the one passed across the table in the cafe scene) to make the picture taking scene more significant. I added lines around the outside of the picture to create corners and a cross in the middle to mark the centre. This was to make it look like a camera screen - a point of view shot from the camera as a still image. We imported both of our images into our edit and saw a large improvement in our work.

We then fixed the sound in some of our shots as you could hear us talking behind the camera, a van driving past and mobile phone signal sounds. We dipped the sound for some of these things but for others we copy and pasted sound from our other shots that fitted well. We made sure that we were happy with everything in our thriller and made necessary changes before creating the soundtrack because we knew that we wouldn't be able to change things (timing-wise) after we put the sound in.


We imported our video into SoundtrackPro so we could fit our soundtrack in with what was going on visually and our natural diegetic sounds. We had experimented with lots of sounds previously and had written the names of them down. So we put those together. The ticking clock sound was our main sound as it ran through the whole opening. We added some sounds over the top and built the volume one was a force field sound and one was a drone machine. We added an explosion sound effect when our title shows to give it more emphasis and to make the audience jump. We then chose our music for the walking scenes. Luckily, we found the perfect music instantly and it built up really effectively and worked with all of our shots. We learnt how to control the volume of our sounds and fade them in and out. 


We then imported the finished soundtrack into our edit and watched it through. The sound had made it so much more effective as the sounds really gave an 'on the edge' atmosphere and the music built a lot of tension. We used the razor blade tool to separate the Snapshot title to create a flashing effect so it looked like a flash of a camera and worked well with the explosion sound effect. We then made sure that this didn't change the length of our thriller as that would change how the music built.

Filming

Before we began filming, we discussed the important things that we needed to think about when filming.

- Weather is a concern when filming as it can affect many things so we checked the weather forecast before filming. Firstly, if the weather is different in two shots it can ruin the continuity of the shots. For example if the sun suddenly came out, the brightness would change. Also, if it is windy, the mics can pick up the sound of it which will prevent any dialogue from being heard. It is important to bring an umbrella to protect our equipment if there is unexpected rain. Lastly, weather can drastically change the mood of a shot so we need to be careful about this as it may be too sunny - we will try to adjust the brightness when editing if this is a problem as we want quite moody shots.

- We need to be very well prepared and have our shot lists, storyboards, props, costumes, equipment and schedule with us at all times during filming. If we are not prepared one day it could ruin our filming as we do not have much time to film.
- We need to be aware of sound. Although we plan to have non diegetic music playing for most of our shots, we still need to make sure that we are not speaking while filming the walking shots as we do want the diegetic ambiance in the background. We also need to make sure that we do not film near a busy road when there is dialogue as it might not be heard. Some sound can change the mood of a scene, for example if we heard a child laughing in the middle of an intense shot it would completely change the mood so we need to be careful of this.
- We need to make sure that we have back up footage for every shot just in case we encounter any problems in the edit suite. We have to make sure we don't record over anything by accident and must leave 5 seconds before and after each shot to make sure we do not record into an important beginning or ending of a shot.
- We need to be aware of people around us. If there are any people we do not know in a shot, we have to make sure that they are not doing anything to change the mood of the shot or looking straight at the camera. We also need to be aware of any risks around us as there is always a chance that equipment can be stolen, so we should make sure that no one is ever out filming by themselves and we should never leave anything unattended.
- We need to remember to use a range of camera shots and should be creative with it. We should also remember the 180 degree rule (unless panning around an area) so that things don't switch sides. Also, being careful that the boom mic does not fall into a shot.

Tuesday 9th:
Today we filmed the clock for half an hour so that we could speed it up when editing. We decided to film from 2:00 until 2:30 instead of 1:30 till 2:00. Originally, we were going to film a clock at school but they all looked too simple so I filmed one in my house. We wanted to film quite a stylish clock to go with the mood of our thriller - as the women are quite glamorous, the audience can associate the idea of time passing with them maybe being powerful and impatient. Although we only had to film one shot we had to make sure the lighting was correct - bright enough to see the time but not too bright so that we create the right kind of mood. We also had to make sure the tripod and camera were adjusted correctly so that the shot wasn't at an angle. We had to make sure that there was no way for the camera to wobble because it would be very noticeable, due to the fact that we will be speeding it up when editing.

Wednesday 10th:    

J + S setting the camera up

Today we shot all of our walking shots before the man and woman are meeting at the cafe. We will film our cafe scene tomorrow because we need the photo from the exchanging of the document as a prop, which we filmed later today. We decided to walk around and film loads of different shots of us both walking and didn't stick to our story board as when we got there we could see some opportunities for good shots. We tried to vary our shots but most of them were long shots so that you can see where they our walking. We included some midshots and shots of feet walking but we didn't really like the shots and will decide whether to put them in or not when we edit. We also found better locations to film in:

More photographs from filming:

Me filming our opening shot

Later in the day, after filming our shots for the walking section, we began to film our shots at night where the woman passes the document to the man. We had to do this filming very quickly as we didn't want to film when it was too dark and didn't want there to be a change in lighting as it gets darker very quickly. We filmed near a streetlight so that it would provide effective lighting - showing mystery. Although we had to work quickly, we made sure, by using our shot list and storyboard, that we had every shot a few times and did not rush it.

Sophie in action

Overall, today went very well and we remembered to do multiple takes of each shot and made sure we had a variation of different shot types. 






Thursday 1th:

Today we filmed the shot on the train where the woman 2 is on her way to meet the man. We took a few shots of this to make sure we had backups. We zoomed in by different amounts each time and will make a decision on what shot we will use when we edit. The shots were a bit over exposed so we will fix this when editing by changing the colours. It was quite difficult to set the camera up on the train as it was quite bumpy when the train was moving. In addition, we had to be careful that the train announcements didn't ruin our shots. 
We planned to film outside the cafe for our meeting scene but it was raining. In the shots from yesterday when we filmed them walking to meet, it was sunny. Therefore we could not shoot our cafe scene and plan to either do this tomorrow or book the camera out for next week.

We now had a lot more time to film our e-mailing scenes. We spent some time in the edit suite where the woman would send the e-mail but it took us a long while to discuss the best angles as we didn't like how what we drew in our storyboards anymore. We also couldn't film our shot where the woman was typing as the keyboards in the edit suite have different things on the keys and we were unable to find somewhere with a suitable keyboard In the end, we decided to film our shots from multiple angles and decide the best shot/s in when we edit it. We then went to a classroom to film the man receiving the emails. 

He had a cup of coffee to show that it was morning and you would see daylight from the window. We focused on continuity, to make our action flow using different shots, a lot for this section so we had to be careful about finishing and staring our shots with 5 seconds so we didn't record over any important links.

Friday 12th:
It was raining again today so we returned the camera and arranged to book it again for next week.



Thursday 18th:
Today we filmed our café scene. We had to think about having our costumes and hair exactly the same as last week. The scene was filmed a few times from different angles so that we could edit for a shot, reverse-shot. From one of the angles we filmed from, you could see the reflection of the camera in the window - we took out this shot and added in a high angle shot.


Overall, our filming went very well. Although we all had different ideas, we listened to each other and tried out everything so we could see what worked and what didn't when we get to the editing stage. Although our production schedule didn't go to plan, we managed to find another time to do our last it of filming.