12th March
Now that we have all the footage from the shoots throughout last week, we can now start to edit the work to build up a rough cut which will then have feedback and then improve the work to then produce a final cut based on the feedback. In order to edit the clips, we used Final Cut Pro as we have used it before, it is easy to use and we will be able to manipulate the footage to hopefully produce a professional looking final cut.
One of the first things we needed to do in the process of editing is to collect all the suitable clips and cut them down to use particular parts. Therefore, we spent some time looking through the footage over the week and slowly started to filter through the footage we would use and the footage we would leave out. Some clips might not have been used due to poor lighting, shaky camera, poor acting etc. Moreover, once we had filtered through these different clips, we then had to crop the footage down. This is because at the start of a clip, you would here us say "start" and similarly at the end you would hear "cut." Not only that but due to the genre of the opening being a crime/thriller, the scenes would need to be cut down so that the scenes were edited in a way that made them short and snappy in order to create tension. If we prolonged some of the footage, the scene would appear to drag which could lessen the tension of the opening and in turn, the interest of the marketability in watching the film.
When we were in the process of selecting the right footage, we faced a choice between the two kitchen scenes and which one would feature in our opening sequence. We watched both pieces of footage over and, after some consideration, we decided to use the first take of the kitchen scene (right image in the screen shot) as opposed to the second take of the scene (left image in the screen shot) because the lighting is a lot better in the first take, making it more tense, atmospheric and party-like. The second take, on reflection, didn't have very good camera shots, had poor lighting and less props. We therefore kept the footage of the first take and used it for our rough cut.
When a film is being made, there is a colour artist who edits the colour of the scenes to make it fit in with the genre and perhaps hint at a particular storyline. Once we had all our clips in place in the right order, we next needed to alter the colour of some scenes to make it look realistic. One part of the opening where this really needed to happen was during the outside car scenes. As we had to film at a certain time on a certain day due to the driver of the car only being able to attend the shoot once, the lighting was not correct on the raw footage because it was too sunny and therefore didn't match up with the idea of a party scene. Generally, people would associate a house party being held at night so the look of the shots in the day mean that the party connection is lost and also, the tension is lost. Therefore, using some of the colour effects on final cut pro, we added an effect called 'cool tones' which made the scene darker. However, as you can see in the screen shot, this doesn't make the scene pitch black as we would have liked so isn't entirely effective in that respect. Nevertheless, the effect does mean that the scene looks more eerie due to the cool, cold, blue tones. Also, we altered the hue settings so that the scene looked even more cooler and cold. We were careful, though, in making sure that we didn't alter the lighting too dramatically as it could distort the picture and could even ruin the effect of making the scene scary.
Another scene where we altered the light is the kitchen scene where the character of Ellie is making drinks for the party. The screen shot on the right shows the difference between the different lighting. The left image has a lighting effect and the right image has no lighting effects. We chose to use a lighting effect for the party scene because we felt that the original clips looked slightly grey/ brown in colouration which didn't look sharp and neat but warm. Therefore, we chose to alter the lighting by changing the contrast to make it look crisper and the saturation levels to make the clip look bolder and stronger as opposed to having a grey tint. We think that overall, this enhanced the quality of the clip as in a crime/ thriller, saturation levels and contrast are sometimes used to portray a tense scene or to have a foreboding effect that something bad will happen. As with the outside footage, we made sure that we weren't too drastic with the editing but enough to make a difference and make the scene more tense.
Sound is a very important feature of any film as it is said to contribute to 50% of the overall effect of a film. Therefore, we had to think about using some music for the different scenes. For the killer scene, we didn't record any music apart from background noise so we would have to find or make some music that would fit the killer scenes and be effective in contributing to the tense scenes of the opening. We felt that we didn't have enough time to make our own music by using software such as Garage band as it could prevent us from further editing. We felt it would be stupid to focus too much on music and then, as a result of running out of time, having poor editing effects or titles. We thought of making a sting which is a piece of music that identifies a particular character of a film such as the music used when James Bond arrives on a scene. However, we thought that a sting might not be a effective as an ongoing piece of music because the tension for the killer wouldn't last long. In the end, we chose to look on you tube for some tense music and came across a piece of music called 'The Prestige - Scariest Music Ever' which was not just a good piece of tense music but also gave the out the rights for people to use. We therefore took full advantage of this, edited the parts we wanted and put them over the scenes where the killer arrives.
Another feature we used when editing the clips for our rough cut was to add effects for the killer scenes to give him a mysterious and sophisticated character. Having already added tense music and altered the colour of the outside scenes and the kitchen, we thought that for the end shot - when the killer kicks the door down and the character of Carla sees the killer enter the room as a shadow in front of the bright light - we would use an effect to make the identity of the killer even more mysterious by adding a blur effect. Not only does this make the identity of the killer even more difficult to work out, we thought that this effect would portray this shot as being a point of view shot. As all the characters at the party would be drinking, they would likely feel dizzy and so this blurry effect of the killer shows how Carla would be feeling drunk and dizzy and would therefore have slightly impaired, blurry vision. This is also effective in building tension because it is unclear what he will do.
Finally, before showing our rough cut to the rest of the class to get some feedback to help with the final cut, we needed to add some titles. Due to time limitations, we were unable to put all the titles on for the rough cut but we had most of them to give the class an idea of what the titles were like. Some of the titles we used were actually in the scene such as the drinks bottles at the start of the scene in the kitchen. We thought that the titles in the scene was an original touch as it not only served the purpose of showing who directed the film, who it was by etc, it also drew attention to the props used in the scene, helping the audience to draw a connection between the props and the storyline. The other use of titles were the ones put over the top of the scenes in editing. The font we used for the titles was 'Base 02' from dafont.com and this looked really good and fitted well with the scene as it made a slight reference to the genre of the opening and also made the scenes look tense and also hints at the demeanour of the killer as the font is distorted. At first, we had a look at what the titles would look like in a red font, as red connotes violence, death and blood. However, when we looked at the title, it looked to cliched because it is sometimes over used as a colour. Therefore, we made the titles white to give the scenes a more contemporary feel and gives a bold look. Also, for the last title (which can be seen in the screen shot above), we timed the transition of the title so that when the door slams, the title appears instantly, almost frightening the audience. We also thought that when the door closes, the scene is pitch black. This is a good time to put the title of the film as the main title is usually at the end of the opening sequence and also, the black backgrounds means there is nothing to divert the attention of the audience from the from the main title.
One of the first things we needed to do in the process of editing is to collect all the suitable clips and cut them down to use particular parts. Therefore, we spent some time looking through the footage over the week and slowly started to filter through the footage we would use and the footage we would leave out. Some clips might not have been used due to poor lighting, shaky camera, poor acting etc. Moreover, once we had filtered through these different clips, we then had to crop the footage down. This is because at the start of a clip, you would here us say "start" and similarly at the end you would hear "cut." Not only that but due to the genre of the opening being a crime/thriller, the scenes would need to be cut down so that the scenes were edited in a way that made them short and snappy in order to create tension. If we prolonged some of the footage, the scene would appear to drag which could lessen the tension of the opening and in turn, the interest of the marketability in watching the film.
When we were in the process of selecting the right footage, we faced a choice between the two kitchen scenes and which one would feature in our opening sequence. We watched both pieces of footage over and, after some consideration, we decided to use the first take of the kitchen scene (right image in the screen shot) as opposed to the second take of the scene (left image in the screen shot) because the lighting is a lot better in the first take, making it more tense, atmospheric and party-like. The second take, on reflection, didn't have very good camera shots, had poor lighting and less props. We therefore kept the footage of the first take and used it for our rough cut.
When a film is being made, there is a colour artist who edits the colour of the scenes to make it fit in with the genre and perhaps hint at a particular storyline. Once we had all our clips in place in the right order, we next needed to alter the colour of some scenes to make it look realistic. One part of the opening where this really needed to happen was during the outside car scenes. As we had to film at a certain time on a certain day due to the driver of the car only being able to attend the shoot once, the lighting was not correct on the raw footage because it was too sunny and therefore didn't match up with the idea of a party scene. Generally, people would associate a house party being held at night so the look of the shots in the day mean that the party connection is lost and also, the tension is lost. Therefore, using some of the colour effects on final cut pro, we added an effect called 'cool tones' which made the scene darker. However, as you can see in the screen shot, this doesn't make the scene pitch black as we would have liked so isn't entirely effective in that respect. Nevertheless, the effect does mean that the scene looks more eerie due to the cool, cold, blue tones. Also, we altered the hue settings so that the scene looked even more cooler and cold. We were careful, though, in making sure that we didn't alter the lighting too dramatically as it could distort the picture and could even ruin the effect of making the scene scary.
Another scene where we altered the light is the kitchen scene where the character of Ellie is making drinks for the party. The screen shot on the right shows the difference between the different lighting. The left image has a lighting effect and the right image has no lighting effects. We chose to use a lighting effect for the party scene because we felt that the original clips looked slightly grey/ brown in colouration which didn't look sharp and neat but warm. Therefore, we chose to alter the lighting by changing the contrast to make it look crisper and the saturation levels to make the clip look bolder and stronger as opposed to having a grey tint. We think that overall, this enhanced the quality of the clip as in a crime/ thriller, saturation levels and contrast are sometimes used to portray a tense scene or to have a foreboding effect that something bad will happen. As with the outside footage, we made sure that we weren't too drastic with the editing but enough to make a difference and make the scene more tense. 
Another feature we used when editing the clips for our rough cut was to add effects for the killer scenes to give him a mysterious and sophisticated character. Having already added tense music and altered the colour of the outside scenes and the kitchen, we thought that for the end shot - when the killer kicks the door down and the character of Carla sees the killer enter the room as a shadow in front of the bright light - we would use an effect to make the identity of the killer even more mysterious by adding a blur effect. Not only does this make the identity of the killer even more difficult to work out, we thought that this effect would portray this shot as being a point of view shot. As all the characters at the party would be drinking, they would likely feel dizzy and so this blurry effect of the killer shows how Carla would be feeling drunk and dizzy and would therefore have slightly impaired, blurry vision. This is also effective in building tension because it is unclear what he will do. 
Finally, before showing our rough cut to the rest of the class to get some feedback to help with the final cut, we needed to add some titles. Due to time limitations, we were unable to put all the titles on for the rough cut but we had most of them to give the class an idea of what the titles were like. Some of the titles we used were actually in the scene such as the drinks bottles at the start of the scene in the kitchen. We thought that the titles in the scene was an original touch as it not only served the purpose of showing who directed the film, who it was by etc, it also drew attention to the props used in the scene, helping the audience to draw a connection between the props and the storyline. The other use of titles were the ones put over the top of the scenes in editing. The font we used for the titles was 'Base 02' from dafont.com and this looked really good and fitted well with the scene as it made a slight reference to the genre of the opening and also made the scenes look tense and also hints at the demeanour of the killer as the font is distorted. At first, we had a look at what the titles would look like in a red font, as red connotes violence, death and blood. However, when we looked at the title, it looked to cliched because it is sometimes over used as a colour. Therefore, we made the titles white to give the scenes a more contemporary feel and gives a bold look. Also, for the last title (which can be seen in the screen shot above), we timed the transition of the title so that when the door slams, the title appears instantly, almost frightening the audience. We also thought that when the door closes, the scene is pitch black. This is a good time to put the title of the film as the main title is usually at the end of the opening sequence and also, the black backgrounds means there is nothing to divert the attention of the audience from the from the main title.
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