Editing - Completion

Today we completed the editing of our opening by adding a few final touches.
-We made a couple tweaks to the sound in our opening by fading the music out to include more dialogue and playing with the sound levels. We decided to include more dialogue as we think it adds to the overall effect and just generally makes our opening more engaging for the audience.
-We shortened the length of time that our titles appear for; partly to make our opening more fast paced and interesting and partly to make our opening come in as close to the 2:00 time limit imposed as possible.

Editing - 3

We have had a few oppurtunities to edit our opening this week and s we've managed to get quite a bit done and I believe we are well on our way to completing the editing.
-We began to incorporate filters, different effects and cross-fade between various cuts where apropriate throughout our opening.
-We started incorporating titles into our film using an external program to take a freeze frame of the footage at the points we wanted titles and then overlaying text to create the effect that I have discussed previously which takes inspiration from 'Trainspotting'.
-We looked at the sound in our clip and began to add music over certain points, this proved to be quite difficult as we had to cut the music so that it fitted with the action that was taking place in the footage and with the titles that we had just added.

Final Music Choice

The song that we have decided to use in our opening sequence is Nero's 'Innocence'; the song is licensed by MTA records and at the beginning of the week we emailed them requesting permission to use the song in our opening. We heard back from them yesterday and they happily agreed to let us use it as our project is not for profit.

Editing - 2

At this point we have finished putting all of our clips in order into the Final Cut timeline; we have also started to cut the clips down as currently the clips add up to well over the two minute time limit that we have to abide to. We have also put the double image effect over the opening part of Sam S taking the drugs and used jump cuts to give it more of an edgy feel.

Editing - 1

Over the past week Danny and myself have been using Final Cut Express to edit our opening sequence. We have learnt a number of basic techniques including how to import and render clip, how to use the cutting tool to cut clips and how to fade audio in and out. We have also experimented with a number of different effects including a double image effect that we plan to use at the very beginning of our opening when Sam S is taking the different drugs as it gives the audience an impression of the kind of drug induced haze that he is in.

Unsuccessful Second Filming Session

Unfortunately, through no fault of our own, we were unable to complete our second filming session as one of our actors didn't turn up. However, we have taken a second look at the footage that we did manage to get in our first filming session and we have decided that it will be ok to use and that the dark, gritty feel it has to it could in fact add to the overall effect of our film in a positive way.

Second Filming Session Plans

We plan to go back to our location and re-film the parts that we decided were too dark on Sunday 9th of January; we have checked with all of our actors and they have said they are available on this date and will come to the location on time, dressed in the same costume that they were wearing for the first filming session. As we will only be re-filming shots that occurred towards the end of our scene the only prop we will need to remember to take with us is a carrier bag, for the part where our main character is suffocated.

First Editing Session

Today we had our first editing session in which we uploaded all of the footage we got from our first filming session onto the macs, imported it into final cut and put the clips in a rough order to get an idea of whether we needed any extra footage to complete our opening and whether any re-filming of certain parts was needed. We were very pleased to see that we had managed to film all of the parts we needed and that they all fitted together and followed on from each other well, with good continuity throughout. The issue of some of the footage being dark and grainy that i discussed earlier did come up though and although the footage isn't terrible we have decided it would be best to go back and re-film some of the shots that suffered the most from the lack of light.

Technical Analysis

First Filming Session

Yesterday we went to our location, the empty warehouse, and had our first filming session.  All of the actors turned up on time in costume, we had all of the equipment and props that we needed and as a result we were very pleased with what we managed to get done. We were able to film the whole of our opening sequence  however towards the end of our filming session, as it got dark outside, the amount of light in the warehouse started fall and we were left with quite dark, grainy footage. The next step will be to upload everything that we managed to film onto the mac's and see whether we need to do a second filming session.