Editing

To edit our sequence, we used Adobe premiere pro which allowed us to edit on multiple tracks.

Many of our shots were cut so that they were fairly short to ensure a constant pace throughout the project. There were very few times when we added in effects between shots, we mainly just cut from shot to shot. The reasoning behind this choice is because we felt that adding in an effect would detract from the scene and we want the intense emotions in our scene to be maintained.

 So that we had a guideline for shot length, placement and the placement of our titles, we used a feature on Premiere pro enabled us to lock the tracks containing the original positions and gave us a template to use for the rest of our editing sessions. This was very beneficial, because it allowed us to edit our sequence without every member of our group being present as the general positioning of things in the sequence had already be predetermined as a group.

The responsibility for editing was shared equally throughout the group, unfortunately due to timetable constraints it was increasingly difficult to all come together and edit as a group. Fortunately for us, we took full advantage of the editing slots which took place both before and after school, spending many mornings and evening working together as a group and each having major contributions to the way in which the sequence was put together.

Back up Shoot

We wrote out the lines for the
actors to read during the
mastershots as prompts.

After our main shoot, we realised there were many shots that we had to reshoot, so we had to reshoot everything on our back-up shoot.

We started the day at 9:00am and it lasted until 9:00pm.

Since the lights were heating up very quickly we needed to have many breaks.

We knew what we wanted. We needed to get the props and footage filmed in the right way. When we struggled to explain the situation that the actors needed to act, we filmed ourselves on our phones and then showed them the video on what to do.

This enabled them to easily understand what we were trying to capture in our film opening.



Back Up Shoot Storyboard Sample

Back Up Shootboard sample page

Making our titles

We made the titles on Livetype on the mac.

We used a free font called Milford Black. We set the colour to white and made the outline colour grey so the titles would stand out when imposed upon white props in the footage.

When we made the titles, we aligned the writing to the side it should appear on in the sequence.

When writing some of the credits e.g. "Directed by Josh Stevenson", the "Directed by" was set to size 60.0 and the name "Josh Stevenson" would be set to size 72.0.

We added in a film dissolve to both the start and end of the titles so that they seemed to flow throughout the sequence.

Production Company Title

We had already chosen the name for our production company "Frozen Productions" and had a general direction to head in in-terms of the logo because of what people automatically associate with the term frozen. We contemplated various routes to head down, our first idea was to have a clock with its hand constantly stuck between two seconds; however due to the period of time the logo would be on screen for we thought it best to have something much simpler which the audience would not have to spend time trying to work out the meaning of the logo.

This is the end product:

It is exactly what people assume they will see when they hear of frozen productions. We had very little prior knowledge of how to use Adobe After Effects, so in order for me to be able to create this animation we found an online tutorial of how to do the wanted effect and made some slight changes to put our personal stamp on it.

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Our Background Music

This is the audio that we used as the backing track of our film opening.

We asked a fellow student, Shannon Balram if she could play her composition for us. She recorded herself playing it. This composition was originally a song; we thought it was better as an instrumental version.
This enabled us to have copyright-free music that we didn't have to pay for.

We decided that the piece by Shannon Balram was suitable for our piece because of its fairly slow pace and the emotions it invokes in audiences. It tells them that the situation is far from ideal for the characters, connotes the main characters mood and creates an atmosphere that feels quite fragile.

For a reference, we looked at "Remember Me" whose score fits our preference of a fragile atmosphere being created. As well as this there are points in the score where the volume and pace increases which connotes an increase in the intensity of the characters emotions.

Grading

We used a range of tools to grade our film opening. The software includes Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe After Effects.

We had 3 different styles of grading that we needed for our narrative:

1. The night/early morning dark shots.
2. The light late morning shots.
3. The corridor shot.

For the early shots we planned to create a sad and depressed atmosphere using the Pro-camp video effects on Adobe Premiere Pro and Color Finesse 3 in Adobe After Effects. This was our first time grading shots to look like it is the night/early morning and as such none of us quite knew exactly what the standard way for grading to look dark is. To overcome this we did in-depth research into different films that also have shots indoors when light is supposed to be minimal.

Grading for the Light Late Morning shots was extremely difficult for us as a group as we were unable to come to a uniformed decision about what kind of mood we wanted for these shots. Eventually we came to the conclusion that we wanted to have a slightly unkempt feel to it, we didn't make it easy for ourselves when we were shooting however. The room we were using had very strong purple walls, with purple and white bed sheets and pillows; due to us not having the correct filter for our lighting we ended out using as purple filter which only intensified the purple tinge on most of the footage. Even some of the whites of the bed sheets ended out looking purple due to the lighting.






To get over this trouble, this is how we chose to grade our shots:

As you can see we increased the saturation and contrast to try and combat this very purple tinge to our shots, as well as lowering the brightness to really bring out the different colours in costume between Jess and Alex.


Grading for the night Shots

Before Dark Grading

After Dark Grading

We took reference from David Mullen's work:

As you can see, they chose to grade their shots by adding a blue tint to everything. We felt that this was a very effective way of creating the convention that blue means darkness to the audience. As well as creating this convention, it allows the audience to get a sense of time of day (night time, so very dark) while still being able to perfectly see everything that is happening within the film. We used Adobe After Effects to give our dark scenes this effect, within After Effects there is a preset names SA Color Finesse 3 which allowed us to do much more intricate work than would have been possible on Premiere Pro alone.

Continuity Issues to resolve in the back up shoot

Arrangement of clothing on the floor: 
-To overcome this will take pictures of the floor that clearly show the positioning of everything on the floor of the set.

Position and Arrangement of Props:
-Again photography will be extremely useful in remembering the exact placing of these props.

 
Position of Blanket and pillows on the bed:
-We will set a position on our actress' body where the blanket will be pulled down to in one of the early shots and ensure that it is always at that length.
-In regards to the  pillows, we will have a set arrangement for them and take a picture after each moment in the scene where the pillow is required to be moved, so that we can use it as a reference point.

 Ensure no production equipment is in shot:
-Store any extra equipment i.e. camera bags, chargers, lighting filters off of set in the corridor outside of the room used for filming.
-Have a set location for the lighting for each shot and if lighting does need to be moved for the shot, then the new positioning is as such that the lighting kit cannot be seen in frame.

Timing and order for placing beer bottles/cans in the bin:
-We will set a memorable phrase which clearly indicates what is picked up in which order e.g. BCBB       (B- Bottle C-Can)
- Have a set time between placing one object in the bin and picking up another of 1-2 seconds.

Don’t interfere with the setting:
Especially during breaks, instead move to another room to take breaks so that we can ensure nothing is moved from its original positioning.

Ensure door is open in all shots required:

-Set a predetermined position for where the door will be opened to and place a marker so that we know instantly if the positioning of the door is incorrect.

Leave any equipment on the floor in a part of the set which is never seen.

Ensure the lighting for the corridor is maintained throughout the shoot. (Best to set up lighting beforehand)

Make sure the characters move in the same way in match on action shots.

The shot when Alex's head rests against the door needs to be flipped or the entire shot revised so as not to break the 180 Degree rule.

Main Shoot: Reflections

Our main shoot happened on Monday 17th February 2014. We started setting up at 9:00am. Since we were at a new location we had to block the location and plan how we would set up the lighting and equipment.

We had to make setups that would be fairly stable and also equally light the scenes that we filmed. The two diagrams show a rough layout of the room.

Our mise en Scene

When we arranged the mise-en-scene we took multiple photos of the props as they would be moved during filming and also get moved when people walk through. Although we took photos the props ended up moving.

We forgot the light the doorway when we were filming which created discontinuity as Alex is later pushed into a lit corridor.