"De(i)fied" Final Cut

At long last, here is the final cut of mine and Adam's opening to our film.



AF & DY

Ident: Final Version

This is the final version of our ident, which we physically filmed using a light box and pieces of coloured plastic, as planned. However, we had to cut it shorter than anticipated, meaning we didn't get to use the full length of our stop motion animation. To achieve this effect, we filmed the sequence as normal, and then sped up the footage 4x on Final Cut. The name we decided on, as before, was "Elemental Studios", due to the four colours representing the elements. Originally, we planned to form the name of our company out of the pieces of plastic themselves, but we found this was too complicated and made the title look virtually unreadable. Therefore, despite initially wanting to avoid using Motion, we nevertheless ended up having to familiarise ourselves with it. In order to achieve the above font, we wrote out the name of our company, added a background glow and then deleted the text itself in to mirror the effect of the lightbox. We programmed the text to move towards the audience slightly as the ident played because no movement at all made the whole thing look rigid and unnatural, and this was the simplest, least distracting motion we could use.

We combined the Motion graphics and filmed element in Final Cut, cropping the image in order to centre the circle of plastic on the screen. We then heightened the colour saturation of the red tones on both components in order to give the entire image a warmer, brighter and therefore more eye-catching ambience. In the end, I think the ident turned out significantly better than we could have anticipated; despite being fairly clearly made by a low-budget company, its rough, distressed, shadowy style suits the tone of the rest of our film perfectly.

AF

Altering Colour

One technique we had been keen to use at our research and planning stage was that of colour alterations, especially as a device to make the contrast between our two leads all the more obvious. Luckily, we had enough time to work out a satisfactory colour pallet after completing our second rough cut, raising the saturation of red shades in frames with Al, and generally draining the colour from Mal's scenes on the  pallet that had the most influence in each shot.

This is likely the most striking example of a before and after comparison. We chose to alter predominantly red shades in Al's scenes due to her clothing and surroundings, and this shot is surely testament to the effective filming and costume choices we made. The effect of such a trivial change ended up turning this shot into one of our personal favourites due to the huge aesthetic difference  colour alteration made to it.


The opposing colour scheme we chose for Mal's shots created a fairly jarring effect due to the viewer having to constantly watch the camera switch between the two throughout the entirety of the opening montage. However, this effect made the contrast between the two girls more obvious, especially in terms of suggesting the difference in their origins; Al's colours are unrealistically vibrant, connoting her alien heritage which we would traditionally view as a break away from the mundanity which Mal's colour scheme represents. For every shot, we picked a different colour to fade depending on the magnitude of the impact it had, such as bringing down the saturation of green here due to the expanse of the field in the background.

However, it quickly became obvious that the shots where the two characters appeared on-screen together would become a problem for us. Reverting to standard saturation in those scenes seemed like a natural decision to make (especially in terms of symbolically highlighting how the two lead's personalities balance each other out throughout the rest of the plot). However, we nevertheless elected that it would look effective if, every time one of the characters left the shot, the colours would revert to those associated with the one who remained. An example of this is shown here, with the first and third shots having a normal colour saturation because Al and Mal are together, but with the middle shot's red saturation heightened due to Al being alone. Despite the cut we had to make halfway through the shot to apply this change, the transition looks fairly smooth in the film itself; something we were rather pleased with, as it would prove an interesting Easter egg for our more attentive viewers.

The final shot of Mal is the only one which we allowed to be an exception to the rule, in order to emphasise the atmosphere of confusion and fear our protagonist finds herself in. These feelings, which the viewer is supposed to emphasise with, meant the shot had to be brighter and sharper, just as the world looks under high tension or stress for us, allowing us to react more quickly to our surroundings. Hopefully, this choice precipitates the cliffhanger effectively, making the audience wonder about the resolution.

In all, altering the colour saturation of our piece to subtly emphasise the film's themes of reflection and parallel worlds was probably one of our best ideas, effectively enhancing not only the strange ambience of our work but also the other clues within the opening (such as the matching key necklaces and the Al's "mother's" unresponsive behaviour). Although the correct balance of both enhancement and discolouration was at first difficult to find, we eventually realised that the optimal saturation value to use for most shots was +/-50% (discounting special cases where this created an effect too unrealistically bright or dark). It was also interesting to learn that certain colours were significantly more present in our environment than anticipated, as shown by, for instance, a change in green saturation affecting certain brown colours, such as that of bricks. The change we made, overall, is not only interesting but attractive; the normal colours of the footage, while seeming perfectly fine before, now seem in some way unacceptable in comparison.

AF

Coursework Rough Cut 2

After several sessions of rigorous editing and shuffling, we've reduced our product to around 3 minutes. In retrospect, this is honestly amazing, considering the amount of time we managed to delete without detrimentally affecting the flow of the narrative (we think, anyway). Some of my personal favourite shots have had to be deleted, such as the one with the lens flare, but these have been necessary sacrifices in maintaining a semblance of pace to the footage. The remaining work we have to do in terms of graphics and sound will hopefully be completed in the next couple of weeks after our final cut in terms of filming is finished. As we move onto doing our evaluation and film industry work in class, these things will have to be taken care of during the rest of our week, which means we should make use of our final sessions to get second opinions on our work.

AF & DY

Coursework Rough Cut 1

This cut marks the beginning of our editing process, in which we've only cut out the superfluous instructions and count-ins from the shots we chose. It was honestly quite surprising how many versions of each shot we had when we went back over them at the beginning, but in the end I'm satisfied that we picked the most effective of our options. It's somewhat annoying that some of the shots in our principle scene where the title will appear are skewed (a fact I mentioned before but which especially stands out from the thumbnail of the above video). I must concede this is my own fault for not checking how the ground looked in the frame as opposed to simply trusting the indicator on the camera stand. I'd like to consider reshooting this scene, but this is impossible due to the academic pressure our actresses are facing and the amount of concessions they've already had to make for us. I suppose we'll simply have to put this blunder down to experience.

The order of shots in this version remains somewhat confused as we have not yet cut everything together according to our storyboard. Aside from that, we clearly have a lot of deleting and shaving to do, as the present time of our work is over twice the length it should be. We also need to find a time to record our soundtrack so we can sync it up to the footage and seek alternatives if we decide it doesn't work. Personally, I'm not looking forward to the prospect of removing some of the more scenic shots we took, although I recognise this will probably be necessary. The synchronisation of the sound that we managed to seemingly magically achieve in the final scene is probably our collective proudest moment in terms of this first cut, and I'm pleased with the level of skill we've managed to exhibit in terms of matching the audio patterns up despite our previous failures to do anything of even remotely similar quality. It seems practice does, in fact, make (nearly) perfect.

AF & DY

Filming: Session 3

This final session went significantly smoother than the previous one. At 11:00, we met at Piccadilly Circus underground station; a journey which took me and Clara about 20 mins because we live so close to a tube station. Everyone arrived promptly, Adam ready with the equipment and directions and me with the storyboards and props. Our organisation, I'd venture, had improved vastly through the trials and errors of the previous weeks.

After setting up for filming on location, we turned on the camera and found it only had about 24 mins of battery time; Adam hadn't charged it correctly. However, this was only a minor setback, as we projected that we had enough time as long as we switched the camera off/put it to sleep in-between takes. The other downside was the weather, which metamorphosed from moderate gloom to spitting rain about two-thirds of the way through filming. However, despite this, we managed to shoot almost all our footage before the camera shut down right before us managing our last two takes. In the end, this didn't pose a real problem; we went into a coffee shop down the street and allowed our actress for Al to warm up while we charged the camera. It had been a problem making her run back and forth, putting on her coat between filming so she didn't freeze, so this was a welcome and timely respite from the weather and stress.

Adam was in charge of recording the sound in this section, as we have the bulk of our dialogue at the end of our sequence. He conducted this with an exceptional degree of professionalism and the result is, as you'll see, excellently clear sound; something we know groups in previous years have struggled to achieve in their work. I'm not sure how much enjoyment he got out of squatting on the ground out of shot of the camera for intermediate amounts of time, but at the very least his hard work paid off.

In the end, we shot the last few scenes within minutes and went home happy. Luckily, the rain we battled through didn't even show up on film; something we were all grateful for, I think. This session concluded our filming, and we could begin editing and other post-production at last. I did enjoy this part of the coursework, but I feel that it would have been easier if we were a professional team with no other responsibilities apart from getting it done. Some day, maybe.

AF & DY

Filming: Session 2

I've let blog updates fall by the wayside for the last few weeks due to the hectic pattern of filming and editing, but now that shooting is over I have time to retrospectively review the two other days on-set.

The session begun as if some higher power was purposefully working against us whilst loudly, obnoxiously laughing. We were scheduled to meet on Sunday morning at 10, outside of school. We had some problems with transportation (the actress for Mal, Kalyani, was coming from a different part of London and needed to go home to change into costume, whilst mine and Clara's lift was postponed due to her sister taking precedence). We could always have taken public transport, but I didn't cherish the thought, as I was the one in charge of all the equipment. In the end, we resolved to meet at 10:30. Clara and I were lifted to the nearby park for her mother's convenience, and I messaged Adam that we'd meet him and Kalyani straight at Lover's Walk. However, I made the fatal mistake of asking him to send me the postcode so we could walk there via Google Maps, since Clara and I aren't local to the area and therefore had little idea of where to go. After Adam sent us to the wrong location twice (and we at one point ironically walked straight through where we were supposed to go, not noticing because the gate we expected to see had been removed), I told Adam and Kalyani to come pick us up from a street corner. I then revoked Adam carry the equipment I'd been dragging from place to place for the better part of an hour as punishment for his inability to copy-paste an address line. Mostly, I'm just sorry for the pressure we put on our actresses, especially Clara who had requested we film as quickly as possible because she was having a bad week for homework... But I digress.

The rest of filming, fortunately, went about as smoothly as it could. The vital shots on that godforsaken side path were completed within about 20 mins, and we then took the bus to Clapham Common, where we filmed the rest of Al's scenes and finally allowed at least one of our put-upon actresses to go home. Mal's waking up shots didn't take long either and, in the end, we finished with a few hours of daylight to spare and the better part of the evening ahead of us.

The footage came out just fine. There were a few pieces of dialogue that we filmed but didn't use the sound equipment for, which was perhaps lazy of us, but I'm not sure it would have made a difference anyway as the microphones are very sensitive and there was both wind and an endless barrage of people surrounding us on location. The important thing is, the words are audible, and even if we do decide to dub it the process of recording will take two actors and five minutes. The only visual problem is that, at one point, the sloping angle of the satanic path we for some reason chose as our location makes it look like the camera is tilted. Hopefully, we won't have to go back there and re-shoot. If we do, I'm sending Adam alone.

DY

Filming: Session 1

The first weekend of filming was fairly successful, possibly because we only had one production team member and two actresses involved. Including breaks, filming took from 12pm to 5:30pm.

There were several issues with the lighting, considering the fact that one of the lights dimmed fairly quickly to a sort of orange tone and the other light was too stark in contrast, meaning most of the shots probably lack depth. However, since we're planning to play around with colour in editing anyway, hopefully the difference between the cold natural light and brighter tones when lighting is used can be evened out later. 

There is also a continuity error that we will need to refilm at one point (the music box has a lock on it in one shot and no lock the next), as well as an important shot which I forgot to take of an extreme close-up of the necklace with the key on it. This will hopefully be ratified the coming weekend, as I live only a few minutes away from the location; fixing these issues should take only a few minutes. 

The sound has thus far been fine, probably because the only piece of dialogue we've had has been inside, and so there was little ambient sound to interfere with the quality. The real challenge in terms of that should be this week, as we'll mostly be out in a park and in the city. 

There are also several occasions where I took the liberty of taking extra shots that hadn't been planned in the storyboard, simply because the opportunity presented itself (such as the shots with the actress's cat). We won't be able to use all of these, of course, but nevertheless they may provide some more interesting transitions or points of view on the characters and settings used.

DY