Peer feedback improvements

After showing our opening scene to people outside the class, a point that we had to improve upon was the placement of the credits.
 

When editing to start with, we thought it would be creative to fit the names into the shot by placing them on objects and parallel to straight objects you could see in the picture - for example, 'Kelsey Parker' lies parallel to the edge of the crate that Lucy, the dead body, is lying on.
 

Feedback we got for this was that although it was creative and worked well, some of the text was too slanted in order to fit the picture. There is a part of the clip where the name 'Kelly Wilson' comes up as the role of the costume creating, when as the killer I'm chasing Kelsey in the field. It lies in the direction of the path on the screen, and looks too slanted compared to the minor slants that the rest of the credits were at in order to fit in well. Therefore it looks out of place and makes the part messier and less professional.
 

There were a few more credits that were the same which we also changed, but this one was the most tilted. I went back to Final Cut Pro and clicked the text, choosing a more suitable place on the screen for it to go where it could still be tilted to fit in somewhere. I chose the grass next to the path as there was no real parallel line to fit it with so it went anywhere in there. Once moved into the grass, I changed the slant down from 45 degrees with the slider, so it looked a lot better.
 

This was definitely needed feedback as it suited the credits of the opening scene better, making it look more polished and efficient.

Editing: improvements on credits

Some feedback we received said that it was confusing when the names appeared on the screen too long after their role in the film showed up.

So, we went back to Final Cut Pro and edited the credits so the name and role were a lot closer together. I had to edit out some of the names because when we inserted them before, to make the space between them we added one text piece for the role and the next one for the name a few moments later. Editing out the names and deleting the text piece was what I had to do to change this, and I had to put the names back into the text piece that appeared with the role on the 'text line two'. This was good feedback for us because it makes it less confusing and distracting to the scene.

Transitions in our Student Made Opening Scene

In the post-production task of our student made production, the four of us worked together and took different tasks to get our production finished with all of our opinions on how it could be better in the mix. My task was transitions, and I think this task was an important one because it makes us feel like the character, especially in Point of View shots such as the opening one, where the lights flicker on, and the victim slowly opens her eyes. A blur fits well with her confusion to where she is, and how she has a concussion due to the head injury she sustained to get into that situation. There are many transitions to choose from, and we made sure that we put the right ones in, and at the right times. The logo for transitions are two triangles, parallel to each other with the tip of each on the right and left. They look grey too, and can be easy to differentiate from text, footage and sound. Transitions are put between the clips, and can be extended and shortened which includes the speed of the transition, making it happen faster or slower, and can help change a scene, which has been done in films with the famous "Lucas Wipe", commonly used to change scene in Star Wars.
 This is a screenshot of what all the transitions are, and what we used mostly was blurs and cross dissolves, but there are many more to choose from so we had to find the right ones.











 This is an example of the transitions, as the screen is noticeably blurry as it focuses on the victim's point of view for a POV shot as she just wakes up, making the scene more effective with its shaking camera acting like a moving around head, and the blur representing her tiredness and aching head.

Continuity improvement

Continuity Improvement

We received feedback from an audience watching our video and discovered there was a break in continuity in a part of our opening scene.

 This took place as the victim escapes through the door and the killer turns around to find our where she's gone. After being made aware of it and re-watching it we could see the Killer turn around to see where the victim has run, the shot then changes to the killer running out of the door and then cuts back to the Killer turning around again. To preserve the importance of continuity we would have to cut it so the killer was already beginning to run after her in the second shot of him.

During editing I used the blade tool and deleted the beginning part of the second clip of the killer and started the second clip where he is already beginning to run after the victim who has escaped. This allowed continuity to flow smoothly and was accurate to real time making it much more realistic. 

Editing of Silence of the Lambs

Silence of the Lambs is considered one of the best horror films of all time, and even earned five academy awards and was the first horror film to acheive an Oscar for Best Picture. The editing of this film has a few techniques, and especially in one of the most important scenes of the film. This scene is where Hannibal Lecter escapes, killing two guards, but the way that it is shot is remarkable, for the editing techniques are well done, and we cannot actually be certain that he has succsefully escaped his confiement until the ending scene, where it cuts as we see him inside of an ambulance, disguised as a prison guard, wearing his skin like a mask to hide  his identity, a clever and well thought escape that we watch with excitement, knowing the greatness of that scene, and how it boosted the film to Oscar worthy stardom. The reason I have chosen this scene to deconstruct for editing, is because of the way in which it is done, as it is edited so you do not follow Hannibal's path, you follow the events as the police do, so you do not know of what is actually happening in the scene because you are just -mas blind and ignorant as the police are, believing that they have the upper hand against this genius. The editing is the stage in which you have finished filming, and begin to put all the footage into an editing software in which you can add sound effects, msic and special effects to and make scenes chronological or the order in which you want to tell the story.
The scene starts off slow, there is no cross-cutting and the camera does not change, it stays as a continuos and tracking shot which follows the guards as they give Dr Lecter his food, but as he escapes, the editing changes to Match on Action, from two shots where Hannibal opens his mouth and the next shot in which he is biting off the face of the guard that gave him his food, and now becomes his food. The next shot is done with a different technique, as it is Cross Cutting, because the narrative cuts to Hannibal no longer there, as the camera slowly pans over to see the food left there, covered in blood from where Hannibal beat the guard to death. The sound in this scene is diegetic, and scarily does not fit with the scene. You would expect to hear horiffic music as you witness the scene, but instead you hear a beautiful melody of a piano. There is a jump cut to a different scene and now we see the perspective of the police as they watch the elevator come down to their floor, but mysteriously stop on the third floor. This is where we are held in suspence and fearful of what he is doing, and the way the editing is now done we do not know where Hannibal is, which holds for a more tense scene as we find out what actually happened, and when we understand and respect the brilliance of Doctor Hannibal Lecter because of this escape, made confusing and tense at the start because of the well done editing which  keeps us not knowing what is happening on how it does not follow the simple continuity editing and instead using a vast array of editing techniques.

Editing: Improving the colouring

A lot of the comments on the feedback say that the colouring is too light and it would be more conventional to have a darker colouring for the whole opening scene.


We have already darkened the colour as it was very bright at the start but we found that when we saved the opening scene and put it on YouTube, it came out lighter than what it looked like on the computer.

So we will edit the colouring further and make sure that the colouring is dark enough on both the computer and on other computers when it is on YouTube.


Update:
I edited the colouring on all of the shots and made the saturation as well as the contrast lower so

Editing: Improvements on Title

Faceless Editing: Improvements on Title

Upon audience feedback after previewing our first draft of our video, our feedback suggested that the title of our piece whilst had fitting typography that fit with the gene was too dark to view on screen. Previously, when creating the text on Photoshop, I had made it with darker spots intentionally to try and fit in with the idea of a horror film including dark scenes and dark plots. However, I didn't take into account having difficulty seeing it.

We went back to the Faceless opening scene in Final Cut Pro and used the colouring tool to improve this. I moved up the brightness on brightness/contrast and used the brightness tool to make it lighter. This allowed us to see the text clearer. However moving the brightness up made the title loose contrast and the colour of the red blood in the title faded. This resulted in it looking less impactful.

To fix this I moved up the contrast to deepen the colours and darken the shadows of the title. This allowed it to still be bright as I kept the brightness of it as it was. Overall I am happy with how the title came out, as it fits with the genre and thanks to our audience feedback can now be seen clearly.

Faceless Editing: blinking effect

Faceless Editing: Blinking effect

On one of our shots, the victim of the opening scene is waking up on a POV shot with a hand-held camera and blurry focus. This was intentionally done to show the character's disorientation after being knocked out. To further show this we wanted to include a blinking effect to make it look like the character was only just waking up and to enhance the idea of a POV shot. We did this in the editing process in Final Cut Pro. 

I used the blade tool to cut the POV shot in half, where I wanted the blinking effect to appear. I then added in a blank black clip in between the two halved POV shots. The black blank clip would be the blinking. I had to use a cross fade transition and placed it over both sides of the black clip that linked to the POV shot. This made it seem like the victim was fading in and out of consciousness.

Overall, I think it came out well, as the effect's intentions of being a blinking effect is clear. The process of creating the blinking effect was simple and quick. After discovering how to do it I placed two more blinking effects in on the same POV shot. The impact of the effect was successful as it showed the character in a drowsy state and shows her to have been knocked out, this is helped by the diegetic sound of white noise in the background and makes the audience feel how the character is feeling. 

Editing: Match on Action

There is one piece of match on action in our opening scene when the killer walks into the lair.

When we filmed it, we did it multiple times so that we could make the editing continuous and accurate. To create the match on action as Olivia walks through the door, I chose the best versions of what we filmed and put them into the right sequence. I then had to use the blade to cut one of the parts into a half so that one half could go at the beginning then I cut the second half some more to put it after the middle shot. 

Once it was all in the right place, I just kept cutting the beginning or end of the shots to ensure it flowed well. It took quite a while to get it perfect and I had to keep watching it to ensure it was right.

I think it turned out very well and is continuous. I really like how we put in the handheld camera shot of her walking in so it shows her hand opening the door as it gives the first small detail of the killer's identity.

Editing Experiments

This is the stage after the production where all images and videos recorded are reordered into a narrative and ready to play for an audience. There are many ways that you can do editing for a production. There are many types of editing for a film, and the most common is Continuity Editing. This is where the film aims to create a sense of reality and time moving forward. Doing this editing technique for our film is the most simple to do, and obviously the one that won't confuse the audience. Sometimes having a different type of editing makes some films better, like the film 'Memento' which makes the story and plot so much more interesting by showing the film from the end to the beginning, enhancing the story telling element by filling the film with mystery and exciting the audience into the story and secrets of the film. There can be more than one type of editing in a film, as some would use jump cuts, cross cutting or flashbacks. The typical editing for a horror would use flashbacks to explain the secret behind the serial killer and the monster behind the mask, so we sympathies with him and understand why he does what he does, as there is always a hidden reason behind everything. To make a horror more interesting, we could change up the usual editing,starting it in the middle of a climactic scene and then deciding to change it abruptly with a jump cut and then a flashback to the previous scene on how this happened, and then cut the two in between.

Sound editing

After creating the sounds we needed for the scene, we had to incorporate them into different parts in the background that would sound appropriate. Unfortunately the sounds that we made were basic and just the one instrument didn't sound professional, so even though we used them at certain points, we still had to edit in some horror sound effects.

We looked up non-copyrighted horror sound tracks and looked through videos until we found one that was appropriate and suspenseful enough for the chase scene at the end. We also looked for more basic ones that would run through the whole time and overlapped with the ones that we made to make it sound better. This didn't take long yet still sounded professional, because we edited it to go along with different parts of the scene and added the options of fading in and fading out - something we used when the main title ('Faceless') appeared.

If there was anything that could have been changed, it would be that we could have made all of the soundtrack and used it because it would provide us with a more original piece, but it also allows us to know that we should plan for next time to make it as good as possible.

Editing - continuity

One of the main reasons that we had to re-film parts of our opening scene was down to poor continuity. We noticed as we were editing that many things were wrong with the shots. For example, between shots, Lucy (who plays the dead body in the corner) helped with figuring the next shots and getting the camera set up, then we realised that she forgot to get back in the position she was in. Also, in one shot her arm is limp by her side, then in another it's resting on a surface. For this reason we had no other choice but to re-film and we established the shots beforehand to make sure it ran smoothly.
 

  

Another challenge with continuity is match on action. This was incorporated into shots such as the door opening as I entered the 'lair', where there were shots from my point of view and shots from inside. There is also a shot in the field where Kelsey, the victim, falls over. We angled this from different shots to add match on action but to also make it easier for Kelsey to fall over. It was very easy to edit these to make them flow and we managed to make it look professional.

Faceless Editing: Text/Typography

Faceless Editing: Text/Typography:

When deciding what text we were going to use for the titles, we wanted it to suit the horror/slasher genre of our film. We wanted it too look rough and originally wanted a text that looked quickly hand-drawn. We began by looking at text that would have this effect. The first typography that we considered was 'Bradleyhand' typography. Whilst it gave the 'hand-written effect' we wanted it looked too 'teenager' and didn't fit the horror film genre.

The next text we looked at was 'chalkduster'. We considered this as a possible option as it had a rustic look and still looked hand-written. However, we decided to not use this one as whilst it had the effect we wanted, it didn't fit a slasher film

The final text we looked at was Octin Spraypaint at a scale size of 67.0. Whilst this typography didn't have the hand written effect we originally wanted, it was suitable for our genre but also looked like a type writing effect which gave it an aged feel which made it look rustic. We chose for the text to be white, as it stood out on the screen as a lot of our clips were dark. Capital letters were used to make it more dramatic.

To make it look like it was appearing in the scene, as if painted on the wall, we had to rotate the text to line up along the wall. In the picture below you can see the name 'Tom Hiddleston' has been turned to match up with the metal bar. We rotated it 3%.

For a more dramatic effect we wanted to make the text appear as if static was moving the text about on the screen. We looked on the effects options on Final Cut Pro and found a 'bad TV' effect where you can manipulate the text to look static. However, when we added it onto the text it caused the text to disappear. Instead we included a transition effect called 'feature' which made the letters appearing in a canon sequence.

 Overall, despite not achieving our original want for the typography I think what we created was a lot better than our beginning idea as it fit with the genre and was easy to read without looking like children's scribbles. 

Editing in Child's Play

Child's Play; Editing

The 1988 horror 'Child's Play', most commonly known for the killer toy 'Chucky' has an opening scene to do with a detective and a criminal in a gun fight in an empty street that ends in a toy store. The scene involves the criminal using black magic to put his soul out of his dying body and into that of a doll. There is a lot of different shots in this scene, as well as what we we mainly be looking at; the techniques of editing. This is how the film-making process decides to show the narrative with sound and images, as there are different techniques used.

The most common type of editing used in films is Linear Narrative. This is where the story is shown chronologically, in the correct order of events that is easy to follow. A film that does not follow this example is the film 'Momento' which is edited for the events to happen backwards from the end to the start. Child's Play uses the commonly used Linear Narrative so it can tell it's story without confusing the audience and making them think and piece the film together with continuity that they cannot understand or nit-pick it.




















There are credits within the opening scene of this film, most noticeably the shot with the dolls in the toy store all stacked up and then the title 'Child's Play' appears next to it as the scene continues, not stopping for the title for it to any visual effects like something from 'Scream' or 'Ash vs Evil Dead'. With this editing, the movie viewers don't have to wait for the title to go by, they are constantly engaged with the onscreen images of what is happening between this tense shootout between a criminal and detective instead of having the scene jump cut to a title that wouldn't have the same impact and ruin the tension of the scene that they are watching that clearly explains the origin of the killer doll. 

Editing: Adding the production companies

Adding the production companies

I used a Youtube to MP4 download website to download the Blumhouse Productions logo video. Now that I have saved it, we can now put it into the beginning of our opening scene along with one of the production companies that we made ourselves.

We chose Blumhouse Productions because it is well knwon for producing horror films and we thought it would be best to use a conventional production company rather than one like Universal which is much more general and is more commonly used for higher grossing films.

For our own production companies, we decided as a group that Kelsey's is the best and most appropriate out of all of ours. So I also downloaded that as an MP4 file so that we could put it in after the Blumhouse logo.

I think that both of our choices for production companies are good and conform to the genre of horror and so match the genre of our opening scene.

Editing our Opening Scene: Match on Action

In our opening scene we needed to have some match on action, so we decided to put it in when ....

To edit it all together to make it into match on action, I put all of the clips in the right order and cut them so that everything was in the same place and it had continuity.

Faceless Editing: Colouring

Faceless Editing: Colouring

After showing the draft of our edited film opening to an audience we received feedback that the colouring in the garage was too bright and didn’t reflect a dark and sinister setting in which the killer’s lair should show. Whilst re-filming some parts, we experimented with lighting in order to create the effect we wanted. We first started off by turning all of the lights off and discovered it was too dark for the camera to see. Then we turned the lights on, there was no dimming them as they were either on or off. In the garage there was too lights, we decided it might be effective if we cover one of the lights up to make it darker. We covered it with black bin bags but despite it covering it up, the room was still too bright on the camera. Instead, it was suggested we manipulate the colouring in the editing process.

I used colour corrector to do this, having to select all the clips at once to colour all the clips all together to make the process quicker

I used a colour balance effect to manipulate the colouring from a yellow colour to more blue, to make it more sinister and dark.

In saturation, I put the saturation down half-way in order to make it look less bright, however I didn’t pull the saturation down all the way as this would have made it black and white instead, which is not the effect we were looking for.

The exposure allowed us to create a more darkening setting. I put this down as well, which pronounced the clip and made areas more blacker and darker, giving a small darkening around the edges, creating an eerie setting.

I had problems with one clip, as due to the lighting in the filming made the colour corrector appear differently on it to the others, making it not look naturalistic and as if we’d filmed it at two different points. In this clip, the image was more saturated than the others. To solve the problem I decreased saturation and increased exposure to make it more darker and fit in with the other clips of the opening.

Overall I’m happy with the colouring we’ve used as it is slightly blue and darker than the original and I achieved my aim of making it look like the garage is has a low lighting to create a scary atmosphere.

Editing: Re-colouring the killer's lair

Practical Task: Re-colouring the killer's lair in editing

As we are filming at a relative of mine's garage we want the garage to look like it could be in a run down location. The exterior of the garage is painted pink. This is too much of a light, happy colour to feature in a horror/slasher opening. Although we could possibly solve this by not filming outside, if we wanted to film there the colour would have to change. I thought about changing it in the editing process and tried to find tutorials on youtube that would help. I found this one:

This tutorial shows how to change the colour of certain parts of a video clip in Final Cut Pro (the editing software which we'll be using) which could be useful in making the garage (without altering the rest of the image) a different, darker colour. 

I opened Final Cut Pro and imported a picture of the garage. Using the blade tool i cut half way through the image to create a 'before and after' 

Then using the colour correction (correction 1 tab) and used a colour mask in order to hide the pink colouring on the image. I did this by using the eye drop tool and selecting the area in which I wanted to mask. I tried hard to only select the pink areas, although couldn't quite select the areas of orange around the garage. This would require a second mask that, if I was to do again, in the editing process, I would do. This is as, I didn't quite manage to remove all of the 'light' colours from the garage exterior which wouldn't fit in with the conventions of a typical slasher that is most often featuring dark, gloomy colours.

After selecting the area in which I wanted to change the colour off I had to adjust the colour I wanted instead. Using saturation, colour and exposure. I decided I was going to go for a greyscale look to create a further dark effect

^ As you can see from the above picture, I didn't select the orange parts of the image for masking.

Before & After

I wasn't too happy with the overall look, although I did succeed in making it look darker, however it still didn't look like it would take place in a dark and isolated place, perhaps if I used different positioning and framing and remove the houses in the background and added an effect to it, it would look more suitable for a slasher film. However, this is also just a picture, I'm not too sure what would happen if I did this as a video clip and if it was still look realistic.

Evaluation of editing our preliminary

What was Done?
With our preliminary film being of the action genre we wanted to include fast paced editing. We wanted to do this with the upbeat non-diegetic action music, as the character walks along the corridor when killing the security guard. To do this we had to download music from YouTube, our inspiration for it being the James bond theme, when editing on final cut pro it had to be faded out as the diegetic dialogue began to make it audible.

We also wanted to include a CCTV effect to make it seem like the protagonist was being watched on camera as he shot the security guard. We filmed it on a high angle shot and then during editing added a 'security camera' effect on Final Cut Pro to create a CCTV effect. After the protagonist 'shoots' the camera, we wanted to make it look like the 'security camera' was broke, so added a static transition.

What went well?

After reviewing our work we thought the match on action worked well. Overall we used 4 different shots to show the protagonist walking through a door. When editing we used the blade tool to cut each shot to make it continuous and flowing.

Problems encountered?

When filming we had decided on what shots we wanted to use in the scene. However, after filming had been done when we were trying to upload all the clips, it wouldn't upload all of the files as we ran out of memory space on the computer. Disadvantaging us as when editing it was hard to fill in gaps for the shot reverse shot parts of the film, as parts of our clips were missing.

Due to this, towards the end of our short film, we began to run out of clips to use. We decided to re-use one of the earlier footage of Olivia walking down the hallway, and flip the image over to make it seem like she was walking in the other direction.

What would we do if we did it again?

If we had more time during the editing stages we would have focused more on the shot reverse shot scene as often moments of it seemed clumsy, due to our lack of clips, and if had the chance to do it again we would want to make it look continuous and made sure to cut to the other character when they were speaking.