Editing - music

This was our first track of music that we put on the opening sequence....



I don't think that this music fits the video very well. First of all it it just a mix of sounds put together, it does not necessarily set the scene or tone of the film. The sounds used are quite annoying as well and some of them become off putting and irritating.


 Therefore, we decided to have another go at the music to see if it could sound better. Back on GarageBand we looked for more sounds and music which were more similar to the tone of the film. Once we had found some sounds and started putting them together, a different sound for each location in the opening sequence, we decided that actually that is not what happens in an opening sequence. We looked at some real life examples to remind ourselves and found that they all tend to have an ongoing piece of music throughout. Therefore we made a continuing track to be used throughout the sequence using just a few different tracks. Watching it with the film, we decided that it was quite long and got a bit boring so we added a few slightly different sounds throughout, which I feel adds suspense and questioning to the sequence. I now feel that the music is not off putting when watching the sequence and it creates a good mood or tone for the beginning of the story.

In addition to this, whilst watching the video we noticed that the black screen with the voiceover was actually quite boring. Therefore using Final Cut, we added in opening credits onto the black screen as we feel this is what would be done on a real film. It was only a small change but I think it makes the film look a bit more professional.

Here is the final video with completed music.

Evaluation

Find my evaluation on my Wix page here.

Final film

After weeks of planning, hours of shooting and months of editing here is our final opening sequence for our film Chroniker. Enjoy... 

Editing credits

We wanted to make our titles quite fun. We decided to have them moving and we worked on making sure they moved the same way as the action and didn't take too much focus off the action. We wanted to have them moving as it tied in with the narrative of the character traveling around London. I am happy with the way the credits turned out although we didn't fit everything in that we wanted and we wanted the focus to be more on the action.
Originally we wanted to have the credits on a black screen moving along lines of a map as previously mentioned similar to the film Rubicon, however as it came to doing the credits we felt that it would take up too much time of the sequence and we would instead have them over the footage.
Then as we were editing we found that the footage didnt always flow, for example in one shot there would be a car in the background and in the next shot it would be gone. We therefore at that point decided that we would have footage and then cut away quickly to a black screen with the credits then back to the footage and it would be less noticeable. However, again, as it came closer to the time we realised that it would make the opening too long and we would have to cut out footage to make it the right length which we didn't want to do.
Once we had split screened, I suggested having the titles on at the same time as the split screen and move in between each box that came up. This would link it back to our original idea of having the credits moving on a map, but without the map. We tried this with the time that we had and although it may not be exactly how we envisaged we were happy with it.

Editing 9 scrapping map

We became quite ruthless with the cutting down and editing of our film this week. It was still over 3 minutes and felt as though it was dragging on.

We deleted a few clips in our sequence, ones we felt were a bit boring or long and were making the opening drag a bit. I was hesitant to delete the shots so quickly as it felt we had spent so long on editing each part. However we had got to the stage where it had to be done and looking back on the week and our film without theses clips it has tidied up the sequence and it looks more effective.

The map was taking up the most of our time and we were having trouble making it flow within the sequence especially getting the still flowing into action. We therefore decided to scrap the effects on the map and instead of showing it four times only show it once in the final location of the opening sequence. This was quite annoying as the map had taken up so much of our time and effort that we were just going to delete it, but after seeing it without the map I think we made the right decision.

We spent some time making sure the map wasn't visible in previous shots and worked on the zoom of the image out of the map and into motion. We did this on Final Cut 3.51 by going to effects, video, quick time, transitions, zoom.

We were now able to continue with credits, I found this quite exciting as it finally felt as though the film was coming together and started looking professional.

We also created the AfterShock! name on Live type, this was difficult but i think the choice of background was suited to our film. 

Editing 8

The map was becoming increasingly frustrating and time consuming so we decided to take a break from it and start on the credits for the film. We used type writer for the 'title' eg 'directed by' and then the names in scrolling text. I felt that it was quite important to have the credits moving and it adds to the feel of the character walking around London, traveling.

I thought it would look quite good if the credits could move along with the split screens, ie as each box moved it would be replaced with credits which would then move to where the next box was. Like a snake. With the limited time and knowledge we had, it was decided to have the credits moving but more simple than this.

It was originally planned that to overcome our continuity problem ie a car suddenly disappearing, that it would flash away to black or a map with our credits on. However this would increase the time of our sequence greatly and we still needed to cut some time off it. Looking back on what we did this week I am happy with the credits.

Editing 7

We decided that we would split screen the parts of our opening sequence where the character is just walking. We felt it would make it more interesting and also speed it up. However we got carried away and started split screening everything. I wasn't too sure if this was the right thing to do as the main action was split screened and it became quite busy. However we did cut some of the clips out and have left some short parts of the sequence with no split screen and no effect and it works well.
After split screening our shots we started to notice that the colour was slightly different on each. We therefore adjusted the colour to make the sequence on the screen the same brightness and colour.

The split screen allowed us to progress greatly as it reduced the time of our sequence as well as making our sequence look more exciting and make more sense. This encouraged us to finish the sequence to the standard we had been aiming for but not quite reaching all along.

The map was still proving a problem this week as we were finding it hard to show a still going staright into motion.