Editing

It's been a while since my last post but that's not to say that I haven't been busy. We all decided that we wanted to do an individual edit, so over Easter holiday this is what we did. I found it really helpful to spend time alone using Final Cut Pro and getting used to the software. I feel a lot more confident now and have learned a lot through this process. When we got back in Bath, Myles, Josh and I showed each other our edits. We found each one had nice elements so have therefore tried to incorporate all of our edits into one. We used my edit as a base, as I had done a full rough cut and it was a good basis to go from. We did have a few disagreements on various things, such as whether the stills worked and where within the dialogue they should be placed but after lots of discussion we now have a complete edit.

Due to shooting on a 7D it has meant our editing process has been slightly more complicated than it would be usually. Our file is massive so it's meant we haven't been able to move it around easily. We've also had lots of problems trying to sort out our sound. We used a four track recording devise, which I won't go into in detail because sound is not my area of knowledge but basically sound was recorded at a low level during production. This was no ones fault, it was just that none of us had used the recording equipment before. The sound also alternates dramatically from shot to shot. This is partly because we had an old retro tape recorder which broke half way through the shoot. This means we have a sound continuity error where it goes from being noisy to quiet throughout the film. We recorded wildtrack of the tape recorder so that we could correct this in the edit but it hasn't been as simple as we thought it would be. Therefore, we've had a couple of meetings with Richard Wood in hope that he could find a quick solution to our problem. After several different attempts I think he has now come up with the best method. Unfortunately the sound hasn't been completed in time for our submission but it will be ready for our showcase at The Little Theatre.

Myles and I spent the weekend in the Gatehouse finishing off the rest of the edit for submission. We spent most of our time trying to colour correct. Bearing in mind neither of us have ever really colour corrected footage before I think we did ok. We have blackened up all the blacks and generally enhanced the colour throughout, which has given the film a rich and glossy look. It's amazing to see the difference from before and after. We did find trying to make the singles of our two detectives match up a bit of challenge because Guy has very light and fair skin, whereas Duncan has a more olive skin tone. The background is also completley different in Duncan's shots too. There is no yellow wall, which is very prominant in Guy's singles. Although the colour correction isn't perfect we will have the help from a professional editor in a couple of weeks time, who I'm sure will be able to give our film the finish it needs for the showcase.

We also added in Josh's bass which we recorded a couple of days prior to this. We have overlayed it on the opening shot, which I think works nicely. I'm hoping that the mixture of sounds present during the opening of the film will help draw in the viewer. We have a woman screaming for help, followed by police sirens and then the bass guitar comes in.

Overall I am fairly happy with the edit and I have enjoyed the process as I have learnt a lot!