Christina1200’s Weblog

After obtaining all our footage , we had to gather it all and edit. We knew that we had to pay a lot of attention to editing , because we were relying mainly on this to create tension and a sinister atmosphere. 

We had to connect the camera to the computer in order to edit the footage. However we had a lot of trouble with this, the camera and computer where not very compatible so it took us almost the whole session to upload the footage , which was obviously a great loss of valuable editing time. At this point we knew we would definitely have to come into college during the holidays to finish editing. Whilst waiting for the footage to load , being in charge of sound, i looked for suitable copyright free music that would fit in with particular scenes withing the opening sequence. I first began looking for music for the first few shots where we are in ‘Dannys’ house. I knew the music had to be sinister and creepy. I started by searching royalty free sites on google, where i found the perfect site for the type of music that i was looking for.

http://incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free/

I found 6 pieces of music that were compatible with what we needed. I then had to go on to find music for the scene in which the two school girls are walking home, we knew that this had to be quite upbeat to demonstrate how oblivious ignorant and naive the two girls are. This proved to be a harder task for me because i could’t find the right piece of music that fitted in with what we were looking for. So i decided i would have a more in depth look when i was at home , where i would have more time to look. When researching more i could not fine the right sort of upbeat music , so i then discussed with Kim and we decided we could use some more sinister music , that would evoke sympathy for the girls rather than imply naiivety. 

Once the footage had fully loaded two members of our team ( Elliott and Rosie)  had to leave to attended and take part i a charity event. However the two that had to leave where those who were in charge of editing. This left myself and Kim who were not experienced using the editing software ‘Final cut pro’. In addition we knew that we wanted to make a start on editing, to overcome this problem Andreas gave us a quick tutorial on the basics of ‘final cut pro’ , this way we could begin to make simple edits to our film and then get the two editors Elliot and Rosie to make improvements to it when coming in during the holidays. 

Sticking to the storyboard we began to edit the first few scenes. This is where ‘Danny’ picks up his his camera puts it in his bag and then looks at ‘Ruby’s’ facebook profile on the computer. This is all we got up to as it was time to leave college.

8/4/09 

Myself , and the rest of the group came in today , during the easter holidays, To finish editing our film. I continued to search for more music , however after a while i reliased the 6 tunes that i had found in our previous session where perfect for both the scenes inside the house as well as the scenes outside the house.Elliott and Rosie edited the film and Kim and i gave our opinions to what they were doing, bearing in mind what type of music we were working with . We followed the story boards and tried not to use too many transitions or stills, however the stills where necessary in order to make it appear that Danny was taking photos of the girls. Up until lunch time we had saved our work, after lunch we then worked for another 2 hours having practically finished our film , until the software we were using , final cut pro, had an error. This unfortunately meant all our work was lost. Feeling quite disheartened at this point we struggled to get the film exactly how we had edited it before, however after some time we got it relitavly similar to what it was before. 

We then uploaded it to YouTube and it can be found at this link :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBpDUPBXQkI&feature=channel_page

9/4/09

Myself and Kim came in again to burn our film on to the disc. The film looked and sounded exactly how we wanted it to be , when editing it in final cut pro , however once burning it onto the disc and looking at the film on a bigger screen. The sound became almost too loud and one or two shots were slightly blurry. However we knew that that was out of our control and we would have time to fix it , burn it on to disc and evaluate all in time for the deadline. 

In addition  analysing the film , a lot of the filming is quite wonky and unsteady , however being in charge of the music , i did not have much control over the filming. I also noticed that at some points there is water on the camera lense , as we track james through the street , but again i did not know this was an issue until we watched over the footage and began editing.

However i did enjoy taking part in editing this film , it gave us the chance to experiment with new fades and dissolves such as when james is walking , we used and additive dissolve and this gave the impression that the atmosphere is confused , disjointed and eerie. I also liked experimenting with the music ,for the first scene inside the house, we added in a peice of music however it did not create as much tension as we liked because it seemed very on dimensional, i suggested that we add another piece of music as well as the one we already had , this idea proved to be a good decision as it created the kind of atmosphere we desired. This was the same with the outside scene , so again we used two pieces of music instead of one , therefore again creating the atmosphere we desired.

Here are some print screens of our editing process:

This was the shot we experienced most troubles with when editing, we decided to use it for titles, to show Kim’s name as I stop at the bridge, however it was tricky to get it to look smooth. To overcome this situation we added in a transition and a freeze frame , in which kim’s name appeared across the screen. However this did not entirley solve the problem as it looked quite jumpy, so we decided to work it into the story line as it could be said he is taking two photos of the girl. Furthermore we wanted to add another camera click to show that he is taking a photo , however by doing this it made the rest of the music out of sync, so we decided to leave out the sound effect for that reason.  

These are the final two shots , of ‘Danny’ walking around to get closer to the girls , and him standing and watching the girls. I personally think the walking sequence is too long, however to break it up we added in an Additive dissolve which makes the scene look hazy and confused and gives it a sinister feel, which i liked because it implies connotations of danger and bad intentions. As well as him walking we also decided to add in a shot of his feet , walking off the curb and here we decided to include some digetic sound to add to the atmosphere. 

The second shot is an over the shoulder shot , i like the shot because the music that plays over the scene becomes more intense as he is standing there,  which , again , creates a dangerous atmosphere and suggests that things are going to get worse.