Editing: Video Effects!

Now it is time to add some effects to my video! This is a very exciting task. Final Cut gives me so much freedom with it's extensive list of video effects. I can tell that I will have a lot of fun with this! 

I first of all am going to add some over-cranking (slow motion) to a few selected shots. This adds a certain otherworldly/supernatural feel as well as slowing the pace, creating atmosphere and tension. I plan to use this effect for my atmospheric establishing shots and the mid long shot of Leah discovering the necklace. Final Cut allows me to decide exactly how much over or under cranking I desire to add. For these shots I will change them to 50% of their normal speed.

I have also been playing around with the colour correction and brightness effects. I aim to make my shots appear quite dark and eerie, perhaps with blue undertones to imply the supernatural. Taking inspiration from one of my favourite horror movies, Let Me In, I wish to make all colour appear quite muted, connoting darkness and evil. 

Here is an example of one of my shots both before and after adding effects:

Before:

After:

I feel that the colour effects that I have added imply a dark theme and are much more conventional of the horror genre. Bright colours are known to connote happiness and, therefore, darkness must connote the opposite.

The only scene left for me to work on is the bath scene. This means that my editing job should be finished tonight. It will then be time to present my rough cut! I'm nervous to know what my target audience think of my film. With their comments, I will be able to make some effective changes before exporting my final cut. 

The editing for the final scene will have to be quite fast paced as the opening sequence reaches it's climax. I imagine the scene opening with the extremely loud diegetic sound of a tap running, creating a jump scare. I will then include multiple shots of Bonnie lying in the bath from many different angles. After Bonnie's death I aim to include a few shots of her limp limbs, hanging over the side of the bathtub. I hope to edit these in time with the music, the shots changing through a straight cut with each change of chord. 

Editing: Sound effects!

Another challenge that I have to face whilst working on this project is sound effects. I must be sure that my piece includes realistic sound effects to add verisimilitude, for example, the diegetic sound of Bonnie's high heels on the wooden floor. Furthermore, I have to record the all import sound effect of the eerie whispering demon voice. 

I recorded the diegetic sound effects (such as Nate's knock on the door) using Garage Band on my Mac. This software allows me to edit the volume and pitch as well as adding echo and reverberation effects. These effects all came in useful when creating the sound of the eerie voice. I asked my boyfriend to speak certain phrases (such as 'take me') in Polish. I recorded these phrases and then edited his voice, changing the pitch and adding reverb. I am very impressed with the effect that this has created. It sounds so scary I can't bare to listen to it!

Below I have another video demonstrating the difficulties of getting video perfectly in sync with sound effects previously recorded on Garage Band. 

I am hoping that the dubbed sound effects manage to sound realistic. I guess I will find out once I have presented my rough cut to my target audience.

Editing: Scene 1!

Today, I have worked on cutting together my first scene. This was pretty simple and went quite smoothly. Following my storyboard and shot list made it much easier. I found myself simply cutting shots down and placing them together on the timeline. I aimed to demonstrate continuity editing, however, the scene of Bonnie getting ready does include some elements of montage, appearing to take leaps in time and space as she gets ready. The scene was made up entirely of straight cuts, to make the piece appear as seamless as possible. The most difficult task was matching the dubbed audio to the speed at which Leah moved her lips. I am hopping that this looks effective, as having the audio as a voice-over dramatically improves the sound quality. 

In order to soften the movement in time between Bonnie getting ready and sitting on the couch waiting for Nate's arrival, I added a cross fade transition.

Editing: Opening Credits!

I have now pieced together a few atmospheric establishing shots of the abandoned house for the opening credits. Each shot lingers on screen for around ten seconds, keeping the pace slow. Furthermore, I have also added some fade in from and fade out to black transitions in order to slow the pace further. The transparency on the shots is also quite high, making the scene appear dark and difficult to make out. Again, this adds to atmosphere and tension created by my opening as the audience fear the unknown.

I have added my title sequence. The opening credits fade in against the tilting establishing shots, crediting first of all the 'production companies' involved (Megan Olivier Films and Wisniewska Productions), followed by the both of the names of the main actors, 'James Walters' and 'Leah Williams', and finally my own name, 'Directed by Megan Olivier'. I chose to use the simple and sophisticated serif font, Georgia, for my credits. This makes the names easily readable for the audience. The white typography was completely readable layered on top of the video. 

The final title for me to add was the actual name of the movie, 'Talisman'. For this I chose a distressed serif font from the website 'dafont' called 'I Still Know'. The font gets it's name due to it's similarity to the font used for the movie 'I Still Know What You Did Last Summer'. This proves that this style of typography is popular and conventional for the teen horror genre. I also kept this typography white in order for it to be easily readable. I had planned to present the title in red (to connote blood) but this did not show up nicely, layered over a shot of the bare winter trees.

Editing: Sorting through footage!

The first step of postproduction is to convert all video files to .mov because this file format is best for use on Final Cut Express. Similarly, I must convert all audio files to .m4a; .mp3 files often crack and pop in the editing software. 

After this, I need to import all of the raw footage and sort through all that I have shot. I have hours worth of footage so this is going to take quite some time. I must be sure to look through everything in order to be sure that I am including only the best. As usual I feel that I have shot way too much! But I guess this is a lot better than shooting too little.

Luckily, I have my storyboard and shot list to aid me in deciding which shots to include where. I can also be sure that nothing is left out.

I am looking forward to actually beginning to piece this together!

Postproduction has begun!

It is now time for me to move onto postproduction. It feels like this project will all be over too soon! However, I must be sure to get the editing completed perfectly. I aim to demonstrate the technique of continuity editing, making each scene look seamless. Furthermore, as expressed on my storyboard and shot list, I have decided on a fast paced editing style, enabling me to capture audience interest (the human brain cannot concentrate on an image for more than three seconds) and demonstrate the different camerawork skills I possess. 

I am editing my piece on Final Cut Express. I have this editing software installed on my mac book pro. This software is a cut down version of Final Cut Pro, the actual editing software used in Hollywood in the postproduction of feature films. The software enables me to add transitions (such as fade to black or a cross fade), colour correction effects, muted effects, under and over-cranking, as well as many different audio and video layers. I have a lot of freedom to make this film appear exactly as I first imagined it to.

Behind the scenes!

So, rather than presenting you with just a few simple photographs of the filming of Talisman...here is a full behind the scenes video. I hope you enjoy. It's almost as if you were there with us on this very exciting, yet very productive, day!