Post-Production Diaries

Editing (Rough Cut):

When starting to edit for my opening sequence, I split it into three parts:

1. Walking (The character of Alice)
2. Title sequence (on a separate document to the other 2 parts)
3. Talking (between Alice and Jamie)

I put the title sequence on to a separate file, as I will be doing most of the editing for this on After-effects. When doing this I will be adding animations to the title pieces and a fog/smoke mask to each scene to portray this eerie/mysterious atmosphere for the audience. The other two parts were done on Premier Pro and effects are yet to be added, as I have been working on the rough cut up until this point. Further effects will include this fog/smoke mask and adding objects to the scene, such as a dark figure in the distance.

When editing for the rough cut, I started with the character of Alice walking around, making use of this scene to incorporate a variety of different camera angles and movements; such as POV shots and Over the Shoulder shots. Within this scene, the character is walking around looking for her friend, calling “Jamie”. She is seen to be travelling in the same direction throughout (left to right), however when filming the shots were taken with myself walking in either direction. This meant that the clip had to be flipped horizontally when editing, to make sure the scene was continuous and had a flow to it.

The audio for this scene was quite easy to edit, as the background noise was relatively quiet and there wasn’t to much dialogue from the character. At one point I did replace some dialogue from the character with background noise to increase a gap between two pieces of dialogue. This scene was finished quickly when putting the clips together, and then I refined them to make sure each shot matched each other. For example, I had a wide shot of Alice walking, which then cut to a close up of their shoes. When editing I made sure it was the same foot that was placed down in both shots, to create this continuity throughout the scene.

After this was complete, I then moved on to the next scene when both the characters of Alice and Jamie meet. I found that this was the hardest to edit in terms of both video and audio, as there was a lot more dialogue, and the background noise such as planes would interfere with this, To overcome this, on most of the scene I used one piece of dialogue which I then matched up with each shot, which created a flow in the background noise as well as dialogue. 

At first syncing this new piece of audio to the clip was easy, as Emma wasn't varying her lines in each shot, however this became harder with other shots and especially when background noise did eventually interfere. It was then that another audio clip had to be used.

Finally, the title sequence had to be put together. Because most of this is to be done on After Effects, the clips of each shot were put together on Premier Pro so that it can be exported and further edited with text and fog.

The next step is to add these effects and text onto both the title sequence and walking scenes, as well as any other scenes that need it, e.g. dialogue between Alice and Jamie. Before this is done however, further audience research/feedback will be carried out to help influence further production of the opening sequence.