Construction Post 6: Reflections on Edit Week 2

Although we had progressed a lot during Edit Week 1 we had a lot of work waiting for us during Edit week 2. First we had to incorporate the new footage that we shot during the weekend and during the week, for the Seward studio shots. This meant adjusting the basic sequence in which we had secured in Edit week 1.

Next we had to do titles properly. For the basic sequence we just used still titles however we needed to make them more complex. Teachers and TA focus groups a like thought the titles were too basic thus we decided to have a complete revamp to our titles. We went to Livetype on the macbook and made entirely knew titles from scratch. The new titles were a big improvement to the old ones. They were slightly more complex to make however looked so much better. After realising the titles looked unnatural with straight cuts we then cross-dissolved the previous shot before the title into the actual title. This gave a much smoother and slicker look, it also added to the pace of the sequence. After playing around with the cross-dissolves we changed them into dip to blacks. These were much quicker and helped improve the pace of the trailer drastically. After showing progress to our TA and teachers it was clear our titles had drastically improved.

Our old titles

Our new titles

Looking over the opening there were many slight glitches in the sequence. These were small faults in the sequence nothing major but affected the video as a whole. Glitches were mainly due to the clips not snapping together and there being a gap or the audio messing up. Occasionally our TA focus group would spot the minor glitches before us as we had become too familiar with the sequence. These were small changes however they were extremely time consuming as we needed to zoom into the sequence and fix them. After all the glitches were solved the overall sequence improved drastically and flowed so much better.

However as we were fixing the glitches we realised the reflection the shotgun microphone could be seen in the reflection of the hackers laptop screen. This was quite worrying as the time fro re-shoots had passed so our only solution was to try and edit it out. After help from staff we figured out that we could mask the microphone with a snippet of screen from the same shot. We then had to play around with it to make sure it wasn't noticeable. We then used the blur tool in order to further mask it which helped a lot. This was hard as the laptop screen changed so we had to change the mask accordingly frame by frame.

Microphone visible

Microphone no longer visible

After the microphone issue was sorted we began grading. This was near the end of the week so we were under pressure to hand over a finished project by the deadline. This meant that the grading process was slightly rushed and was done in less than a day. When grading we mainly adjusted brightness and contrast to try and imitate a more gritty vibe. We colour adjusted a few outside shots to darken the mood but this was hard as grading is such a subtle process and has to be carefully done. This was hard considering the deadline was fast approaching, However we managed to do some form of grading to each shot before the deadline to give our sequence a much more professional look.