AS Media Studies
This is Wiktoria Wojciechowska's coursework blog for AS Media Studies 2016/2017.
Production: Editing (Main Edit)
After the rough edit was finished and reviewed by an audience, the opening needed to be worked on further. I decided not to create another sequence, but simply polish the rough opening (that is why the name of the sequence is exactly the same).
Above is what the opening looked like at that point - we thought we were finished, however after receiving some professional feedback and watching it a few more times, it turned out there were two issues that had to be addressed:
Below is the very final version of our film opening (with a strategic thumbnail):
Before doing anything else with the footage I already had, I researched how to stabilise shots (since some of the shots we had, due to the tripod breaking during the first day of filming, were extremely unstable). |
That clip also required some stabilising, but Premiere Pro found it very hard to render footage properly in a long sequence, so I created a new sequence and then stabilised it. |
After many, many trials, I have finally managed to make it look as good as it possibly could and exported it for further use. |
After some scaling issues, I sped up the clip so it fits the music markers (and cut it slightly more, so the little jump of the footage is not as noticeable). |
The actual changes to the footage did not want to show up in After Effects so I had to keep switching between Premiere Pro and After Effects to actually see what I was doing. |
Meanwhile Immy has finished most of the titles for the film, so I was able to see how they'd look when placed over the footage. |
Then I decided to care of the sudden transition between the logo and the actual beginning of the opening - the 'dip to black' transition was the closest to our original idea, so I decided to use it! |
I also ended up adding two more 'Pluton Productions' gifs at the beginning, since the whole group agreed upon the fact it looked way better that way. |
For each title I have created a separate photoshop file, so it'd be easier to add them to the sequence individually. |
I renamed every single clip (+ further colour coded them), so it'd be easier to manipulate them if there was a need for that. |
For most of the title placement process I toggle locked the actual video footage and the audio so I couldn't accidentally move it around, delete it or change its duration (learned that the hard way). |
Immy has also made the title of the film (and 'Pluton Production Presents'), so I could put them over the footage (after the actual clip of the light-box didn't look very good). |
Two clips were too short so I had to add another one in, using a slight crossfade in-between them, so the audio sounds smoother. |
Emma has found a good sound effect to put at the end of the opening (since we didn't have enough footage the music had to be cut earlier and we wanted to make it sound better). |
My last correction was changing all of the titles' sizes to have the same width to height ratio, so they look proportional. |
After adjusting the size ratios of the titles, I finally exported the (what I thought at that time) finished opening into a MOV file. |
Above is what the opening looked like at that point - we thought we were finished, however after receiving some professional feedback and watching it a few more times, it turned out there were two issues that had to be addressed:
- the titles were too big compared to the rest of the screen - if played on a cinema screen (or even full screen on a computer) they would look way too big and their resolution would not be good;
- the 'title sequence' at the end (when 'TOXIC' appears) was... well, not the best (I felt like that from the very moment I finished it and the feedback only strengthened my opinion). It was too sudden and we were also advised to put the title of the film earlier on in the opening, so it does not feel like movie trailer rather than an opening sequence.
Below is the very final version of our film opening (with a strategic thumbnail):
Production: Editing (Rough Edit)
Before anything else (and even before the filming started), we have cut the music clip to our liking and put the markers on selected bars to align the footage later on in the editing process. |
You can see the marker at the point where the audio clip was supposed to start playing. |
Here, all of the footage (excluding the final title) was simply cut and put in the correct order (without touching any nuisances such as speed, stabilisation or colour correction). |
Since I wanted to have the pipette shot reverse, so here I just made sure there is such a possibility! |
I decided to reverse the second clip, so the footage looped just like the original gif. |
Using the gif twice seemed too rushed, so after consultation I decided to put if in four times and bring the speed down to 80%. |
I toggle locked the video footage and deleted all of the unwanted audio clips, so the chosen audio clip was clear and not disturbed by other sounds. |
I finally got around to duplicating and reversing the pipette shot (later increasing its speed to 200% as well + adding the audio clip to the sequence). |
After Effects was... eventful to say at least, but I finally figured out how to manage masks and adjustment layers, resulting in nicely colour corrected toothpaste drip. |
A little side comparison of the original clip and the one undergoing colour correction. |
Since all of the other clips from the street scene had blue lighting, I decided to adjust the colour balance of that clip so it matched the rest. |
Above is our rough edit uploaded to YouTube (the music carries on after the footage ends, but this will be worked on later.) From the audience feedback we were given we've gathered that:
- the transition between 'Pluton Productions' and the beginning of the actual footage was too sudden;
- the lack of sound between the beginning and the start of 'Danse Macabre' didn't (ironically) sound very good;
- the clip of the victim and the toothpaste was described as "uncomfortably long";
- the footage will look much better when aligned with the music;
Even before receiving the feedback, I've been planning on working on those particular aspects of the opening, but we found hearing multiple opinions from different people important to see which flaws were the most frequently mentioned.
Production: Filming 'TOXIC'
Below is the video documentation of the filming process of our two-minute opening.
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