Final Editing (Typography & Sound)

From receiving feedback from our first draft, there was a comment on the timing of the titles because I had placed them on flashbacks which meant they appeared for less than 2 seconds. This made the title difficult to read as well as distracting the audience from the flashback which resulted in the audience missing it all. So, I moved all the quick titles onto longer clips so the audience can read them better.
Also, the red A+E sign between the chase scene and death scene was, according the audience, not needed to I got rid of that.

Next, Annie and I worked on the sound and we chose a different scream. I preferred number 7 0:28 because the girl screams and, at the end, chokes a little which fits in with our opening because the victim is being strangled.

Finalising the film opening video

Being our official deadline today, my group and I needed to make sure that our film opening was perfect and complete. Below shows the editing that I carried out to produce our final product, of which we have published on YouTube as the official "A+E" two minuet film opening.

The first step in this process was to replace the chase scene's original non-diegetic sound with the sound that Hayley and I found that we felt would be more appropriate to the genre of the film, being a slasher. The sound that I input, "Free Sound FX Horror Spooky Film Theme Scary", suited the footage really well. I simply needed to do minor edits to the footage to make the sound fitting, the "bangs" within the sound linking to changes in shot, and the tension building through the scene, linking to the quick paced editing of the struggle at the end.

Once this was added, I then looked at the heart beating sound played within the struggle between the killer and victim at the end of the scene. Manipulating it, and moving it around, I was able to edit it so that it linked to the beats of the death scene non-diegetic sound, making the transition from the chase scene to the death scene sound smoother. This, however did take some time.

I then fixed the death scene diegetic sound so that the change from the intensifying, building up in the non-diegetic music peaked to where it then dipped to a deeper, calmer sound, creating an after effect of the build up, and ending the extract off nicely. I wanted the sound transition to be placed at the correct point, rather than where it was in the first draft. I moved it to dip at the start of the clip where you see the killer close the victims eyes and the editing goes from lots of quick straight cuts to one longer continuous shot, rather than halfway through the longer shot. This looked much better, making the extract "flow" more continuously.

Next, I fixed the positioning all of the diegetic sounds within the death scene, making sure that they matched the visuals on the screen.

Deciding with Raman that we didn't like the scream that was originally in place, we went back onto the freesfx site that I used to collect the diegetic sound effects for the death scene, finding a more appropriate scream. This I input into the correct position, matching the visuals on the screen.

Not liking the sound transition from the chase scene into the death scene still, I cut the scream up, elongated it so that as soon as the scream dissipates, the initial "bang" of the death scene non-diegetic sound initiates. This seemed to make the audio transfer from the chase scene to the death scene much better.

Finally, I watched the entire sequence through a few more times, tweaking certain inconsistencies related to the sound and footage.

The editing that Raman and I carried out today was to fix any problems highlighted from the comments made on our first draft, of which we produced on the 28th of March, listed by Hayley in a previous blog post. We also fixed problems that the group had with the video. The video of our final product is shown below:

More Editing of the Death Scene Footage

As my targeted scene to edit is the death scene, I carried on with my editing of the footage in this scene, as shown in the evidence below:

In this session, my tasks were to cut down the extract so that it fit our two minuet time allowance. I also needed to perfect the editing to make it effective.

First ,  I started re-timing the shots where killer turns around, making them slower to add to the sudden contrast in the change of quick paced editing to the slow pace of this shot. This, although adding to the overall time, would add to the effectiveness of the footage.

I also added a black screen for the ending image, rather than just ending the opening scene on the killers forehead- making it look more professional.

Next, I went though the footage, speeding up and cutting shots, so that I could get the video to two minuets long, rather than the two minuets fifty seconds that it currently was. 

As I kept watching the last collection of shots, I decided that they needed flash backs between cuts of the killer turning around as the impact of the slow-motion got lost through the length of time it took the killer turning around. Adding quick flash backs in between cuts of this shot would not only build tension but also add to the dark and twisted feeling the footage gives off.

As a result of added the flash backs, I needed to go through the footage again, cutting off any un-necessary seconds.

Talking as a group, we felt that a problem that would be found within the comments of our first draft saying that the death scene is confusing because of all of the flash backs. Taking initiative to try and fix this possible problem, I decided to experiment with the effects that I could add to the flash backs to make it more obvious that they are, in fact, flash backs. Below shows my investigation:

Here, I have added the effect "Radial" as a transition into the flash back- the blur effect used to signify that its part of the killers memory. My idea with this is that as the extract is played, the flash backs would start off really blurry and get clearer and clearer- symbolising the fact that the killer is re-living the murder, it becoming more present than a memory.

I tried this idea out on a few of the flash backs with a few different types of "blur" effects that were available to me, but because of the length of them, it really didn't work (shown above). It  gave the viewer too much to look at and comprehend with such a small amount of time, and it also reduced the "shock" of the initial gore within the death scene.

I decided to leave the flash backs the way that they were, acting on changing them if necessary when we get feedback on our up-coming initial draft of our film opening.

Fixing the sound for our Friday 28th March first draft deadline

Being that our deadline for our initial draft of the film opening is Friday 28th, I felt it prudent to fix, to the extent of my ability, the audio. Below shows the screen shots of what I did, with in-depth annotation explanation.

First of all, I took the audio that I had made for the death scene, disabling it, so that it wasn't deleted, but I could add a new non-diegetic sound instead. I also added the soundtrack that Hayley and I found on YouTube onto the footage- Tension Building Sound Track 3.

At the point in the footage where it goes from really fast pace editing to a continuous shot, I cut the sound, adding a quieter, more calm sound finishing off the scene and the film opening. This, I did to link to the building in intensity of the visuals in the footage, then the peak and  then the after wave- ending the extract.

I then started looking at the transition from the chase scenes non-diegetic sound to the death scenes. This, I unfortunately was able to do little to make better, rendering the chase scenes sound to be cut off just before the final few shots. This will be something that we will have to fix, but will not be able to do before the Friday deadline.

I then decided to keep my idea of the diegetic sounds accompanying the non-diegetic music, and so, I applied the appropriate sound effects, that I had collected for my home-made audio, to the places that needed them- adding a more realistic effect and depth to the audio of the death scene. This took quite a long time applying the correct sounds into the correct places, and then making sure that they sound appropriate, adding layers of sounds to ensure the desired effect was created.

As a final addition, I decided to add a under-sound to the chase scene of a single not getting more and more intense. This, accompanied with the chase scene non-diegetic sound that is currently in place, works well to build up tension within the scene, linking the audio more with the slasher genre.

Above is a screen shot of all of the audio, and the footage that is currently in place, ready for the Friday deadline where it will be put on YouTube for comments to be made for the initial draft.

The only things that I'm not really happy about with the audio, but am not able to change before Friday, is at the end of the chase scene, the non-diegetic sound  needs an ending note to be recorded of which hasn't been recorded, and so, the audio just cuts off. We will need to fix this as soon as possible.

Final Storyboard of all the Scenes- for editing

This is a collated post of all of our storyboards, making up the final storyboard of our entire two minuet film opening.

Chase Scene

 Death Scene

 Flash Backs

Editing as a group

Below is a record of the editing that we completed, as a group, during that time.

We decided to go with Ghost House Pictures, but to make it slightly different and more relatable to our genre we added the Cold Steel effect to make it darker so more sinister - conforming to our horror genre.

Next, we sped up the sequence so our opening did not go over 2 minutes because we still must include our homemade production company, the chase scene and the death scene.

We tested out different fonts, sizes and colours for the A+E sign to go in between the chase scene and death scene (during the fade out transition). We decided on a large white sign because white stood out the most. However, we soon realised we did not like this and Raman created a new one using photoshop.

Next, we checked the titles however agreed the colours did not go well with the clip's colours so Raman changed it all (see here). The red was difficult to read but the white was not so Raman swapped it - the main title was white and the 'shadows text' was red.

We changed the speed of the clip where the killer is underlining Adore & Endure to make it slower so the audience could read the text better. Also, the slowed effect adds suspense and makes the audience feel nervous and hesitant about this killer.

Also, we tried different effects for the end clip which shows 'Adore + Endure' carved into the killer's forehead. We did this to try and make the writing more legible however it did not work very well (however Blessing made a gif on photoshop which corrected this).

Editing the Chase Scene:

As I had directed and filmed the majority of the chase scene, I knew what editing techniques I had in mind and so I was left in charge of editing it.

We were happy with the majority of the videos taken although there are a few which are slightly dodgy where the lighting isn't bright enough for example.

First I imported all the videos into Final Cut Pro. In total, they came to nearly 3 minutes and as we want our chase scene to be really quick, it's my job to cut it down to around 20-30 seconds.

After trimming down most of the clips and removing the audio from them, the time was reduced to just over a minute, not taking into consideration that some clips are going to be alternated and others sped up.

I retimed most of the clips so they were slightly faster than normal, therefore reducing the overall time of all of the clips. The majority were around 130% faster and when they were all retimed, the time came down to around 35 seconds.

When thinking of what music/sound to put over the chase scene, I liked the idea of having sad, emotional music rather than intense loud upbeat music as in my opinion, I want the audience to feel sorry for our victim while at the same time, not using diegetic sounds gives the impression that he does this a lot and she is just another girl like numerous others that he's taken and killed.

This could then be contrasted against the sounds/music for the death scene and flashbacks which I imagined to be more urgent and upbeat, showing how happy and comfortable he is in the situation and to emphasis how disgusting what he is doing is.

I liked the music from the video below, but mainly the section from about 45 seconds onwards where the violins build up and it makes it more intense yet still creepy and sad. The only problem is that it's described as "Epic and Dramatic Trailer Music" which is kind of what we want but it might give connotations of trailer music whereas we would want music more associated with film openings.



Even though the majority would be non-diegeti music, I did like the idea of including some diegetic noises, especially the heartbeat sound effect below. I timed it so it began just as the villain grabs the victim and she turns around and begins to struggle.

For a first draft, I felt that it wasn't too bad and it was kind of what I had imagined in terms of editing, pace, music and atmosphere. After consulting with my group, we realised that the music at the beginning should be more intense, similar to the opening credits of Se7en, so my next task will be to possible find that type of music that we could use or to possibly play around and create my own using music software.