Understanding that programmes such as Adobe Premiere Pro was close to industry standard software than what the university had to offer, I unfortunately had limited experience with this type of video programming. My confidence did not feel right in using a software I hardly understand and I felt like my time was more into making sure that a 1st draft of my film was done instead of having to spend almost over 24 hours into understanding a programme that could potentially help boost the quality of my film.
Otherwise I was more than happy and comfortable in ending my final University year in a state of mind I was settled in and familiar with.
Comparing my first Draft film to my script:
After completing a first draft in putting everything together to form the story, I realised with the shots taken I had over stepped the time and length I had originally pitch and found myself having a film that was over 26 minutes long.
In order for me to tackle the issue, I knew I would have to make sacrifices by insure that over half of my film was brutally cut.
Editing while referring to the Script:
- Dialogues were cut to insure that my story was told visually.
- Flashback scenes were cut to insure I met my target time.
- The Rochester High Street scene was cut entirely as it didn't work. It was necessary that my main character gets in contact with the delinquents as soon as possible to keep the story moving in the right direction.
All in all I had to almost shorten the script down by about %25 in the edit so that way I could reach my target time, the challenge was I had to make sure that my story made sense to the viewer.
In the end around 15 Drafts of my film were taken before a decision was made by my tutor and agreed that no more tweets were necessary. My sound design were perfect my levels were as balanced as I could make them.
Sound Effects Galore:
- Since I had an Animated title, I wanted to have my character's in an animated world. With colourful crazy characters with their own personalities and motives.
- Alongside funny sound effects to aim up the comedy, just like the editing style of director Edgar Wright as explained in my pre production.
- What made things even more interesting is that one of my main actors, Danny Cox (Kevin) actually plays the guitar and I decided to use his skills to amp up the sound design by having him play cords on his guitar so I could add them in certain sections of the film.
Some sound effects included:
- Electric guitar chords and strums
- Lightning to when the delinquents find out they were going to get kicked out.
- Squeaky Toy sounds for Robert's Teddy Bear Gary.
- Scary Horror ambience for Agnus's room to make her environment spooky and gothic to suit her character.
- Bottles and metal can sounds to amplify the crashing of when Robert falls into the kitchen.
- A Punching sound effect to when my main character punches the land lord in the ending scene.
- Example of lightning in effect
For the sound design to get praised not only by my tutor but also my peers as well was a huge relief. That meant my comedic formula was working and it helped really stand my film out from my other peers.
Transitions:
In terms of editing, I wanted an Edgar Wright feel to how I move in the same location make the story more engaging and interesting. The Edgar Wright uses cleaver transitions using a comedic formal he uses to engage the audience so that their attention is still focused within the same location but at the same time, the characters are still in fall motion as the magically move throughout the scene and keeps the story moving forward.
There were moments while shooting that I was thinking, I can't see how I could pull this off. I almost dropped the idea all together until I started getting the hang of shooting within the limited space that we had.
Opportune moments came into vision as the shooting progressed. For an example there was the scene where Derek and Henry are playing video games and all of a sudden Derek has to switch with Kevin. Henry tries to get Derek's attention with his Watch Tower Magazine and then out of nowhere, Kevin turn up and snatches him from the sofa and a quick transition with a video game sound effect attached to it made it possible to put Henry automatically into another room in the house without making it awkward or boring.
Colour Grading:
I thought it would interesting to put my trading colours into the film by inputing two types colours to show the transformation for the main character.
The dull blue colour is to represent the clam yet trapped lifestyle of a Jehovah's Witness. The red colour is to represent the rebellious lifestyle that Henry craves.
In order to get the Red colour right, I decided to copy a formula to refer to ignorer for each of my shots to drive with that same style of warm colour as the film goes along.
- I needed to make my characters stand out by enhancing the light.
- I also thought by darkening their shows would make the main location look classy like the band colours of red and black with a little help from adding enhancing could to make the delinquents house seem worm yet dangerous.
- Shot comparison 1st is a shot from the original footage.
- 2nd is the colour graded footage.
I wanted the main character to be in an environment that he hasn't grown accustomed to but yet there is something familiar about his surroundings that he thought he had forgotten.
What this colour grading has done is evil more or the characters but also the environment they are a part of.
Hitting the punchline with the running gag:
Because my film was a comedy I had to make sure my film had the right flow and pace in order to hit it's mark into what I wanted to achieve. A funny, quick, loud and wild short film that everyone could relate to but also have fun while watching it.
This was also why I had to make sure that my film was cut way down, even bellow 15 minutes. To ensure that the comedy and the characters were quick and yet the story would still hit that ranting gag where the Jehovah's Witness is trying to tell them about Jesus but yet in constantly being distracted and manipulated by the delinquents before he is found out.
All with the ending still being that the delinquents still ending up in trouble as the main character, filled with happiness and having a delinquent personality, punches the real land lord, all in result of the delinquents still being kicked out.
Evaluation:
What went well?
- Each shot turned up on screen perfectly, the lighting set ups we did were just right for even the original footage look professional.
- The sound design was received with positive feedback. This help stand the project out and helped to give each of my characters an animated environment which brought out each of their different and quirky personalities.
- The music I picked went well with the film and helped bring a more professional sound quality for the production. Especially my chosen Band Spyer Byte who gave me permission to use their music for the project.
- The comedy throughout the edits quick and had a nice flow to it and the plot never lot it's place and my classmates were laughing the majority of the way through which was very reassuring.
- I accomplished shortening down almost half of my entire edit in order to achieve my goal.
- The feedback was mostly about me hitting the nail on my inspiration 'The Young Ones', this further convinced me that I had achieved what I had originally pitch to the class.
What didn't go so well?
- There were some aspects of sound I wish I would have recorded again just incase. There is the scene where Agnus is showing Henry her work and a voice over from an actress hired to play the mother of Michael (Henry's best friend). The sound quality was quite low as we originally planed the voice over to come from downstairs. Since that scene was cut so I had to make do with what audio was recorded in order for the scene to still make sense.
- I do regret not using more professional editing software such as Adobe Premiere pro as I could imagine a better variety of effects and adjustments to use for sound quality.
- So aspects of spelling corrections had to drastically be made as there are were some in earlier drafts that I noticed and unfortunately everyone else.
What could have been improved?
- Aspects of the sound quality could have been greatly improved in my opinion.
- According to my tutor the film could have been cut down even more.
- I could have tried using Adobe Premiere Pro to see if any quality differences might have been made to change the outcome of my project.
- In terms of camera, I wanted to have a go at the Black Magic but due to to many groups wanting to use it I had no choice but to go with the Cannon 6D as my DoP felt more comfortable using it.
- My lightning effect could have been a little more unproved in terms of the actually lighting. It made my film look too bright at times.
What will I do next time?
- Be sure to learned and update myself with proper industry standard editing software knowledge so I can better equip myself to editing better quality videos and films.
- Be sure that the sound mixer has the right levels and balance before at age so that way when it comes round to the editing I would have a lot less sound problems to work with.
- Get a bigger team! Most people I wanted for my team either went away or were too busy to help me. So for this particular project I had to almost fend for myself if it weren't for the help of Alex and Plamen which I know my project couldn't have been completed without them.
Conclusion:
All in all, this is the best work I have produced here at my time at UCA. I had so much fun put together a message in a script and taking it to people who were more than happy to help me in my time of need in order for this finished piece of film to be completed.
This is so far the closest I had to work in a professional practice before heading off into the big wide industry. Though I love directing I have also fallen in love with many aspects for some other roles behind the camera to make a film.
This experience has taught me that team work is essential and even after University I know I will be learning a lot more. I have already started job searching and some companies wanted to watch my finished film so I thought I would take advantage of that.
This project has been fun to make as it was to put together to show all of my uterus and peers and I can't wait to start showing it to other people.
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