Sections of Editing - Evalutaion

The section of the sequence which I edited was also the section that I filmed, the murder scene. As well as this, I also dealt with all of the non-diegetic sound and sound effects. The editing of this section was more difficult than it could have been, as the software we were using to edit the film was slightly outdated, and I was used to the more recent software - Adobe Premiere Pro CS4. This older software had far fewer features, and was less user friendly, but my familiarity with the software's basic workings meant I was able to cope better than some.

The first bit of editing I did was putting in a title at the start of my section which shows the scriptwriter. This was done by using the "Title" menu, and a still title was chosen. Our group chose this as a standard for all our titles, as we felt a moving title looked novice. The title was used as an ellipsis as it bridges together the previous scene with this one without feeling a jarring effect of the gap of lost time. This effect is also used earlier on, between the establishing shots and the inside of the pub.

After this, I then went on to edit the murder scene. The entire murder scene had a visual effect on it named "Lighting Effects" which enabled me to make the section darker by having a subsection of the effect which allowed me to simulate no key lighting by setting it to "none" This was a little too dark, so I had to change the level of "opacity" from a low 20 (out of 100) to a slightly higher 30. This then changed the mood of the entire scene, as beforehand, the lightness made the eeriness that was wanted from the scene to be absent.

The first shot I edited was used to bring a continuity feel between the victim (Ezra) entering the Toilet and the tap being used. A straight cut was used for this, as no effects were needed. After this, a straight cut was used again to cut back to the over the shoulder shot of Ezra.

When Ezra sees the killer (Sam) in the mirror, there was no good take of him turning round to react to the shock. This meant that I had to try and transpose two shots over the top of one another, to try and make it so that Ezra was turning whilst Sam was still in the mirror. When doing this I tried to use a video effect that allowed me to lay two shots over one another called "transparent." As a result, the shot did have Sam in the mirror, but it meant that there were now two images of Ezra in the shot, one with him turning and one with him remaining still, giving it an after image which looks very poor. This could not be changed as if I lowered the transparency level, Sam would not be seen.

This problem was not resorted, so I tried to find another solution by using a take with the shot of when Ezra turns back towards the mirror and reversed the speed. This was done by right-clicking the clip after cutting it with the razor tool either side of the section needed and then clicking on "speed/duration." Under this menu, it was possible to not only reverse the clip (play the clip backwards) but also to alter its speed. In order to deal with the turning issue, both of these features were utilised. First reversing the clip, then speeding it up, to make the turn happen quicker, so that the absence of Sam's presence is not very noticeable. This took a large amount of time to find the correct speed, but after a large amount of trial and error, I used -133% the speed of the original clip in order to get the clip as it is now. After this there is a "dip to black" which leads to a new title. The dip to black is used very often throughout the sequence in order to bring in and remove titles.

Finally for visuals, at the end there was initially (in the rough cut version) a section at the end showing the wall behind Ezra, as if the killer was looking over him, but not looking down at him. Due to a problem in filming (a lack of a spreader or dolly) this shot was very wobbly. In editing, I tackled this by cutting a very short section, about one tenth of a second, which was still and then cut and paste about 20 times. This lead to the illusion that the camera was still, but in reality, the same shot is being played over and over again.

After finishing off this section of editing, the visuals for the rough cut version were finished, so I then moved on to put on the extra audio tracks. First of all, I went online to a website called www.royaltyfreemusic.com which contains a substantial amount of music, some of which is free of charge, as long as the creator is credited. After finding this website, I downloaded some tracks for a thriller soundscape called "Ghostocalypse" by "Kevin MacLeod" these clips of music were very ambient and gave a good backing track to the sequence, but after putting it into the sequence; we all felt there was still something missing. After this, I then tried once again to look for a backing track, but couldn't find any that I thought we would use, so using my computer and my experience of music, I recorded and created my own eerie track using the programme "Logic Pro 9" (below is a screenshot of that track)

When I added this track to the mix, the subtle sounds had a large effect, which were then used throughout the piece, such as some small effects just before the killer lunges. Throughout the sequence, the volume of all the sound is plays an important role, as if the music is too overpowering, or something is too loud within the mix, then the diegesis is lost, or the sequence just suffers. The levels of each section of sound can be changed in two ways, but before changing the volume, it is important to cut the sound tracks into sections, using the razor tool, so that each section can be at a different volume, and each can be controlled independently.

The first method of changing the sound level is by going to the left-hand side of track-bar and clicking on the arrow next to the Audio track number that contains the clip. This widens the audio clip out, making a yellow line which controls the initial volume compared to the original in decibels. To change the volume one must left-click and hold the yellow bar and then drag the mouse up to increase the volume or down to decrease it.

The second method has two sections, both are simpler than method one, but have a level limit. This method is also a more accurate way to alter the volume. This method involves just right-clicking on the audio clip that needs the volume changing and then going to "Audio Gain" after this a small box appears with numbers in blue which start at 0.0 which show the changed decibel level. This is independent from the yellow bar, and the volume change is more subtle that the yellow bar method. By left-clicking and holding the mouse over the numbers, one can then drag the mouse up to increase the volume or down to decrease it, similar to that of the 1st method, but to a smaller scale. The more accurate section can be done by double-clicking the blue numbers and then inputting the exactly value of the volume change wanted, negative numbers being a lower level than the original clip volume.

Importantly, after each effect, or set of effects were added, or if parameters of any clips were altered, we had to render the film. This was done by pressing the "return" key on the keyboard. We knew when we had to render something when there was a red bar above the clip, after rendering, this bar changed to green.