Brief 2 - Night Journey

This week, we were given the brief for the second assignment of the module which is a non-sync drama film called Night Journey. The film is about two characters on a train, one of which is allegedly a cannibal who wants to eat the other. As it is a non-sync sound drama, the whole dialogue is given in voice over and the script for the actual film is around 10 minutes long.

The brief for Night Journey.

My first thoughts on this brief were that it could be very challenging, being given no sync sound with the camera meant that any dialogue couldn't be easily synced, and as the film is all in voice over, it could be very difficult to create a flowing narrative considering we had over 20 minutes of narration to cut down into a 5 minute film. Having said this, I think this task will really enable us to be hyper-selective when it comes to choosing which bits of voice over to use and where to put it in. It will also allow us to really consider pacing and how pauses as well as V.O heavy sequences can build up tension and engagement in the audience. I am eager to apply what I learnt on the last documentary brief to this one, as we are still being assessed on some of the same criteria such as creative implementation of sound design. Overall I am thoroughly anticipating beginning this project as it will help my technical skills advance, whilst also allowing me to apply what I learn from it, into my drama piece on the narrative strand of the course.

Seminar 4 - Screening and Feedback

This seminar was when we showed the rest of the class our final fine cut for the documentary project and got feedback on it from Chris. Jay and myself were quite confident that we had put in the time and effort into making our final product, even though we knew there were one or two bits that we just couldn't change with our technical skills on Media Composer. Watching everyone else's films was also very interesting and useful to see how our group told the story compared to others as well as seeing techniques we hadn't thought of.
When we showed ours, Chris liked the way we told the story through the structure of the narrative, as well as the placement of the majority of our cut-away's, and how we moved from place to place.
The flaws with our film were the opening sequence of interviews went on a bit too long which caused us to lose the interest of the audience, as well as the audio mix over one of the cutaways. Also there was a cross-fade transition which really didn't work with the rest of the film, as well as so audible sound edits.
After viewing everyone's films the session ended and me and Jay stayed behind to listen to Chris' feedback again and edit what we could to improve the quality of the film.

Listening to audio feedback whilst continuing the final edit.

After doing everything we possibly could and watching through the film one last time, we decided to export it for Vimeo, ready for submission at the end of the year.

http://vimeo.com/87181203

The Movement - Nathan Harkin Jay Burgoyne from Nathan Harkin on Vimeo.

This first task has been very challenging but enjoyable and gave me my first experience of editing footage that I have never seen before and try to make an interesting and professional film out of it. It also allowed me to really get my teeth into the Media Composer software and start to become comfortable from the transition from Final Cut. I am thoroughly excited for the next project we will be given and I'm looking forward to apply the techniques I have learnt from this film, to the next one.

Documentary Fine Cut

As soon as we finished our rough cut, we went away and came back the next day to go over what we had created with fresh eyes so we could take another look at it and see what needed to be changed. The main things we picked up on was that there was no title sequence and the sound design was quite poor, making the edit obvious and jarring in places. The levels that the sound was recorded at in different interviews was also a big problem as the sound fluctuated around quite a lot when moving from place to place. There was no or little atmosphere in the sound as well, especially in the outside interviews, so we needed to correct that as well. To help us speed up the process of editing all these small things we decided to customise our keyboard commands, especially the add edit key as we needed it to chop up specific parts of the sound.

Customising keyboard short-cuts to help us edit faster.

After we set up those we began with the list of things that needed to be done.

Adding a title sequence in.

Using the audio mixer to turn down the levels on loud footage.

After a bit of online research, we found out that you could keyframe audio by enabling 'Clip Gain' and 'Volume' on the audio fast menu which proved very useful when fading out music and atmos under interviews.

Setting up audio keyframing.

Using audio keyframing to fade in and out over interviews.

Selecting multiple keyframes at once to raise atmos during cut-aways.

After quite a while of fine tuning both audio and visual, we finished our fine cut and we were very pleased with our progress and attention to detail, whilst still getting our heads around using Media Composer.

Finished fine cut.

In the Blink of an Eye - Cuts and Shadow Cuts

In this chapter, Walter Murch discusses his editing process in the film Apocalypse Now and how he had to cut down 1,250,000 feet worth of footage to create the final film. "... the amount of film that had been printed: 1,250,000 feet, which works out to be just over 230 hours." He then goes on to explain why there was so much footage, "... the camera positions were changed and the whole thing was repeated. Then repeated again, and then again. They kept on going until, I guess, they felt that they had enough material..." The reason he talks about this is to show not only the issues that dealing with a great deal of raw footage can create as an editor, but also why it can be a good thing to allow them to create a clear and interesting film with more options available to them. "The more film there is to work with, of course, the greater the number of pathways that can be considered, and the possibilities compound upon each other and consequently demand more time for evaluation."

The points he raises here are very relevant to the documentary, The Movement, that we are editing at the moment as we have a very large amount of footage at our disposal, although admittedly on a much smaller scale than that of Apocalypse Now, and instead of dismissing most of it and only using a small amount, we should branch out and attempt to make these connections between shots to see if they work effectively and potentially improve the narrative of the film as a whole.

Finally, he ends the chapter describing what shadow cuts are and gives the context about why as editors we should understand their relevance. "..."shadow" splices-splices made, considered, and then undone or lifted from the film." This also links into the editing processes of assembly and rough cut's as this is done frequently in both of them, and has been done in our edit of The Movement. "A vast amount of preparation, really, to arrive at the innocuously brief moment of decisive action: the cut... something that, appropriately enough, should look almost self-evidently simple and effortless, if it is even noticed at all."

(All quotes are taken from: Murch, Walter - In the Blink of an Eye -1988 Viking Press, Pages 1-4)

Documentary Rough Cut

The progression from our assembly to rough cut was a very big step as we only just obtained all the footage by this point so we basically had to start over again, using some of the sequences we created in the assembly and carry them over.

Rough cut/assembly shown last week

We improved this rough cut/assembly we showed in the last seminar by adding in more footage, and trimming down all the bits that were boring, went on too long and overall just cleared everything up a bit.

Almost finished Rough Cut

We added a more clear and entertaining structure as well that fit well with the continuity of different interviews, as well as transporting the audience from one location to the next smoothly and without jarring cuts.
After constructing the narrative and order of the clips, we began to focus on replacing the camera sound with the proper separately recorded audio and start to lip sync the interviews and add fades and music over the top where appropriate. We also discovered that you could get sound waves visible on the tracks which really aided our syncing process.

Sound layering and sound design

Bringing up sound waves to help syncing

Lip syncing Addie's interviews

Adding fades to sound

Trimming off unwanted sound

Finally we were left with a solid rough cut sequence that we were happy with. Both Jay and myself are happy with the narrative direction, beginning and end as well as the middle sequence, and so hopefully there will only be a few minor details we will need to change in the fine cut.

Final rough cut, with sound

Seminar 3

In this seminar we started off by watching about 10 minutes of the Ramones documentary, End of the Century (2003) by Jim fields and Michael Gramaglia.We watched it because of the editing styles and techniques used within it can help us when editing our own documentaries for the first brief.

The way in which the narrative was structured and flowed was also exceptional at keeping the audience informed and entertained. The editing for the interviews was very quick cut between a number of contributors all giving their own opinion on the same or similar subject matter which meant that the audience never gets bored with just hearing the one person speak over and over again and allows them to engage and get the bigger picture of what is being discussed. Also, whenever a contributor talks about a specific thing, archive footage or stills are used as cut aways to give evidence and assert what they have just said which also helps audience engagement and understanding.

After we watched the documentary, we started to go through the montages that we created last seminar and throughout the week. An issue that was brought up was how to export films properly using Media Composer and how, if at all, is it similar to Final Cut. We were effectively told it was the same with a few more complicated options to go through to make sure the export is exactly how you want it. In options we were told to go onto Quicktime movie and select use marks and use extended tracks. Format options then settings and check the export is in HDV 1080p 25, select keyframes to all and the size to 1920x1080 16:9. These are the basic settings needed to export most of the projects we will be working on as well as matching the project and timeline settings. To export for Vimeo upload we were told to export to Mpeg-4 and use the compression H.264, size to 1280x720 and then use limit data rate to select a value that keeps the file size under 500mb. The compressor is key as it makes the pixel information shorter and smaller so the overall file size is manageable for a free Vimeo account.

Final we went through the Rough Cuts of The Movement documentary we were editing over the past few weeks. Mine and Jay's was shown first and we had only really got up to about 4 minutes worth of what we thought was a rough-rough cut where we basically had a general structure we wanted to do with a few cut aways and other shots mixed in with the interviews with camera sound still in.

Rough, rough cut/ advanced assembly

The first feedback we were given was that what we showed wasn't a rough cut but still an advanced assembly as we still had the camera sound and didn't have a clear narrative structure put down. Those were the main problems we had, but there were also a few smaller things such as choices of shot in certain parts as well as selection of shots (we had used a shot which is obviously set up and ruins immersion in the film). Apart from these small issues which we corrected immediately after the session, all we have left to do is decide and construct a clear and interesting narrative and sync the sound with the footage we will use, as well as showing creative use of sound design.

Music In Films Analysis - 1

Today's seminar started with Anthony and Chris talking about the pieces of music in films that they chose to analyse and why they believed they worked within the setting of the film.
The first one up for discussion was the Gravity (2013) soundtrack - Don't Let Go by Steven Price.

 Although I haven't seen the film or heard the soundtrack before, Anthony gave us a brief breakdown of it, then we listen through the first 5 minutes then he started analysing it. He began by saying that it really helps the film and is a very powerful soundtrack due to the emotions it encourages the audience to feel through the orchestral strings mixed with the loud bass/trumpets. As the narrative develops, it isn't the most visually entertaining or dialogue strong film so the use of this powerful soundtrack really helps the audience connect with the character and empathise with her.
My thoughts on the soundtrack were much the same as Ant's as I really got a sense of calm and relaxing but slightly eerie feelings when it starts, but then you feel a real sense of danger and intensity as it goes along which makes the audience want to know if the character this music is relating to makes it or not. The use of this soundtrack then is very good as a narrative device for a number of reasons, mainly being that it takes the actors' performances and the visuals on screen, and amplifies them through this contrast between calm and danger.

Next, Chris talked to us about a piece of music from the film Blade Runner (1982) called Memories of Green by Vangelis.

Once again I have unfortunately not watched this film or heard the soundtrack before, but once again Chris gave us some brief context of when this song appears in the film and the impact of it. He said that throughout the film the audience is constantly left questioning if the main character is a human or robot, and this soundtrack appears when this fact becomes significant in a reflective part of the film and the contrast of the piano and synthesiser noises that keep panning across it are very symbolic of what the audience thinks about the character. It also, due to its pace, is quite a slow and reflective piece of music with these beeps from what sounds like a heart monitor really fit the context of the film.

Seminar 2

Today's seminar was centred around expanding our knowledge and practice on Media Composer through a small practical exercise of making a 30 second long montage compilation of image stills from various movies that past students that studied on this course were involved in production in some way or another. We were allowed and advised to use music over the top of this montage to make it more engaging to the audience, which would be 17 year old's thinking of studying FMP at Hallam on an upcoming open day. After we were told this information we just had to crack on, using the skills we had learnt on Media Composer previously, and a bit of intuition to create a film that could be shown to promote Hallam to outsiders.

Imported files to begin assembly

After importing all the images we wanted and the sound, we began deciding which are the most recognisable posters which would determine what order they would go in.

Final 1st Assembly

After the first assembly we discussed adding text to the film to let the audience know what it was about and why they were watching this seemingly random montage of movie posters.

Adding text using Title Tool Application

First draft of finished Title/text

After adding the text in we trimmed it and added a fade in transition to make it a smoother introduction to the film.

Using trim mode to shorted title

Using the quick transition tool for fade in

After completing this we had done the main rough cut for our montage and we started refining it with the addition of some effects we had been taught as well as cutting down some of the images.

Using the rotation effect with keyframes

Using colour effect with keyframes

Picture in picture effect with keyframing

Final outcome of picture in picture effect

The final sequence looked like this

Final Assembly

Although we know the film isn't perfect, we are happy with the way we have approached the brief in the time we have been given and we worked after the seminar to complete it to what it is above. This is a challenging bit of editing as it is such a simple/broad task to do you have to really try to approach it in a unique and innovative manner which we have attempted to do, whilst as keeping in mind the target audience and overall purpose of the film.

Documentary Assembly

The first task we have been given to do is to construct a 5 minute documentary from footage recorded by other students about a spoken word poet called Adi. We started by being given around 150 clips of Adi at a open mic night in a pub in Sheffield and a few exterior shots of him in Sheffield. In these clips there was 3 interviews with people from the open mic night, and a small interview with Adi outside. Myself and Jay began to label all the footage, noting the shot framing, style and content on the majority of the clips. We then started organising the footage in different bins of cut aways, interviews, stage performances and unusable categories. We did this to make it easy to find the right style of shot we would need when constructing a narrative in the first assembly.

Renaming footage and putting into different bins

Because we didn't have all the footage to begin with, our first assembly started out very slowly as we attempted to construct a narrative from what we had. This ended up being around 10 minutes which focused on the open mic night to begin with and a few performances from people there, then through an interview with one of the guys at the night, introducing Adi and then cutting to the exterior interview in-between cutting in and out of one of his poems.

First part of the original 1st assembly

We completed this first assembly before we had even seen the rest of the footage we would have to work with so I believe that the film we have laid out will still change dramatically in the fine cut, but I think we will still use elements of what we've constructed here as well as some of the techniques we discussed such as cutting between the different versions of Adi's poem.