Editing

After collecting our footage from the day we spent filming our final thriller. We used the programme Adobe Premiere Pro to edit. In the first two days which was 2 hours of editing we started by putting all the footage in to a log bin named rushes, this allowed us to refer back if we changed things and needed the original copies. We then started by creating a new bin named ‘Rough cut 1’. We looked through all the footage in rushes and chose the shots we wanted to use to then put in to rough cut 1. We had recorded a lot of footage so we had lots to choose from as we did each shot lots of times using different shot types and movement e.g. mid shot, pan.There was roughly one and a half hours of footage which was about 56 individual clips. On the third and fourth day we concentrated dragging the clips we were going to use on to the timeline and began to cut and get the shots in the right order. To trim the shots I would use the arrow (cursor) to skim through the clip and select with the mouse the bit i wanted and then delete, if i deleted to much and needed more of the clip at either the end or the beginning i would use the cursor and the mouse to extend the clip by dragging the clip outwards. We took a long time to do this as there were many camera angle changes in our thriller as it was very fast paced. During this section of editing we overcame problems to do with pace of shots for example we would cut on action and then cut to quickly at the end which meant the shot didn't look right when looking at the overall pace of that section so we always had to look back over what we had previously edited and if it didn't work we would have to use the cursor to make the shot longer and cut where we could. If we could go back and change something on our editing day we should of filmed certain shots for longer instead of shouting cut to quickly so that the pace of the thriller looks realistic, luckily we had lots of footage to chose from so we could merge and combine different shots. On the fifth day we did two hours of editing as we had come to the stage where we could achieve a lot as we had a basis. We had a rough order of the thriller and all the footage we wanted to use was cut it just needed some tweaking. We went through each section making sure there were no black flashes where the shots don’t merge in to each other, we got the pace right as all the shots were the right length and worked well together as we had to change the speed on some of the shots , we also changed some of the camera angles we didn't like using 1 or 2 shots from the original rushes bin. One of our main problems was for one of our shots when cressida the main female actress turns her head we didn't have a shot for her turning her head back and the shot didn't work so we had to reverse the same shot and slow the speed down the other way to create this image. The next week (6th and 7th day) we created a new log called ‘Rough cut with sound’ on adobe premier pro with the footage we had recorded we had a used a microphone to catch the background noise to underlay extra sound effects as well as the cameras microphone. We kept the audio and the video together so we could compare the sound to what was happening in the footage.

We then through each sound clip and each bit of footage had two so we would listen to both and chose the better one and then merge it in to the footage. This took 3 hours split between the 6th and 7th day as there was a lot of detail in this process choosing the right sound, volume levels and speed. On the 8th day we spent an hour tidying up everything we had done including tweaking any mistakes adding in speed effects and changing the colour balance, changing on volume on sounds and adding in the sound effects which were the picking of the lock and twisting the parts of the gun together. This was a challenge as the sound effect had to fit on top of what was happening in the opening sequence so there was lots of detail put in to this to get the right volume and make it sound like a real noise and not just a sound effect. Luckily Lucas who was in my group was experienced at being able to do this. On the 9th day we downloaded the soundtrack we were going to use in the moments of silence we then dragged it on to the timeline (sound layers) we then went through our sequence deciding which bits were most tense and needed the building rythmn and which bits were quieter and more subtle. After finishing this the last things to do were the titles, we used the programmes tool for creating the titles we started with one choosing the font, colour and size and how and where it would appear after completing this we used it as a template for all the other titles that we then filled in. We chose simple yet bold titles to not attract your attention from the action and as there was a lot of colour we chose white so it was visible but didn't stand out to much. The titles came in sections were the shots were stiller. Our main title for our thriller ‘vengeance’ which we decided was punchy and strong came at the end and fades in to intrigue the audience. After watching it through and making sure there were no mistakes and everything was clear we didn't change anything as we didn't want to over edit. It was then published to youtube by the media team