Editing Progress - Michael McGroarty

The footage, as I mentioned in the last post, is too dark. Therefore editing is currently a tricky affair. Some shots we thought looked good on the camera are unusable. Piecing together the footage is tough. We also have some problems with continuity which we have smoothed over. One shot in particular with Lawrence walking back to the table was not complemented by the next shot of him sitting down. We rescued it by having a reaction shot of Claire.

The filming didn't turn out well, so it is having a detrimental progress on our editing. Splitting up 45-50 second takes into 5 second segments, then piecing them together in order while maintaining continuity is a time killer. In hindsight, it would have been easier to film each few seconds of footage separately. This way editing would take half the time. Also because the shots are so dark, seeing if the continuity is correct is nigh on impossible. We tried adding an effect to brighten the shots, but it looked like a grainy nightmare, and it just made it look cheap and rubbish.

We also started progress on the credits, although they look uninspired and boring so far. A black background with white fonts in plain lettering does nothing. The various movements the credits can have like scrolling or fading don't fit in with the aesthetic of the film. We wanted it grainy and flickering, much like a candle. Trawling through the effects one by one takes its time, but the credits are an important part of our film, so we can't brush them over. As we are low on footage, padding out the credits will be an important aspect to bump up our run-time.

The software we're using to edit is Final Cut Pro, which initially was hard to use. But after an hour or two learning the techniques, it is more in-depth and intricate than iMovie. The only problems we're having is splicing the various different pieces of film without deleting clips or delaying the audio. So far the editing has taken an inordinate amount of time, considering we've only just managed to order the clips. Making the conversation sharp took time. With the rolling, action and cut actions during filming, there were some unnecessary gaps where the dialogue lagged and became boring and unrealistic. We need to make sure that the voice-over gets done as soon as possible. The main bulk of the film is the voice-over; it takes up a solid couple of minutes run-time, so it is vital we get that recorded before the deadline. After layering it over the top of the scenes, we can mute the actors talking in the long takes, and have the voice-over provide the dialogue. It is working out to be a complicated technique, we should've recorded the voice-over first, and then shot it according to the length of it, but we've done it backwards which has made it more complicated.

Concerning music, I was thinking of a piano or some other kind of classical instrument playing over the credits to lend a grave, solemn tone to the film. Added with the grim titles, it should help set the scene for the rest of the film. A concern I have is that the music will play second fiddle to the editing together of the film, and it will be overlooked and our film will have no music at all. GarageBand will be the ideal program to use; there may be pre-recorded clips of piano, or if not, we'll have to make it ourselves. Concerning the specifics of the tune I have in mind, I was leaning towards Beethoven's' Moonlight Sonata as a source of inspiration. There is a link to it on YouTube here:- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQVeaIHWWck

It is a melancholic, slow tune, which is the mood I was looking for. It's also a slow piece, the notes themselves are played with a slow deliberated touch, and as a result creates a sadness to it without being over-dramatic. As for music during the scenes, I was leaning towards a no because it'd take too long to fit music too it. Having to re-shoot several days before the deadline has severely cut our editing hours we could have had. As a result, some of the areas of our film will not be as developed as we'd like.

The lighting is the most noticeable aspect of the film that has gone very wrong. The original shoot had work-lights which were impractical and much too bright. Our second shoot we had torches and gels, although the gels were misplaced and again the lighting became an arduous chore. Our first shoots footage is too dark, grainy, blurry and overall a disaster. Our second shoot was a bit more successful, but nowhere near to the calibre I wanted it. This was due to the absence of the gels. Once again we were limited to lighting from one place, as we couldn't light from where the actors were sitting because the room is too small and the precise, bright beam would have been much too noticeable.

We have gone with keeping simplicity as the key by only using straight cuts. Fades were out of place, dissolves were unnecessary as there is no lapse in time or place, and a wipe is too comic and out of context to use. Therefore the straight cut is our chief tool. Something that isn't so simple though is the sound levels. As we were filming by a large fridge, the hum of it can be heard in every shot. Often it overtakes the dialogue and ruins the shots. Each shot will have to have that taken out or lowered individually. A couple of shots the fridge's hum is absent, so we have to lower them all to keep the continuity going.

Overall, the editing has been a hard task so far; our shots aren't lit well, the camera movement in some shots is so wild and jerky that some of the shots are destroyed as a result. No amount of editing could save them. Some of my storyboarded shots had to be scrapped which cut down our run time. I originally storyboarded a 5 minute film with around 50 shots. By the end of the second shoot we had maybe 25 shots filmed, with the ones we hadn't filmed being too hard to pull off. The tracking shot for example; the lighting would have been impossible. This had a knock on effect, we are now under the appropriate time objective for our film. This was both a failure in communication and realism. Some shots we agreed were from too awkward an angle in the cellar to pull off, so we improvised and kept the time up. We also failed to communicate our doubts over certain shots; I storyboarded alone, including shots of the young girl in the film. However, it came to light when shooting that in fact this was impossible, so around 10-12 shots had to be taken out there and then. The end product I'm hoping will be better than the product of it's parts.

Posted by Michael McGroarty