Skills Development/Progress: 18/12/2014

Throughout the editing progress I have developed many skills, in which I did not work on last year. For example, I have used much more complex editing skills than just inserting titles.  Using a technique influenced by the influential film 'The anti-social Network' I inserted a 'Likes' image to make it clear what the main character was doing. I did this by finding an image of the iconic Facebook thumbs up, and inserted into PowerPoint. I then researched what font the Facebook site used, and used the 'Tahoma' font. I then colour matched the image to the text so that it looked authentic. I removed the background and inserted the image into Sony Vegas. Using the 'Event Pan/Crop' tool, I tracked the image along with the character. This took multiple attempts and it was difficult for it to follow the exact movements of the subject. However, after a few trial and errors, I think it received a good result.

Another part of the editing progress that allowed me to develop my skills, was developing the definition post at the very beginning. This involved me creating the post box and putting together the image. I used extensive research and tutorials to create the exact effect that I needed. I used the 'Sony Stereoscopic 3D Adjust' effect which is something I hadn't used before. I improvised a tested out a few effects, but adjusting the rotation and keystone of the element. I completed the animation but using the animate button, and adding in multiple key frames to get the final outcome. From this part, I then found it much easier to animate other elements of my film, such as the production company logos.

For my production company logos, I created two this year, as most films use more than one production company. I used the same name as last years. I recreated the image and added effects. By creating these images it allowed me to test out some of the effects on Sony Vegas. Again, this allowed me to use the animate button and get used to adding different key frames to the film, and hopefully making the logos look professional.

Audience Research: Rough Cut Feedback

In this post you will find a rough cut of my Main Task and a video of the feedback I received from my peers, detailing ways I could improve my video.

Rough Cut:

Feedback Video:

Due to some technical difficulties, I only managed to retrieve the last part of my video feedback. However I managed to note down some of the points included, for example:

• At the end the camerawork was unclear and unsteady
• The music may be to fast to fit the sad depressing theme
• Quite a few dark screens, and cuts that were unnecessary.

I dealt with this issues, but there were some issues I could not deal with, as I had to meet a deadline. The first issue I could not change, and the actor I used was unavailable, and I did not have time to re do it.

Secondly, I slowed down the music using Ableton live in response to this criticism, and hopefully the music portrays more of a saddened theme.

Lastly I managed to sort of the sudden jumps and cuts, as these were just a case of where other things had to be added in, and I had not reached the finalised stage of the product.

A major issue with my film was representation. I aimed to create intense emotion within my film, particularly between characters, and therefore this relationship would have been built up over a number of scenes. However I had some issues when accessing locations, and therefore had to cut a few scenes out, and therefore this made it harder to portray these types of intense relationships that would have developed. I found it difficult to change this once I had completed my film.

Audience Research: First Rough Draft Feedback

In this post I have detailed the feedback I have been given when I presented the first draft of the initial stages of my film:

1) Take out the ellipsis in the opening production companies, as this isn't something that normally happens in feature films and is not a convention.

2) There are parts of the film that are jumpy, which need to be sorted.

3) The gap between the introduction definition and the opening scene is too long.

Planning: Sound Design

The sound track I received permission to use is 'Dreams fade to white' written and composed by Johannes Ringen and James Craft.

An issue that I had was that the track was not long enough in terms of length, to fit the clips in my short film. I used a programme called 'Ableton Live 9' to alter the length. I did this by cutting a part of the end, and duplicating it and adding it in. This added an extra 30 seconds to the track which then enabled me to use it. 

Planning: Sound Effects

Using 'Freesound.org' I got my sound effects for my film. This included the effects for the film title 'disconnect' and the notification sound I used. Freesound requires a user name and password to download the sound effects, and is copyright free sound. Using Sony Vegas I manipulated these effects. For the 'Keyboard' effect, is cut the length and also slowed the tempo, so that it fit with the video length.