Preliminary sequence editing software

During the preliminary sequence I used the diting software Final Cut Express for the first time. I had never used this particular editing software before instead, I had used software like the typical windows video editor and sony vegas pro. Although, I eventually learnt how to use as I do with other software it took me a while to figure out how some parts worked. Therefore, I had to look on the internet to find out how to use certain functions. I did learn how to use video transitions and effects in Final Cut Express and how to manipulate the audio of clips to make them fade or be silent.

Feedback to film

This week we showed our film to the rest of our class. It was a working copy, the only thing we missed though was the soundtrack. It all went pretty well except during the showcase one clip hadn't exported with the rest so we had three seconds of "Media can't be found" but it didn't have too much effect on the overall film.

The feedback we got was better than I expected. People did enjoy the film and thought we had some decent camera shots and angles. They especially enjoy the last half of the film as the pace picked up and they became more ivolved in the characters. The first half was the main problem as we had complaints about it being too slow and the credits not fitting in well enough. We hope to address these problems and improve the film. Overall, we had some positive feedback, even though some of the marks we found were quite harsh, but that's just people's opinions.

Showcase Film

This was the film we showed at our showcase.

What I liked:

- Camera angles e.g. smoking scene, cigarette scene

- Sound effects, although some need to be added the ones we had I thought fitted nicely.

- Lighting, although hard to get right I thought it fitted the genre.

Things I think need improvement:

- Titles and credits need to be added in a more sophisticated way that better reflects the genre.

- Soundtrack soundtrack soundtrack

- The pace of the first half of the film needs to edited so it's quicker

How we plan to do our evaluation

We have an idea of how we're going to do our evaluation and that is by using Youtube. We were told to try and make it interactive and as creative as possible so we have the idea of using annotations on Youtube videos to navigate our evaluation. We will have a main video which you can navigate to each question and on each question you can progress to the next question or return to the start. We feel this would be better than one long video as it will make the user intereact more with it.

Editing

The editing has mainly finished now. Although, I hope that we will be able to edit more once we have shown it to the class and been given some feedback on how to improve. The only thing that needs to be done now is to add the soundtrack to the film. Max is currently working on this and will hopefully be finished with it soon.

Preliminary sequence

This is the preliminary sequence that me and my group made before we did I real film opening. I enjoyed doing this as it was the first time I got to handle the camera and experiment with the angles. Personally, I think the sequence isn't that very good as we rushed it in an hour when we should've spent more time planning it and shooting the conversation multiple times.

What I learnt:

- A variety of camera angles is good when it comes to editting.

- Conversation needs to be done multiple times so during editting it can be editted to flow smoothly

My idea submissions to our opening

I like to think that I helped in contributing ideas towards our opening sequence in terms of good camera angles etc. The scene with the panning of the gangster murderer walking originally came from a storyboard that I made up for an old media homework. I also helped develop the storyline that we hoped to create but only with the stalking aspect, the idea of love was done by the other members of the group.