After much thinking and listening we decided to be brave and go with the Linkin Park 'Session' track for our final film. We did not however encounter the amount of editing that would follow just to fit the track with the events in the film. The opening to the film is soft and slow and builds up so we had to make the peek of the song reflect something happening in the film. This section to the end was for some reason not as powerful as the first dress in the beginning. The white dress sequence needed refining and possibly adding extra footage, brightening it and improving the contrast was also needed. We were taught to do this using ( effects...colour correction...drop...click...use colour spectrumto darken) We used this in the scene where the rose bounces, and the sun had come out momentarily when filming causing the black lace to appear brown on film. Through this technique the problem was fixed.
We spent a fair amount of time going over and over the film blending and merging sequences to fit the music. We had to be careful not to loose the melancholic visuals to the angry vibe in the track. Linkin Park session gave the film a power and raw quality, and the styling with the visual expressions and body language kept the film melancholic, which was unusual for the track. Muse was much softer and feminine it was a more stereo typical melancholy.
It was so interesting to see the film change just from the track, we tried to edit the film to be perfect with the track and by the time we had finished and had a tutorial with Geraldine, something was not right. We had got to the stage where is was mentioned to add more footage which would over step our time limit and make our film much more jumpy pulling away the melancholic smoothness entirely. We had over shot our brief and the film was now to angry and hysterically sorrowful, instead of the calm sorrow of melancholy. We did not want to travel any further in the wrong direction and to get the most out of our footage the Muse song now seemed more appropriate. Although frustrating we hadn't come this far to just stick with the Linkin Park track out of convenience, and the film would have to be shook up again with the new sound track. We learnt that the film visuals should not be dictated by a sound track.
Whilst attempting to work with Linkin Park we could hear the gust of wind from the layer of sound that was captured through filming. We could also hear inappropriate sections of talking where Heidi was directing me. Some words sounded quite unusual and could work but there were few of them. On changing the track to Muse: 'Exogenesis symphony Part 3 redemption' Geraldine heard even more noises that were masked by the Linkin Park track. Heidi felt embarrassed at the sound of her own voice however Geraldine loved moments of whispering and even rewound slowed down and sped up sections of talking. We heard the roaring wind, petals being pulled off and thrown, letters shuffling and ripping and the natural hum of the beach when all was quiet in the air, all of this could now be edited and heard along with the calm muse track. The whispers and unrecognisable rewound sped up talking gave the film a mystery, and almost ghostly atmosphere at times so we kept these parts.
Geraldine had some slight alterations for our film that were easy to implement in minutes. Things such as leaving the screen black to begin with as the music starts so it sets the tone for the audience and they are introduced to the film. This is something we tried before that lacked something, however with sound it works really well. The music enters the film calm and serene with a slightly eery quality setting the scene for the viewer building them up gradually for the high impact visuals. Using music and the natural sounds of wind etc was something we wanted to play with, so Geraldine showed us how to change the sound and use the 'pen' and mark 3 dots on the pink line which controlled selected areas of sound. when you mover the middle dot up down or left and right right it changes the sound file on the film. We moved the dots up and down until we got a fade effect and changed the volume which effected the power of the music. This allowed the natural sound track to be more predominant for the entire film.
We still needed to cut little bits here and there to shorten sequences that were to long and lost interest after a while. This felt really annoying as we had basically had enough of starring at the film and doing and redoing sections of it. Looking at the finished film now though it was totally worth it. The film would be nothing with out the time consuming picky bits! There was an overall agreement from Geraldine, Olle and ourselves that the ending was not there yet it was lacking something and needed to be more punchy to match the strong beginning.
Through a process of moving little sections of clips of the white dress into a different order and also moving the cropped image in the center not the side of the screen for impact started to solve this issue.
Some of the clips needed to be elongated and we all agreed that the best high impact shot was the one of sand skimming across the beech and the white dress blowing in the bottom left corner so your eye follows the sand as if the dress points to it. We made this our final shot to equalize the panning of the beach and sky scenes at the beginning of the film. This decision seemed to work perfectly with the music and all the little bits of editing flowed appropriately. It was immediately polished and had its impact back as a complete film. Relief and extreme happiness are the words to describe how we felt!
The whispering and backwards speaking were attributes of our film that made it unique and interesting. The film now flowed correctly, jumping in unaggressive ways and layering to build the affect we wanted. Despite these positives we still found issues with the music and became quite frustrated I could tell Heidi was starting to get quite stressed out and disheartened as we were so so close to a complete film this was just another hurdle we needed help to get over.
We had planned on coming in early and completing the film comfortably by 4pm as i frustratingly once again i had to leave for work. Things had not gone to plan at all and we were slightly anxious at the fact we were after a whole day of editing still having issues with the music. Heidi assured me she could get help to do what we had been trying to throughout the entire day, and i completely had faith in her to do so, I just felt awful leaving at such a critical time, even though worst case scenario we could work on it monday. It felt like everything we attempted to do required assistance and teaching at every stage, as we kept forgetting little things when editing like unlocking and locking the visual layer to edit the sound and moving sections of music and then the film playing in the incorrect order. We knew what we wanted and we discussed different ways of over coming the lyrics in the climax of our chosen Muse song including fading them out and replacing them with a natural wind sound then fading the song back in after the lyrics, but it was not in the correct place for the big change in our film. We had to some how cut them completely from the track then edit so that the ascend of layering music and descend gelled appropriately in the middle fitting our film. The beginning and end of the music were perfect and we were definitely using them, it was just this troublesome section near the middle. The beginning fades in and the ending naturally fades out with the movement of the sand along the beach. We wanted a build up of sound to fit what was going on in the story of the emotions getting angrier, the net dropping, the sudden flash of white as the character has a realisation and it is shown through the metaphoric white dress and change in weather with slight blue sky and sun she is moving on and the narrative continues. This tiny section of the film you could say was the most important we got quite desperate in attempting to edit the song having tried copying the built up sequence over again sounded to jumpy, having a sudden fade was to clumsy and unprofessional. We were determined to make the track work as it was perfect and symbolic for our mood.
After i had left for work Heidi managed to get help from Geraldine to look at how we physically could do it? Heidi informed me at 10.00 pm after work how they went through the film frame by frame speeding up sections in a hyper careful way. She said they just had to go through it slowly as it was something that needed a lot of time, something we did not foresee and have definitely learnt from!
They eventually achieved our desired effect by slowly dragging frame by frame and dropping sounds then over lapping the odd note here and there to make it all work. She said she even now doesn't know how they managed it as it was a case of sitting for hours giving individual notes attention, to which I am very grateful on Geraldine's part for staying late and Heidi's determination. WE know feel the film ascends with the music and descends to the peaceful state portraying our characters emotions and narrative through clothing.
Although we had a lot of issues producing this film when we watch the final thing i personally fill up with pride and am very proud of Heidi and myself for producing what we have. Especially as i have never made a film before and could not have dreamt what we have achieved up in the beginning. Ultimately we think it promotes Marko Mitanovski really well which would be the reason for producing this film in the real world.
All it needs now is for the credits to be placed on and the Title: Calming The Storm
Below shows our final draft of our film, with the soundtrack:
Through a process of moving little sections of clips of the white dress into a different order and also moving the cropped image in the center not the side of the screen for impact started to solve this issue.
Some of the clips needed to be elongated and we all agreed that the best high impact shot was the one of sand skimming across the beech and the white dress blowing in the bottom left corner so your eye follows the sand as if the dress points to it. We made this our final shot to equalize the panning of the beach and sky scenes at the beginning of the film. This decision seemed to work perfectly with the music and all the little bits of editing flowed appropriately. It was immediately polished and had its impact back as a complete film. Relief and extreme happiness are the words to describe how we felt!
The whispering and backwards speaking were attributes of our film that made it unique and interesting. The film now flowed correctly, jumping in unaggressive ways and layering to build the affect we wanted. Despite these positives we still found issues with the music and became quite frustrated I could tell Heidi was starting to get quite stressed out and disheartened as we were so so close to a complete film this was just another hurdle we needed help to get over.
We had planned on coming in early and completing the film comfortably by 4pm as i frustratingly once again i had to leave for work. Things had not gone to plan at all and we were slightly anxious at the fact we were after a whole day of editing still having issues with the music. Heidi assured me she could get help to do what we had been trying to throughout the entire day, and i completely had faith in her to do so, I just felt awful leaving at such a critical time, even though worst case scenario we could work on it monday. It felt like everything we attempted to do required assistance and teaching at every stage, as we kept forgetting little things when editing like unlocking and locking the visual layer to edit the sound and moving sections of music and then the film playing in the incorrect order. We knew what we wanted and we discussed different ways of over coming the lyrics in the climax of our chosen Muse song including fading them out and replacing them with a natural wind sound then fading the song back in after the lyrics, but it was not in the correct place for the big change in our film. We had to some how cut them completely from the track then edit so that the ascend of layering music and descend gelled appropriately in the middle fitting our film. The beginning and end of the music were perfect and we were definitely using them, it was just this troublesome section near the middle. The beginning fades in and the ending naturally fades out with the movement of the sand along the beach. We wanted a build up of sound to fit what was going on in the story of the emotions getting angrier, the net dropping, the sudden flash of white as the character has a realisation and it is shown through the metaphoric white dress and change in weather with slight blue sky and sun she is moving on and the narrative continues. This tiny section of the film you could say was the most important we got quite desperate in attempting to edit the song having tried copying the built up sequence over again sounded to jumpy, having a sudden fade was to clumsy and unprofessional. We were determined to make the track work as it was perfect and symbolic for our mood.
After i had left for work Heidi managed to get help from Geraldine to look at how we physically could do it? Heidi informed me at 10.00 pm after work how they went through the film frame by frame speeding up sections in a hyper careful way. She said they just had to go through it slowly as it was something that needed a lot of time, something we did not foresee and have definitely learnt from!
They eventually achieved our desired effect by slowly dragging frame by frame and dropping sounds then over lapping the odd note here and there to make it all work. She said she even now doesn't know how they managed it as it was a case of sitting for hours giving individual notes attention, to which I am very grateful on Geraldine's part for staying late and Heidi's determination. WE know feel the film ascends with the music and descends to the peaceful state portraying our characters emotions and narrative through clothing.
Although we had a lot of issues producing this film when we watch the final thing i personally fill up with pride and am very proud of Heidi and myself for producing what we have. Especially as i have never made a film before and could not have dreamt what we have achieved up in the beginning. Ultimately we think it promotes Marko Mitanovski really well which would be the reason for producing this film in the real world.
All it needs now is for the credits to be placed on and the Title: Calming The Storm
Below shows our final draft of our film, with the soundtrack:
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