Progress Report - Editing

With the production stage complete our group has begun the editing stage of our trailer. Last year we used Windows Movie Maker to edit our film with but this year we are using Adobe Premiere. This is a bit more complicated to use but in order to progress and build on our A/S experience we felt it would both help the quality of our production and our general skills to use this program. Capturing the film took a fairly long time as instead of just capturing the whole film in one go like on Windows Movie Maker we had to choose the best take of each shot we took and then capture them as separate files. We used a footage log in order to keep track of each shot and take that we used which later helped us to match everything up properly.

As my roles are director and screen writer I did not actively edit the film. Our Editor within the group was also the editor during his production last year and so even though we are using different software this year he has some experience. All three members of our group however were actively involved in the process when deciding which shots should be used, how long they should be, any effects that need to be added, etc. Whilst watching I have also learned how to use Adobe Premiere which will stand me in good stead for any video productions I may undertake in the future. Due to the teething problems with this new software however the editing has taken longer than hoped for. Learning how to fade in and out of shots, apply effects and edit the contrast for example has been fairly time consuming. To compensate for this however our group has met out of class a few times to carry on with the editing.

So far we have put all the shots in order and cropped them to the desired length in order to make sure there is good continuity in the trailer. This has been made a fairly easy and fluid process due to the detailed storyboards in which the order of the shots and their lengths had already been determined.

When creating any product it is essential to keep the audience in mind. Conforming to the codes and conventions of thrillers has been paramount throughout this production and by this we have tried to create verisimilitude. A few of the shots we have had to particularly focus on include the CCTV shots and a sequence near the end which is in the dark. In order to match the codes and conventions for CCTV shots we made them black and white and added a recording sign. Due to the advanced software we were also able to add a shot of white noise (static) which we had planned to occur between the two shots in the Library. We are also condidering raising the contrast some of the shots in the dark as one or two are bordering on being too dark.