Editing diary

Production - Editing Diary:



DAYS 1 and 2:

We put the film in running order, with the very first cut running 7 minutes with the uninterrupted takes. After cutting the footage down and editing it much more tightly and in a controlled fashion, we had the film down to 5 minutes and 55 seconds.

Shortly after we completed filming, we captured our footage onto Final Cut and began to watch the footage material that we had in order to construct our film in a coherent way. Since we had shot the film out of sequence, and since we had shot several takes of all of the scenes for the purposes of security and insurance, we watched all of the footage we shot in order to get a feel of what we had and what we could use.

DAYS 3 and 4:

We put the film in running order, with the very first cut running 7 minutes with the uninterrupted takes. After cutting the footage down and editing it much more tightly and in a controlled fashion, we had the film down to 5 minutes and 55 seconds.

DAY 5:

In the middle of editing, we sought out music tracks using the website Newgrounds, which features non-copyrighted music. The music which we sought out was mainly hip-hop, r’n’b tracks and orchestral and ambient scores.


DAY 6:

Once we found the tracks that we felt were necessary, fitting and would enhance our film, we added them to the film, and the non-diegetic music used helped to give the film an extra dimension and atmosphere which it did not have without it.

DAYS 7 and 8:

During the end of editing, we recorded our interior monologues. Our first day of recording the monologues had to be discarded due to poor sound quality, but the takes recorded on our second day were much more up to the standards we were not prepared to compromise; when we added them to Final Cut, our film was nearing completion.

DAY 9:

One outstanding task was to correct the colours, especially during the last scene, which had footage reshot during lighter weather conditions and so had to be corrected in order to ensure continuity was sustained. Aditionally, we added a special effect to the very last shot of our film, which was an effect entitled Earthquake, available on Final Cut, which gave a very disorientating and violent end to our film, confirming for the audience the message that Dammy had been killed. Finally, we ensured not only that the film broadcast safe, but also that the audio levels and gaps were lowered and closed respectively.

DAY 10:

The final cut of our film, with corrected colours, sound levels and special effects ran 5 minutes, 10 seconds, and, we are proud to say, was very much the film we intended to make.