Post production
Post production Assessment
In this assessment I will be explain the process behind each individual piece I have edited, explaining what I intended them to represent, how and why I used the techniques I have, each one’s specific strengths and weakness’s and what I would change about them if I had a chance to re-do the module.
Night Journey
I will begin with ‘Night Journey’ a piece taking place on an over night train to Amsterdam.
Our protagonist in the piece appears to be a businessman or something of the kind, whilst the antagonist (to quote the film) looks more along the lines of a country doctor.
The piece is a non-sync film of the drama genre, meaning the dialogue (in this case, narration) doesn’t have to match the actual movements of the on screen actors mouths, instead being representative of what they are thinking or perhaps recalling a memory of the past.
My aims for this piece were to blur the boundaries between what could be happening in reality and what might just be all in our leading man’s head.
I wanted to signify early on in the edit that the businessman could potentially be suffering from extreme cases of paranoia, schizophrenia or panic attacks, perhaps caused by public transport or a lack of sleep.
In my take on the edit the doctor figure, is thought to be a cannibal and whilst he is very much alive and exists along side the businessman with in the train, I believe it is up to the viewer to decide if he does in fact have any intention on eating the business man, or if that is just in his own, warped reality.
I chose to portray the piece as non-linear as it plays out as it would from the businessman’s memory.
It begins with the cannibal leaving the train and being likened to a Doctor, nothing incriminating to start with.
The piece then move’s forward using fades and footage of the train to distinguish the time period has changed.
With the help of a rather philosophical piece of dialogue, the business man sounds as if he is convincing him self that his death makes no difference to anyone, it’s a part of the natural order of things, as he continues he goes on to become more and more unsettled, his expressions changing.
I used shot placement to emphasise the darker tones by incorporating certain movements on both actors’ parts, the cannibal’s movements and expressions hinting at him having ulterior intentions, whilst the businessman’s show his vulnerability and steady decline in to panic.
From this stem’s the first part of the businessman’s paranoia, he starts to question himself about not wanting to die and begins to feel vein, it is at this point the idea of this man being a cannibal really comes in to play, forgiving his some what evil and distrustful visage, his body language could be considered completely normal for this situation, two men sat on a train, it is the businessman’s thoughts that make him appear to be insane and the timing of which I have placed certain looks and gestures.
It is also at this point I wanted to signify his feeling of sleepiness, something that is causing him to worry even more, he is shown to be gripping a news paper as he not only feels rising levels of tension and anxiety, but also to try and keep him awake.
The next section of the film I wanted to portray as being a dream, the skull rolling just being a metaphor for his madness and not actually the remains of anyone, a fade brings the scene to Amsterdam, a beautiful relaxed and silent shot, the businessman claiming he doesn’t want to die as he wants to go a for a walk around such a place, for me this is the anchor for his sanity, he dreams of Amsterdam and once he is off the train he will be ok.
The scene fades once again to the exterior of the train, another identification that time has passed, along with narrative hinting he should sleep.
We then move to a shot of which appears to be of the floor of the train with flashing lights, what I wanted this to represent was the slumped head of the business man as he falls in to slumber, the flashing being descriptive of his eyes unable to keep open.
From this darkness the shot turns green as salt is poured in to his hand before the lights suddenly come back on, this section of the film I wanted to be representative of the night mare he has had whilst sleeping, the cannibal now openly talking about eating him, but all the while his body language is made to look very relaxed, whilst the businessman remains flustered, this continues until another shot from through the window shows red flashing lights and an alarm, this could be taken in three, distinguishing ways, either as a metaphorical warning alarm, a signal of the impending danger and something he must act upon soon, secondly representing the cracked and frail state of his being pushed to the very limits of sanity and finally as literal ringing and flashing outside, causing him to stir from his paranoid, nightmares.
I tweaked the opacity and used fading to create the lights flashing from the window.
This brings us to the end of the piece and the end of the insanity; the businessman believes he has seen more of these metaphorical skulls, several at once this time, intensifying the feeling that he is about to be devoured.
After a final smile from the cannibal, he pulls the train alarm, triggering an echoing, outburst of shrill noise, made up from several layers of the same alarm clip as earlier layered with a slight delay between each, altering the sound.
The shots fades to the business man leaving a train station, calmly repeating one of his first, philosophical lines, then walking through Amsterdam, whispering in a hushed tone once again, that this all he wants to do.
I wanted these final shots to show the recovery of his sanity, once off of the train, in order of time how ever they would be placed after that of the first shot technically, if you look at this shot again it would be after the alarm rings, so the cannibal leaving the train and walking in to the distance can mean two things, the first is that our deranged, businessman has falsely rang the alarm on an innocent man, resulting in his expulsion from the train, the other meaning is that the alarm represented him coming to his senses and the cannibal is in fact a manifestation of his own paranoia and fear of death leaving him, which makes sense as he is completely calm at the beginning of the film.
The atmos tracks used for this piece were comprised almost entirely of different records of trains, judging from the sounds and the names of each recording there were many different locations, all recorded at varied distance’s from the train.
It would take me hours to type about each shot i used in this film, comprising of a variety of angles and lengths, stationary and moving shots.
What i aimed for with the majority of shots was to time certain movements of the actors with the relevant narration for example. When he mentions humans crying, he wipes his eyes with a tissue, when he talks about vanity he looks in the window at his reflection, when he calls the cannibal a mad man, he nods etc.
In a climbers hands
In a climbers hands is a documentary piece about a local rock climber, capturing him on several climbs, interviewing him and observing how he trains.
For my take on the piece I decided to completely strip it down and focus purely on the climbing of the rocks and the landscape shots, dismissing that of the interviews and the climber in his room.
To me this footage was irrelevant, for a piece this short and working with the sound recordings we had readily available to us, the only logical thing to do was to focus on the action.
I decided I wanted a strong song to edit too, something bouncy and rhythmic, with out being overly heavy, or too complicated.
I did want it also be current and somewhat edgy, hopefully injecting some excitement in to what I found, quite boring footage, comprised of brilliant shots, but in my opinion lacking the ability to hold viewers attention.
I filtered through several copyright and royalty free music website until I came about this.
http://freemusicarchive.org/music/M-PeX/Ignis/01_m-pex_-_materia
A song named Materia by m-pex.
The song combines electronic elements with classic guitar, giving it not a only a modern feel, but also that of adventurous and explorative nature, something I felt fit well to the subject matter of rock climbing.
I started the edit with a collection of establishing shots, setting the scene of the piece, as the music begins to kick in we see the climber preparing himself and walking to the rocks, as the song drops in to full swing I then edited the climber scaling the rocks, jump cutting each time the bass kicks.
This created a rhythmic, fluctuating series of shots, ranging from close ups, mid and long shots from varying number of angles, some shots still, some moving,
The beat then breaks down again in the middle, where I made use of more land scape shots, as it begins to build up once more, we are treated to more of the same as the last time, but in a different location, with the climber preparing and then scaling the rocks in the same fashion, jumping in time to the beat.
The piece ends with the climber finally reaching the top of the rocks, where he sits for a moment and admires the land scape whist packing his equipment, the music slows to a holt and the shot fades to black.
Through out the piece I have sprinkled fragments of the interview over what I felt were the more relevant places, at the beginning he explains where they are, through out he explains that’s its hard to climb when its cold and why he uses the ropes, finishing up with him expressing his relief to of finished the climb.
Out of Date
Out of date is the comedy piece we had to edit for the project.
I chose to edit the scene consisting of the posh couple, David and Sandra hosting a dinner party for posing couple Alf and Jane.
Alf and Jane run in to each other earlier on in the script and have no idea they will be going with each other tonight, Alf being the typical, Yorkshire bloke is made to act on his best behaviour under the moniker of Winston.
Over the course of the dinner Alf repeatedly lets slip his lack of manners and eventually walks out of the meal, offended by David and Sandra and their view towards his legitimate livelihood of a dairy farmer.
Through out this scene I really wanted to exaggerate and emphasise each of the characters personality’s, Jane seems humble and accommodating, her major role though out the piece is that of a back seat driver, quiet and unassuming on the exterior, but quick to put Alf right when he starts acting out of Character.
I tried to use shots that made David appear as pompous as possible, presumptuous and opinionated, he comes across as an unlikeable character, quick to scoff at another.
I wanted Alf to appear loud and brash, also opinionated but in a cheekier way then David, with reason to do so.
Sandra is also a very posh and pompous character, but not on the same level as David, she is likable and comes across some what insecure, very much the type who will try and wow and spoil guests to try and win friendship, in this case it is obvious with the lengths she has gone to with all the food, as well as her willingness to give as much as possible yet try and make out she hasn’t done enough and apologise.
I tried my best to work loosely to the script with this scene, whilst picking each take that best shows each characters specific, individualities.
This proved difficult in some areas, as the actors tend to jump from spot to spot in between takes, complicating continuity.
one very obvious example of this is a shot of David laughing, which just appears from no where, something I didn’t notice was quite as bad as it is until after exporting and writing this.
Sound track wise I decided to leave the piece with out any music or jingles, aiming to create a dry style of comedy, purely based on realism.
I finished the piece with a fade just after Alf walks out, my reason for this was to create some tension in the piece, where it had all been quite silly and light hearted, a cliff hanger style ending to the scene.
Over all evaluation
I have learnt a lot from this module but not in particularly about editing techniques, more with time keeping and the importance of not rushing, due to several reasons, i missed nearly all sessions over the term and whilst still obtaining an extension, by the time i had everything sorted out, i only had a week to finish all edit by myself and using the program final cut pro X, starting them all from scratch and having to learn the program as i went along as i had no experience prior (it is inferior to Final cut 7).
I found this very difficult and stressful as i really wanted to spend a long time on each video, but i knew i had to move on to next as soon as possible.
The situations i found myself in that caused me to get so far behind were beyond my control and have majorly influenced the level of my work negatively, i hope nothing like this happens again as it has dramatic effect on my grades from all modules.
I will be updating this section of the blog with various chunks of info and research about post production, touching on methods and techniques used in editing as well as observing scenes that have caught my eye!
Techniques
Im going to use this section of the post to explain various techniques used in postproduction, including examples and what i personally find interesting about the piece.
Layering and opacity
One of my favourite techniques with in film making is that of layering, tweaking the opacity and over lapping multiple shots in a way that creates one melded image. This can create all kinds of effects, but more often then not the results are very dream like. Layered images can also be used in a huge number of styles, ranging in duration from the whole of a piece to a brief transition and everything in between.
The amount of layers used is also entirely up the editor, obviously the higher the number the more difficult it tends to be to keep the piece looking tidy.
Here are several films and scene's using layering that i believe are note worthy - Caribou - odessa
The opening scene from apocalypse now
Becoming Real - Antarctic city
Becoming Real - Like me
Jump cutting
Jump cutting is a technique used in editing to give the illusion of the on screen subject jumping from one position to another, often used to indicate a passing of time, emphasise feelings such as rushing or urgency or as a method of getting the subject to move in time with rhythm.
Potemkin
City of God
Tetsuo: The Iron man
Breathless
Match cut
The match cut is a technique which can be used to show a metaphorical, association between subjects or as a simple yet clean and visually pleasing transition.
For a match cut to work both shots must contain a corresponding visuals or a graphic match.
2001 A space odyssey
Lawrence of Arabia
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