Picture Lock and Colour Correction

I asked the producer to organise a meeting for Monday to discuss the final edit and make sure that everyone in the group was happy with it so I could picture lock it for James. Unfortunately, myself, James, Rhys and Jess were the only people to turn up. Myself and James had already looked over it so it was Rhys and Jess who checked through. I was a little unhappy because I wanted the director to be there so I could definitely picture lock it and James would have more time. Instead, I waited til today to put a final picture lock on it. Watching it back today with the director, James and I decided that a reaction shot of the father after he had pushed his daughter seemed a little out of place and we realised it was because his emotion was not present. So, to remedy the situation we cut in the pills on the floor as we couldn't cut between her falling and the first shot - it looked jumpy and out of place.  However, I feel that it might be a little too in your face about the pills now. At least it is better than it was previously.

The rest of the day was spent colour correcting which James was very helpful with as it was my first time doing it. I think I've learnt a lot about this process now and I began to be able to manipulate the colours alone more successfully with him looking in occasionally to cross check.

Overall, I am very pleased with how my edit has gone and I think I've done some creative problem solving involving cutting around exposure and focus problems whilst maintaining the pacing and engagement of the piece. I am most proud of the argument scene where I implemented a faster cutting pace to create a disorientation which I had started on the rough edit and was encouraged to refine and add more by Esther. I think this has turned out very well - the final scene is also, in my opinion, a strong scene and my decision to keep the shot where he pulls out his phone and apologises before looking off as one long scene with no cutaways increases the intensity in my opinion. 

Fine tuning

Beginning the fine cut today, I was very happy with how things were beginning to look. I am trying to get a picture lock by Monday at the latest so that James can begin work on the sound. He has been sitting with me during editing and I've really appreciated his input. 


There was one minor hiccup where we noticed that the letterbox bars were grey and this meant that the formatting was off on these sequences. For some reason, there were some grey letterbox bars on only some of the sequences and not others, so we spent a fair amount of time redoing the sequences with correct formatting. We checked the in and out points of the clips and had to use these to get the same clip into the new sequence. 


Aside from that, things appeared to be going well - I cut out a lot of the exposure problems and tried to be a bit bolder during the cut. I held the last shot that Esther had recommended and gotten rid of the shot that had been there previously as this seemed more poignant.

 I tried out the quick cutting in the argument and I really like how that's turned out, pictured below.

Tutorial

Esther came up with some really helpful recommendations for the fine cut which I think we will be considering and most likely implementing. 


First of all, she mentioned that the quick cutting during the argument could work better if there were more of it and that we should trial it out to see if it would work. I am quite pleased because I did want to take it in this direction. 


Secondly, there were some shots she mentioned that could be removed which I think could definitely benefit our piece. I was reluctant to remove them originally because I was unsure if cuts would jar or not but I will try removing them. This includes the final shot which Esther thinks should be changed from the current one to the shot a few seconds previously. At first I didn't notice but I think that's because I was used to this sequencing but now that she's pointed out how different the emotion is, I can see how much more poignant and emotive the piece could be if we held on that shot and got rid of the end one.


There were some points that I don't think I can do anything about because they are holding on shots but either the shot doesn't hold or the actors don't continue acting whilst the camera is still rolling. 


However, these are minor problems and I don't think they will be too much of an issue in the finished film.

Rough Cut

The rough cut has been completed and I'm fairly happy with it. There are some scenes which I think need tightening and I'm not entirely sure about transitions but as yet, there are no sound provisions but a guide track so I'm thinking there may be room for sound transitions. We have discussed using fades or cut to black in between passages of time but I am reluctant to do so unless there is further reasoning behind it. 

 The above shot will need colour correction and I plan on tightening this sequence after our tutorial. Below is some of the quick-cutting I did during the argument scene. Unsure of whether it is working or not so haven't done a lot of it as yet.

I am unsure about some of the shots that are included because some are soft focus where there is no other footage including the dialogue needed that I could cut to - i.e the father holding the flowers. 

Assembly

Most of today's tasks were to convert all of the footage via Mpeg Stream Clip into Apple Pro Res 422 which took a very very very long time! 

However, I still managed to put together an assembly of the scenes which gives us an idea of timings and structure. There will be a lot of cutting involved for the rough cut but at least we now know that the scenes are put together and can begin to think about pacing during the rough cut.

 For example, the shot above is over exposed so I'll need to find a way to cut around it without including it in the final piece - do I need to show them sitting down to dinner or can I cut to the dinner table without jarring?

Above is a problem I encountered and couldn't quite figure out why I was encountering it! I had to create a new sequence in order to rectify the problem.

Footage

Today I looked through the footage from the two shoots and was generally happy with the footage. There was a lot of footage but not a huge variety of shots and I didn't really have many cutaways that could be useful. There are a few exposure issues and some soft focus problems but I should be able to resolve this by cutting around them. Having said that, I am confident there is enough coverage to cut together a coherent and hopefully emotionally engaging piece. 

Filming

Filming was scheduled for Saturday and today, I went to the Saturday shoot because that was the day with the most planned and Lewis had to leave early for work so it would be helpful if I was there to strengthen the numbers. Mostly, I helped out where needed - getting props, holding the bounce card when needed and doing the clapperboard. I felt that the day went quite well but we did run over schedule a little and I noticed that we were moving fairly slowly during the first scenes.

I get my hands on the footage on Monday so I can begin looking through the rushes and labeling everything.