Editing Process - Fine Cut

As I was on the fine cut stage of the edit now, all I had already structured the whole narrative and got every clip almost exactly where it should be so I started by exporting for Luke, the sound designer, to start working on his score for the film. After doing this I started by continuing where I left off with the rough cut which was testing out effects that could be used to connote the instability of the character John's memory. After a while of looking through them all and collaborating with the director, we settled on one that worked effectively and gave of the right connotations without being too over the top, called radial blur.

Using radial blur effect for a signifier of memory loss.

We liked this because it distorted the image in a way that it wasn't impossible to make out what the image actually was, but still made it hard to see any of the details within the image, much like when someone is struggling to remember the fine details of something. I used this effect over the first dream sequence at the start of the film, and then at the very end of the film when John is getting his memory wiped. To do this effect at the end, I had to keyframe it to show the progression of the 'treatment' and do it slowly enough so that the audience understood what was happening.

Keyframing radial blur effect.

I also needed to mask some of the set in the morgue scene to make it look like the body wasn't just on a bunch of tables lined up and to make it more like a surreal dream like sequence which is what it is supposed to be. To do this I used the spot colour correction effect and then the draw tool and just turned the contrast right down so the legs of the tables were no longer visible.

Shot before spot colour correction effect.

Shot after, showing the shape of mask effect.

Doing all of these effects on a big sequence like the one we have causes Media Composer to slow down and drop frames during playback which is very annoying and can cause misjudgement on the editors part, so I rendered the effects across the whole sequence to make it play back smoother and take the strain of the computers memory.

Rendering effects across the whole sequence to my hard drive.

The next major thing to do in the fine cut stage of editing is the colour grading and colour correction. This was going to be one of the bigger jobs on the fine cut as the sequence was still just under 10 minutes long and comprised of over 100 clips, most of which would need at least some colour correction done to them. I started from the beginning and used the colour correction mode on Media Composer to match the colour, brightness and contrast of each clip side by side.

Colour grading each clip side by side.

In the first sequence, all I did was turn up the contrast a bit to make the images look a bit more surreal to play with the dazed and confused performance and overall surrealism of the scene. In some of the scenes, due to multiple light sources or choice of exposure, there were certain areas that needed altering and others that didn't. To get around this I, once again, used the spot colour correction tool to draw an area around the spot that needed changing, and then used either the contrast, saturation or grade to normalise it with the rest of the shot.

Spot contrast alteration for over exposed sky. (before)

After altering the contrast slightly.

Shot before colour correction.

Drawing a mask around areas in need to colour correction.

Shot after saturation and colour correction alteration.

This process was very fiddly and took quite a bit of time to execute effectively so I was thankful that not all shots needed to be graded in this manner. The majority only needed some normalisation with the rest of the shots in the scene which was simple enough to do using the colour curves.

Using colour curves to make the whites and skin tones match.

After doing all this colour correction, the only thing to do was put the title sequence on using the title tool application in Media Composer.

Creating the title for our film.

Then I just had to wait for the soundtrack to be exported, sync it up in the sequence and export it ready for submission.

Final sequence without soundtrack.

Editing Process - Rough Cut

The main goal for this part of the edit was to trim down what we could to get the film under 10 minutes, as well as making the pace of the film flow more smoothly. I started by simply chopping up sections of clips we didn't need and tightening each clip to get rid of if the actor was waiting for a cue, or dead air/inhales before dialogue was delivered.

Cutting down, frame by frame, the clips in the sequence.

This was to make the film feel more refined and to make it into a more engaging piece by making each edit less obvious and more natural. However, even after I had done that, the film's length was still around 11 and a half minutes long which meant that we would have to start being very selective of which shots we actually showed within a scene.

Rough cut being over 11 minutes long.

After collaborating with the director, Chris, we decided it was best if we cut out the other character in the red coat that John bumps into in the first scene, completely to save time. We decided this because the shot where the two interact in the first scene was quite poor anyway as there are some obvious dolly tracks in shot, and also that it wasn't particularly relevant to John's story and more just context around the clinic which wasn't really that necessary to have. Even after doing this we were still over time, so myself and Chris had a long session in the edit suits where we decided to scrap certain shots over others in every scene, sacrificing some performance and continuity points for time. After reviewing these changes, we actually decided that it wasn't a problem and that the pace of the film had actually improved dramatically, making it not as long and slow and instead more engaging to watch.

Next we looked at some of the technical aspects of the edit such as some dodgy camera shots, as well as transitions between scenes. Our opening shot, a track of John walking past the Cemetery Avenue street sign, was very bumpy when compared to the rest of the shots in the scene so I decided to try and counteract that by using the Image stabilisation effect on Media Composer to make it less obvious.

Image stabilisation in action.

Image stabilisation rendering.

Even after doing this however, the image quality still wasn't amazing and I will have to discuss with the rest of the group if it is even worth keeping it in. Although it is an iconic shot, it isn't hugely relevant to the plot so we may decide not to use it and make our film look as visually professional as possible.
Another technical aspect that I had to do was the transitions in and out of scenes. To do this effectively I would have to really think about where to use effects and where to start fades working frame by frame. Myself and Chris decided that between normal scenes we would just use a simple fade in and fade out to connote the passing of time.

Fading in and out between scenes.

After trying this with the other scenes, we decided that it would be best to just do it on this cut and the last one, to show just a change of location where as in between the other scenes, we would use a fade out then just a cut back in to show an lapse in time. Also, when cutting in and out of the flashback scenes, I have decided to use a very rapid flash to white to make it more visually jarring to the audience, and let them know that this is an irregular thing, not just a change in location.

Quick dip to white transition for dream sequences.

Finally, I started playing around with effects to use when John sees a blurred image of his daughter in the first flashback, to show his lack of memory and the obscurity of the scene.

Testing out effects for signifier of memory loss.

Although this particular effect didn't work visually, I will show it to the rest of the group as an example of the sort of thing we are looking for, and get their opinions on what I should do.

The only things I really need to do now are mainly the colour grading of the whole film, which will be a big job as there are some quite bad discrepancies in shots within the same scene, and putting the final frame by frame changes to the edit.

Editing Process - Assembly

As we were shooting scenes in non-chronological order, creating a whole solid assembly would have to wait until we had finished shooting the whole thing, however, at the start of this week and the last, I imported and labelled what footage we had already recorded and started to work with it and assemble it into a series of scenes in the sequence.

Labelling and sorting footage.

 I used the same techniques as I did on the 2 minute film in terms of colour labelling the footage for the different takes we did so I knew when it came to lining the footage up and creating a sequence, which shot was best. I also split the footage up into different bins according to which scene they belonged to just to maximise the organisation and limit confusion when even more footage came in. Last Saturday after we had done 3 of the shoots, I started to create an assembly of all the footage we had so I wouldn't just be leaving it all until later on and be overloaded with work.

Assembly of the Cemetery Avenue shoot.

Last Saturday's assembly.

As I was creating the assemblies for each shoot, I was looking through all of the footage and making sure it was all good quality, and that it would all cut together smoothly. If there were certain areas that didn't work in my opinion, or if we were missing a shot out of a scene, then I would communicate this to my director and see if we needed to re-shoot anything, or just work around it by cutting it differently.
During this process, I worked very closely with the director, Chris, to have a second opinion on where I made cuts in the rushes, as well as which take to use and finally to make sure the film is coming out how he wanted it too. We used the shot lists we created to make the labelling process even easier by just naming the files by their scene, shot and take numbers.

All footage completely labelled.

I followed the shot list as best I could when creating the overall sequence for each scene to see if it worked the way it was planned on paper, or if there was anyway it could be improved. I wasn't worried with the pacing to begin with as all I was doing was putting a very roughly cut shot after shot into the sequence. Making each shot work with one another was a priority however, as if they didn't, the whole narrative would suffer and we may run out of time for re-shooting.

Cutting between shots and checking the smoothness and continuity.

As I began to end the assembly, I noticed a few things that would have to be addressed in the rough cut and fine cut stages. Firstly, the length of the final assembly was almost 14 minutes long, which was way over the designated time limit we had for the film.

Final assembly of all the scenes.

As this was almost certainly due to the pacing and rough nature of the sequence, we weren't overly concerned with this factor, however it was a very big thing to think about in the rough cut stage.
Another thing I noticed was that the acting, especially in the beginning of the film, was very slow and made the scenes quite boring to view. This is another problem with the pacing which I will address in the later stages of the editing process, but it did cause concern as it meant we would most likely have to cut out a number of shots that could damage the strength of the narrative, or cause continuity issues.
Finally, especially in the clinic scene, there are quite a few differences with colour and the difference in lighting. This could be a real problem as if it looks like shots in the same scene are filmed at different times, it could ruin the immersion into the narrative for the audience and make the film difficult and unpleasant to watch. This is an issue I will solve in the fine cut stages of the process where I will spend a lot of time working through each shot and colour grading it to hide these problems.

6th Shoot Day - Pick Up Shoot for House Scenes

Today, after our tutorial with Chris, we did a pick up shoot for the house scenes that needed to be re-shot to let the continuity match and the film to flow better. There wasn't a great deal to do for this shoot because we knew which compositions worked and where to set up so it was as simple as waiting for Bobby and getting on with it when he arrived. Our sound recordist Luke wasn't able to attend this shoot as he was working on another film, so I did the sound recording in his place. To make it easier to label, I asked the director Chris to read out the scene and shot number before the take so we could maximise efficiency in post-production.

Setting up shots and recording sound.

Due to this only being a small shoot, there weren't many production stills taken, however, we did get everything we needed and now I, as the editor, will finally be able to put all the shots in chronological order so we can get a rough cut ready for our tutor to view over the Easter holiday and make sure we are on track.

5th Shoot Day - 2nd House shoot

Today we tried to shoot all the footage for the rest of the scenes in the house to complete our filming and get on with the post production of our film. This was once again quite a lengthy shoot as we had around 3 scenes to film, including some pick up shots we wanted to get from the second shoot we did where we filmed a few shots at my house that now wouldn't work with the rest of the film. The shots we would be filming today would cover these scenes in the script:

 INT. JOHN'S HOUSE. DAY.

          John, looking drained and confused is sat hunched on a sofa.
          The doors knocks and he answers.

          John opens the door but finds no one on the other side. In
          the background the stranger from before can be seen
          wandering past wearing the same red coat as John before.

          Confused, John looks around and notices a box on the
          doorstep. Cautiously he picks it up and carries it inside.
          He places it down in the living room and opens it, inside he
          finds another business card that reads: Sometimes Scares
          Aren't Meant To Fade. As well as a record.

          He places the record on a player and touches the needle down
          carefully. Elgar's Enigma Variations begins to play and
          visibly calmed by the music John slumps into the sofa again.

          Suddenly John seizes up and bolts upright. His breathing
          intensifies as he closes his eyes 

INT. JOHN'S HOUSE. MORNING.

          John is sat hunched over on the sofa, his eyes red and puffy
          from crying. The sound of the postman pushing mail through
          the letterbox shreaks through the silence of the house.

          Wearily, John stands up and trudges to the door to fetch
          them. He re-enters the room sifting through the pointless
          letters and bills, until he gets to a mysterious
          advertisement leaflet.

          In big green letters on the front it reads NAME OF COMPANY

          Underneath in slightly smaller font, there is a paragraph
          reading: Grief Management. To Help The Pain Go Away.

          In the bottom right hand corner there is an address.

          As John leaves he drops the leaflet, it falls face down
          revealing that the company wipes its customers' memories. 

We arrived at my house around 3 ish to set up early prior to Bobby arriving at 4:30, so we could figure out what compositions would look best where, as well as what, if any, lighting set ups we might need. On this shoot I did the same as normal by helping out with the lighting and set up of the room, give my opinions on the compositions as well as giving a hand with the sound if anyone needed it.

Setting up shots and directing actors.

Setting up lights when necessary.

Actor in location.

Set up of crew during takes.

The shoot today went very well with the shots we managed to collect, however, we noticed some continuity errors that would be a problem in the final film from other shoots so we decided to do one final pick up shoot this week that would hopefully be the final time we needed to film anything so we could focus entirely on the post production of our film.

4th Shoot Day - Grief Management Clinic Scene

Today we completed the last shoot day of the week at the Sheffield Physiotherapy Clinic on Ecclesall Road for the final half of the script. This shoot was going to be an all day job as we had a very large portion of the script to cover, so we got to the clinic at 9 in the morning and scheduled till 5 to guarantee we would be able to get all we needed. The problem we had initially was that we would have different actors turning up at different times, so we would have to film around their availability which once again meant that we wouldn't be able to film the whole scene in chronological order. When we got there we had 1 hour to set up and decide what shots we would do first so we could start thinking of where to set up lights and have actors.

Setting up lighting prior to shoot.

Setting up camera angles prior to shoot.

When the actors got there, we instantly started to get on with the shots, with me helping with setting up lighting as usual, as well as giving my opinion on the compositions Matt set up, one thing that bogged us down to start with though was the space in which we had to film in, in our floor plans we had anticipated the room to be bigger, with more space behind the desk. This made setting up some over the shoulder shots of the receptionist difficult and took up more time than we wanted. Also we didn't anticipate the amount of retakes we may have to do for the actors to get used to the script and deliver their lines right.
In today's shoot, we got a lot of footage that we wanted and the majority of it looks good, however, reviewing some of it throughout the day, we realised that some shots needed doing again to keep with the continuity of the rest of them so we started re-shooting throughout the day

Chris directing actors on location.

Checking compositions.

Checking compositions

Helping other members of the group out when they needed it.

In today's shoot, we got a lot of footage that we wanted and the majority of it looks good, however, reviewing some of it throughout the day, we realised that some shots needed doing again to keep with the continuity of the rest of them so we started re-shooting when we found the time in the day.

3rd Shoot Day - Car and House Scene's

Today was a going to be one of our more busy shoots as we had to get from one location to another and film two different scenes. We started by shooting inside a car for one of the flashback scenes which proved to be problematic in terms of space and constricted camera angles so we took more time than we anticipated getting those shots done. However, when we got the angles right, we managed to achieve some good shots that will pull together in a nice sequence.

Still from the Car shoot.

Another still from the car shoot.

After filming this scene, we got a taxi to the next location which was at my house where we began by setting up as quickly as possible to film one of the scenes around the house.

  INT. JOHN'S HOUSE. DAY.

          John, looking drained and confused is sat hunched on a sofa.
          The doors knocks and he answers.

          John opens the door but finds no one on the other side. In
          the background the stranger from before can be seen
          wandering past wearing the same red coat as John before.

          Confused, John looks around and notices a box on the
          doorstep. Cautiously he picks it up and carries it inside.
          He places it down in the living room and opens it, inside he
          finds another business card that reads: Sometimes Scares
          Aren't Meant To Fade. As well as a record.

          He places the record on a player and touches the needle down
          carefully. Elgar's Enigma Variations begins to play and
          visibly calmed by the music John slumps into the sofa again.

          Suddenly John seizes up and bolts upright. His breathing
          intensifies as he closes his eyes

                                                    FLASHBACK TO:

          INT. JOHN’S CAR. DAY.

          The same flashback as before unfolds, only this time the
          image is much more clear and his daughter's face is in full
          focus.

          BACK TO PRESENT

          Blinking wildly as if coming back from a terrible dream, the
          colour drains from John's face. He thrashes around the room,
          hands clasping his head, in unnatural motions. He seizes up
          once more

This shoot was a lot more rushed as we were losing light quickly so we decided to film the outside scene first where the main character John first finds the house. After we filmed these we started filming the outside parts of the scene when he finds the record player after answering the door. Doing the filming in this order confused us slightly as we weren't sticking to the shot list we wanted to work from, so this meant setting up shots, deciding what shots to do next and if we needed any linking shots between clips took a big effect on our time management, and before we knew it the light had dropped significantly and we had to call the shoot early to save continuity.
Here are some production stills from the shoot.

Filming outside the house.

Helping setting up lighting to counteract daylight being lost.

Setting up lighting to produce least glare.

Moving lighting for each shot's desired effect.

Near the end of the shoot we started to use the Kino to try and produce decent, natural looking light to keep it as consistent as with the shots from earlier, however I believe when editing them, there will be a very noticeable difference, visually, with these shots and the other shots in the film and I have suggested a potential re-shoot to Chris our director that we may have to do next week.

2nd Shoot Day - Cemetery Avenue Sequence

Today we were filming on Cemetery Avenue, just off Ecclesall Road, from 4:30-7~ to get the sequence shot for the beginning scene in the film:

EXT. UNKNOWN STREET. DAY.

          JOHN, mid 40's, wears an incongruous red rain coat as he
          stumbles his way, dazed and confused, down a suburban
          street.

          A STRANGER, early 20’s and visibly distraught bumps into
          JOHN as he hastily walks past in the opposite direction.

          As they collide, the stranger holds an unusually prolonged
          glance, locking his empty eyes onto John's, until finally
          turning back in the direction he is walking.

          Following the stranger with his stare, John pauses, as the
          man trudges into the distance.

          Placing his hands in his pockets, John turns and continues
          on his path, stopping immediately pulling his hands back
          out.

          He stares puzzled down at the object in his hand. A business
          card reading: We Hope Your Scars Have Faded.

          John mouths the words.

          He flips the card and finds an address on the reverse side.
          Looking around him, as if searching for the answers in his
          surroundings, he checks his other pocket he finds a key.

The weather was a bit dreary and dull which meant our cinematographer Matt had to use a higher ISO than we would have liked, but the clouds made the lighting consistent as well as adding to the mood of confusion and seriousness that the dull lighting gave to the surroundings. Here are some production stills that were taken during the shoot.

Set up for Cemetery Avenue shoot.

Tracking shot.

Helping setting up dolly and track.

As I am the editor on this project, I didn't have a specific practical role when filming on set, so I helped out where I could by checking compositions, helping set up the tripod and dolly tracks as well as helping watch over the equipment and talking to our actors. All in all the shoot went well, although there were a few errors along the way, and the shots we have got look good. The main actor, Bobby, was very good at showing the dazed and confused look that we wanted to achieve from the scene so we have high hopes for the quality of performance in the rest of the film.

1st Shoot day - Morgue Flashback Sequence

Today was our first day of filming, unfortunately Monday's shoot had to be cancelled due to issues with props and set up so we have to try and see if we can film all the house scenes on Friday and if not, schedule another pick up shoot the following week. We filmed in Sheffield Hallam's Hub's, the same location we filmed the 2 minute character study in, to get the shots for one of the flashback sequences in the film of the morgue where the main character, John, remembers why he is having these visions of a small girl that is his daughter, and that she is dead. This is quite an important scene within the film as it lets the audience know why John wants his memory wiped so we had to make sure it was obvious, but still slightly ambiguous, that this was his daughter. However, due to the availability of the actors, we couldn't get the young girl to come so I had to stand in as a body double. This made the shot list we wanted to work from become almost unusable as we had to frame each shot now without making it obvious that it isn't his daughter and actually a 19 year old male.

Me standing in for unavailable actor.

Lighting and camera set up

Sound recorder and set up.

Even with the issues we faced, the footage we got from this shoot looks very strong and will edit together really nicely and hopefully contribute into making a clear narrative.