intoVIEW: Finished Film

Below is a link to the completed version of intoVIEW.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4a8gOgtA-zY

Very Final Edit: 30th April 2012

Having watched my initial export through at home I decided that despite being happy with it I would like to make a few more small changes. In the initial interview sequence between Mike and Lewis, there is a section where I have both of their shadows on screen with dialogue alternating between different characters and roles. Although I liked this sequence, I felt that the visual imagery went on a bit too long. For my film Scopo Networking, I used lots of split screens and I felt that I could experiment with using this technique to make that part of the interview a bit more interesting. As the dialogue for this section was a question with a yes or no answer I thought I could synchronise Mike's yes or no answer with Lewis's face and vice versa. This was quite a difficult process as the pace of each interview is different - the one where Lewis is acting as the Support Worker and Mike as the homeless man is much slower in pace than the one where Mike is acting as the Support Worker. I had to overlap some of the sounds and get the timings just right so everything was synchronised.

Below are some screen grabs from this revised edit.


This is Lewis with Mike's shadow - here Lewis answers the question on screen but we hear Mike's voice.

This is Mike with Lewis's shadow - here Mike answers the question on screen but we hear Lewis's voice.

This is both Mike and Lewis with both shadows - here both characters answer in their own voices.

I watched back through the film and am now very happy with the result. I am now exporting the final copy.

Sound Edit: 23rd April - 29th April 2012

I set this week aside for my sound edit and met with Patrycja for some advice.

Echo

The opening interview sequence between Mike and Lewis is very echoy in places. Rod voiced his concerns about the sound when being played on the cinema projection screen at our Sideways Looks exhibition, he felt that the echo may mean that the audience are unable to pick up certain parts of the dialogue. Patrycja and I tried exporting the sound and editing it using audacity. We took a clip of ambient sound in which the echo is not present and then used this to reduce the additional echo noise using the noise reduction tool. Although this eliminated the echo, we were unable to get a balance that sounded naturalistic. Following several failed attempts we looked at some tutorials to see if there were any tools on Final Cut Pro but none of these worked very well either. I didn't want to eliminate the echo completely as I feel that it adds to the intensity of the scene making the two characters seem very alone, Patrycja agreed. We tried adding echo to the second interview to try and make it more similar but again I quite liked the contrast in atmosphere between the two scenes. Patrycja told me that she was sure the echo wouldn't make the vocals hard to understand in the exhibition set up so I have decided to keep that element of the sound as it is. 

Levels

I spent a lot of time going through the clips and making sure that the volume level remains the same across all of the clips. Some clips were really loud in contrast to others so I had to reduce the levels quite drastically in some places. I have managed to even everything out and am happy with this.

Mono/Stereo

I had already begun converting some of the clips from mono to stereo which was quite a time consuming task. This week I finished this and now all of my clips are in stereo.

Audio Transitions

Patrycja showed me how to use the audio cross dissolve transition on Final Cut Pro so the sound from each clip carries across smoothly between. This worked well in some places where I had to quite quickly cut the clips as to avoid the characters talking over each other. It also made the cuts in the second interview between Mike and my mum much smoother.

Ambient Sounds

Patrycja suggested adding some ambient sound and having this running continually throughout the first interview. As there is a lot of echo, some of the sudden breaks in sound cause a split second of silence. The ambient sound made this a lot smoother and kept the sound continuous. 

General Feedback from Patrycja

Having watched my video through in full, Patrycja was able to give me some feedback. She asked if the initial scene was a flashback and I agreed that in a sense the use of some of the initial interview clips   in the second interview aim to draw the audience's memories back to the first interview. The characters roles are never defined and in the same sense neither is the timescale. 

I have exported an initial copy of my film as I feel that I need to look at it in my own time away from the editing suite. I also wanted to show my actors a copy to get some of their feedback.

This is the link to my initial export:

http://vimeo.com/40971590

Editing Week 5: 16th - 22nd April 2012

This week I worked towards completing my fine edit. I re-watched the film, making sure all the cuts are clear and in the right place so there were no overlaps in sound.

Second Interview: Support Worker & Estate Agent


I was already happy with my first interview so focused this week on editing the second interview to a standard I was happy with. I had a much more limited selection of footage for this interview which made things slightly more difficult. I decided to use clips from the first interview sequence throughout this part to make the link between the questions being asked more crudely obvious. Initially Lewis's character is happy to divulge his personal information, such as previous address and national insurance number, compared to the first interview where he refuses to answer any of these questions. I wanted to get a comparison between his responses so this is why I used the previous footage here.

Next Week


I have managed to finish my fine edit and have got the visual side of the film up to a standard I am happy with. My film is now 8 minutes 30 in total which I think is an appropriate length - if it went on any longer, the continual switching in roles may loose the audience's attention. Next week I will complete my sound edit. I have asked Patrycja for a tutorial to get her advice on how best to approach the sound. I will also show her my completed visual edit and get her feedback on this too.

Tutorial with Cluna: Tuesday 17th April 2012

I had a brief tutorial with Cluna today. I asked her for her feedback on my project. Cluna told me that she wasn't too sure whether she understood my film and was therefore unable to be too constructive with her feedback. This was initially rather disheartening, however it forced me to think objectively about my film.

Neither Lewis or Mike's roles are ever clearly defined. I selected Mike's scruffy, layered costume following inspiration from my own experiences and the photographs shown in an early blog entry. I uploaded two sets of photos, one set that I collected following my time volunteering at St Petrock's day centre in Exeter which are images of the service users that visit the centre, the other set are images I found on google so are much more stereotypical. Although there are certain elements of Mike's costume that are stereotypical, like the fingerless gloves for example, the majority of the attire was constructed from my own experience and knowing that homeless people are forced to wear items of clothing that they have collected from services such as day centres that have donated by other people meaning they are often quite ill fitting and old. Homeless people by default are forced to spend a lot of time outdoors, walking around public spaces with very little shelter from the elements, this means they often wear clothing that will be appropriate for drops in temperature or rainfall, hence the layers being warn by Mike's character. I have also included clips where Mike is answering the homeless questionnaire as a homeless person, his answers here are very stereotypical, for example he admits to having been sleeping rough for a long period of time and to using heroin. By setting up the stereotype of a homeless man within his character it confuses the audience when he switches roles and becomes the support worker, which happens continually throughout the first interview sequence. The overall effect I hope to achieve through this is to force the audience to question why they were initially so certain that his character was homeless and that Lewis's character wasn't, I also want them to question why they don't think Lewis's character isn't homeless. Despite his outfit being less scruffy, he isn't in a suite or dressed in a manner that gives him visual social authority yet initially it is believed that he isn't homeless. 

I have prepared myself for the fact that the audience may not all understand the story being told, the social status of Lewis's character is never defined, and neither is that of Mike's. The constant switching of roles makes the narrative quite complex, however, my main hope is that the audience will leave still questioning the stereotypes and social roles of each character. If this happens, then my film has been successful.

Editing Week 4: 9th April - 15th April 2012

This week I had my final tutorial with Rod which was really useful and made me feel confident about my progress and the development of my project.

Sound


I began doing a bit of work with the sound. Some of the files were in mono format rather than stereo, this was a problem I had with my film Scopo Networking last term. Luckily I remembered how to fix it. I unpaired the two sound clips at the bottom and deleted the one with the minimal, quieter sounds. I then copied the other clip and pasted it back onto the time line, moving it back into position before repairing the two clips. I also began adjusting the levels because at the moment some of the clips are extremely loud in comparison to others.

I need to work on reducing the echo in the initial interview sequence between Mike and Lewis as at the moment it dominates the vocals making some words hard to distinguish. I am going to work on this once I've completed my fine edit.

Fine Edit


I began working on my final edit this week following the completion of the rough edit. I have really been looking forward to this part of the production process as this is where I can be a bit more creative with the visual aspect of my film. So far I have included some split screen shots as shown in my previous blog entry. I have also started switching the roles of the characters so in some clips Mike is behaving in a very stereotypically homeless way - answering questions talking about a history of homelessness and a heroin addiction, behaviours we have come to expect from a homeless individual, in other clips he is acting as a support worker, asking Lewis's character the questions from the night shelter admittance form. The shadows I captured are working very well and I have been able to crop the physical character out of the image leaving just the shadows - again as shown in my previous blog entry. I have also started experimenting with mixing up sound clips from different clips so cutting between Lewis and Mike asking and answering questions. This works quite well with the shadow split screen clip as you can't tell that the clips are out of sync with the original footage.

I have had to step back a bit from my editing this week in order to get on top of other deadlines so haven't made that much progress. I am aiming to have finished my fine edit by next week so I have a full week to work on the adjustment and quality of my sounds.

Final Tutorial: 12th April 2012

Final Tutorial

Today I had my final tutorial before I finish editing my film. I have begun mixing up the roles of the Support Worker and Homeless Man in my initial interview scene so was quite keen to get some feedback on this. 

Split Screens

I have included some overlapping clips one set in which the screen is split horizontally with an extreme close up of the Support Worker's eyes on top, and Homeless Man's eyes on the bottom of the screen, and one in which the screen is split vertically with the Homeless Man's shadow on the left and the Support Worker's shadow on the left of the screen. For each of these clips I cropped the images and used the edge feather tool to further emphasise the divide between the two images on screen. The edge feather tool created a slight black border around the outside of the screen as well is separating the two images which Rod suggested made the whole clip stand out from the overall feel and style of the rest of the film. 

 This is a screen grab of the shadow clip with the edge feathering.

This is a screen grab of the eye clip with the edge feathering.

I really liked having the divide in the middle of the two clips as I felt that this created a distinction between the two and neatened up the divide in shots, Rod agreed but felt I needed to experiment with different techniques aside from edge feathering in order to create this middle divide and prevent a blackened boarder around the outside. For my last film, I used a slug behind the clips as a way of keeping a black background if I re sized the clips to neatly fit the screen. I decided to put a slug on top of the two clips and then crop it down to a small strip, I then used the edge feather tool on the slug soften the box. This however then made the slug smaller at the top and bottom so I had to increase the size using the scale tool. The results are shown below and look much better than before.

This is a screen grab of the shadow clip with the slug layered on top.

This is a screen grab of the eye clip with the slug layered on top.

Cross Dissolves

I have also included some long dissolves between clips to show both of my actors almost merging into one. I wasn't too sure about this and Rod agreed saying that it differed from the overall aesthetics of the rest of my film as I am not using transitions elsewhere. I have decided to remove these entirely which is quite a good result as it means that there will be less time rendering! I am going to carry on experimenting with different ways of showing the merging of roles between the two characters.

Interview Audio Mix Up

Towards the end of the first interview scene, I have used an extended clip of the shadow split screen (showed in the above screen grab) and have begun mixing up the interview questions and responses. Although you can just about make out when each character is talking in the shadow clip, you can't lip read so the audio sync being slightly out doesn't really matter. I have mixed up the interview so first the Homeless Man will ask a question (in the role of Support Worker) to which the Support Worker will answer from the position of the Homeless Man, then the roles will switch. The switch over happens three times during this clip as there are quite a few questions with yes or no answers. Rod felt that some of the audio was unclear as the responses are often only one word answers. There is also a real distinction between the audio I'm using for the Homeless Man's response (in which he IS playing a Homeless Man) and the Support Worker's responses this is because the audio for the homeless man comes from a shot in which Mike is facing the camera and I am directing the mic at him face on, whereas the audio for the Support Worker comes from an establishing shot in which the mic is directed at both actors rather than Lewis. I am going to take some audio from a shot I have of Lewis that is framed and recorded in the same way as the shot of Mike. This should cancel out the real distinction between shots. 

Overall the feedback was really positive, leaving me feeling confident about my progress and the coming deadline for submission. I am hoping to have finished my visual edit by the end of the weekend, leaving me plenty of time to work on my audio which I am beginning to think will be quite a complicated task as I need to adjust the volume and levels on each clip and reduce the echo.