Jaws (1971)

You're gonna need a bigger boat scene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I91DJZKRxs

I thought this scene was interesting from an editing point of view because of how music is used to build tension.

Often in this scene they cut to character reaction and then show the characters perceptive on what they are seeing. I thought that this was an interesting order of building tension because we at first we know there is something happening but the viewer is left in suspense until the next show which is their perspective.

Again we can see how this has been used frequently in this scene. I find that it is good at building suspense. The slow cuts that have been used in this scene also allow for tension to be built. Each cut is around 10 seconds or longer which would not be used in a scene where there is fast paced action.

Transformers 2 (2009)

Transformers 2 (2009)

The majority of popular Hollywood films have very similar colour grading, and this is an example of that kind of colour grading. People appear very orange but everything else such as clothing and hair appear dark blue and almost green.

As we can see here parts of this image are orange and dark blue/green.

As we can see in this image the actors clothing has been chosen very carefully to fit in with this colour grading theme, the colours of the clothing contrast nicely with the actors skin tones.

Why this has been done can be explained by using Adobe Kuler. This is an application which uses different colour theories to find colours which mix together. As we can see from this image, when looking at complementary colours that go with human skin colour we see that blues blend in.

O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)

O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0190590/

This was one first films to use digital colour correction and when you see images from the film you can see the visual artistic style which digital colour correction has helped to achieved.

The images are very sepia and yellow coloured, and they help to bring out the actors from the background. I found this to be interesting because it shows the importance of colour grading and how colour grading can achieve an artistic style, and how it can bring out your actors from the background creating more attention to them. By looking at this it made me realize how colour can be used to show a particular theme or emotion.

I find that the colours in these images are very monochromatic, but they fit very well together and when watching the full film it looks like the film flows together nicely in terms of colour correction.

Here are some colours which I found to be similar to the ones in O Brother, Where Art Thou? and here we can see how they work with Monochromatic colour theory in Adobe Kuler.

After Effects

In Post Production tutorial we have been looking at creating an imagine which looks animated in After Effects, some examples of this kind of image can be seen below.

3D Animated Photos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rl3IbS9k8PQ

To start this project, we were given 2 files.

Some things to note about these two images, certain objects need to be cut out of both images. Each of these images are different colours, So colour grading will be needed to make them match up. And lastly each of these images are not at the same size as the Mars plate is at 2500x1406 and the Gravity plate is 2684x1200. Each of these images will fit into 1920x1080 space however.

The first steps were to cut out the Earth from the Gravity Plate. To do this, we used Polygonal lasso tool. This tool cuts objects out with a straight line instead of a freehand curve which can't always cut things out accurately.

Once George had been cut out of the Gravity plate, we also had to remove the spaceship from the Mars plate. To do this, i used the clone stamp tool. This tool can replace textures in images in an intelligent way.

The next part of this process was to add some small red shading to certain areas of the George cut out. Some parts were very dark blue and it may be difficult to change this with colour grading in After Effects, so we painted over on a layer with low opacity and the screen blending mode. The screen blending mode created a transparent layer of colour over the darker parts of the image, I was trying to cover the dark blues.

Another issue with the George image was his visor had clouds over it, so this had to be corrected with a layer mask. I used the eraser tool to get rid of some of the clouds, but I wanted to keep the edge of his mask so that it was still visible.

Next both of these images were added together into one Photoshop document so they could be imported to After Effects.

Once this was done, the two images could be put into After Effects. We created a new composition that was 1920x1080 and imported our Photoshop files. The two images were larger than this size. We colour graded the George image so that he was no longer blue, but he was a darker red so it looks like the light coming from Mars was reflecting on him.

For the animation, we had to link layers together so that when camera key frames were added in each image would move at the same time. If I didn't link the images, it may not look right. To create the illusion of distance between the two images the Mars plate had to be moved back so that it looked like it was in the distance away from George, and when the layers were animated it gave the illusion of movement.

Sound in films

Today in lecture sound in films was discussed, and learning about sound in films really helped to highlight it's importance.

We were shown clips from films without sound and a clip where sound hasn't been used correctly, just to show us how it can take the audience out of the scene.

Toy Story Foley
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVUgsMRvOeI&ab_channel=napes2000

We were shown this video and although it is old now it is still interesting to watch and see how they created sound effects for this film. This video also goes into detail on how many individual sound effects would have to be used to even create a simple sequence of video. In tutorial we were given the footage from Toy Story with no sound effects, and we could either add our own recorded sounds or try to sync sounds that we had downloaded from the internet. I found this exercise was useful but it was very difficult to create my own sounds that could be synced up to the footage.

Watching this video gave me ideas for what I could create for my own films, in a few weeks from now we will be filming our film for our end of year project in pre production and post production,

'Gravity' continuous shot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKW-Gd_S_xc

For example in this scene the only sound we can hear is voices through the radio and music, so in this scene it is more scientifically accurate but if we could only hear voices it would be difficult to create an atmosphere where the viewer can hear emotion as the viewer will hear a lot of emotion and tone of the scene through the music.

Audio mixing research

Here are some links I found to help me research into audio levels in Avid and video editing.

I have read through these links as part of my research into post production. I found these links to be helpful because they provide information on audio, which is one of the most important parts of film making and editing. Audio can play a huge part in telling narrative.

Avid.com link
https://www.avid.com/US/avid-tv/MC5AdjustingAudioLevelsandPan

I found that this link has been the most useful to me. It covers audio basics, which is very important for me as I am still learning a lot about how audio works within Avid.

steves-digicams link
http://www.steves-digicams.com/knowledge-center/how-tos/photo-software/tips-for-audio-level-adjustment-in-avid.html#b

From this link I learnt tips for using the audio mixer in Avid which can be very complicated.

dvc.uk.com link
http://www.dvc.uk.com/acatalog/avid_audio.html

This link again describes how to use the audio mixer in Avid.

Tea videos

For this work, we had to create short videos for our Production Technology module. These videos each had to show a process from A to B but the editing is what played the biggest part in these videos.

Link to first video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeMHnu4dVjQ

We had filmed this and editied it originally and the video was too long, but we reedited for our submission with a faster edit and the video worked a lot better. There are many different parts in this video which could last too long, for example pouring water is one kind of shot which can last too long and shots that last too long will lose the viewers interest.

This video does have continuity errors so it was difficult to edit because an edit cannot always correct a continuity error. For example at 0:30 the person places his hands onto the kitchen counter, but in the next shot his hands are opening the drawer and this does not make the continuity work.

Link to second video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOAi0QEgVkU

I think one issue with this video is that there was not much good pacing, and shots lasted too long. Composition wise I think parts of it were decent but it just really lacked in the pacing. If I had considered how I'd make pacing more in the production side I would have had better footage to edit, as I wouldn't need to cut through shots and cut time down. For example at 0:18 this shot lasted too long, it could have been cut down but I did not want to cut in the middle of any shots. If this shot had not been so long it would be more entertaining.

Link to third video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=795DX-uE5kA

The difference with this video was that I had experimented with sound and syncing my own sound effects that I had recorded, in editing I found that it was easy to sync up my own sound effects. The only issue I found was that it can be difficult to maintain consistent audio levels and I don't know that much about audio levels, so I need to research into this. From doing this I have learnt that sound effects are an interesting part of editing and I should continue to use my own sound effects in the future.