Post Production: Part 2

Post Production: Part 2

Over the second half of the post production editing process we aimed to add a soundtrack, sound effects, titles and fine tune the colouring of the sequence as well as fine tuning any errors in the sequence and it's presentation. These later few days of editing were definitely a big step up from the first few days as well as adding all these different features was significantly more challenging as they hard to fit perfectly.

Firstly, we decided for the soundtrack to use piece of music one of Bach's string compositions. We decided on this because it is something classical and relatively peaceful which the man enjoys listening to whilst committing the unthinkable poisoning to his sister, it shows the juxtaposition between the two and also how nonchalant he is about killing her. Underneath the music i layered a vinyl crackle to add texture and realism to the soundtrack which also implies
the soundtrack is diegetic. 

I then synced the timing of the crackle and Bach's track to when the man starts to play the vinyl. Towards the end however this really awesome soundtrack did not have as much effect towards the end of the sequence as there was not enough dynamism throughout. In order to increase the impact at the end of the sequence I added an evil soundscape when the man opens to door to reveal the woman and added some sub bass booms periodically; this really helped but I knew it could be even better so we all actually decided to completely cut Bach's track out after the fizzing shot and  place each boom on the each new cut which sounded incredibly creepy and nerve wracking when we watched it back. 

Next we added titles to the sequence, this began by making a list of all the titles we needed to include and then adding our names to our respective titles (lila - Director, Meadow - DOP, Matthew - Editor) as well as making numerous fake names for the rest of the tiles apart from Ezra and Suzanne our actors. We then chose a font and went back and forth on it for a while but eventually settled on one which looked beautiful yet refined and structured. One thing that we struggled with was deciding where and when the titles should be placed as we were not sure if some shots should be cleared of titles or if we should put them in
the corner or feature them front and centre in the shot. However since our opening
sequence does have a focus on titles over narrative we decided to place them according to the composition of the shot, for example if the shot was asymmetrical and contained lots of imagery on one side than the tittle would be placed on the other side or if the shot was symmetrical then maybe a middle position would be more fitting etc. In addition we learned a very useful skill to determine how long each title should stay on the screen for, the rule was that you should be able to say the given tittle three times in succession before it would disappear.

When editing the sound of the opening sequence that was recorded by the microphone as well as a separate internal mic built into the camera we had to unlink the audio channels from the video recording they were attached to and then cut the audio channel that had the muffled low quality camera mic recording and then duplicate the good audio so it could be heard from stereo channels left and right.

Lastly we added cinematic bars to the sequence as it was shot in widescreen, in really gave it a cinematic feel in its presentation and made it look so professional.

Overall I am so happy with how the opening tittle sequence has turned out, i must say i am especially happy with how great the shots themselves look which is down to the way we filmed them and the time we took when filming them, like i said previously we choose quality over quantity. My favourite shot is the one of the man holding up the fizzing poison liquid to his eyeline and then putting it down, turning round and opening the door to reveal the woman with a funnel strapped in her mouth; it's just great how the light radiates in the room contrasted to the the dark dingy room the woman is inside of. If I were to have done anything differently I would have maybe hidden the man's identity more the shots by putting his face out of focus or having just extreme closeups of him but still i am pleased with the shots we have of him.