JARLINC's Final Cut

        Our film 'Shadowed' is completed! It's safe to say that the constant improvments have paid off, and I am content with the final product. I have embedded it below so you now have the chance to easily view it. Enjoy!

JARLINC's 'Shadowed' film opening

JARLINC's Rough Cut and Feedback

SHADOWED: Our Rough Cut

Rough Cut Feedback (Ages 15-17)

What Went Well:

1. Soundtrack has a good effect on the film
2. Storyline is good and clear
3. The scene where the Antagonist steps out from the shadows had a good effect
4. Light switch noise adds a little something to him turning on the light and the shadow not being there anymore.

What Could Be Improved:

1. 0.12: nobody behind door, then Alex appears guarding the door from other side in next shot
2. 0.15: Crew in shot
3. 0.20: Crew in shot
4. The actor in the window appears to fade away; this appeared strange
5. Crew in the window distracts attention/ can't really see the person in the window very well
6. Editing is too slow. If Alex has just run away from somebody, we need to have fast passed editing until the point where he locks the door, then he presumably thinks he is safe. At the moment it is too slow and flowing.
7. SFX needed for actor appearing in window to sign post for direction
8. 0.25: Alex looks directly at the camera (almost waiting for direction)
9. 0.42: POV is confusing and not needed
10. Use different box because the 'Location Recording Kit' is clearly visible. 
11. Instead of paper, people normally wrap guns in cloth or towel
12. 0.59: Cut first shot earlier; it takes too long to find the item
13. 1.10: The noise sounds like Alex has fired the gun, maybe make the SFX a crash of glass or something more obvious
14. 1.37: Shot too long, camera passes the coat; maybe cut it out into separate cuts.
15. 1.47: Pan cuts too early; don't see the corridor to see that there isn't anything there
16. Gun SFX needs to be changed to something realistic
17. Titles IDEA = title appears then the shadow slowly fades in behind it. (Link to story line)
18. Continuity Error with Alex's arm
19. Linger on the smirk to create tension
20. The ghost sound sounds like a whale/Jurassic park dinosaur.

Rough Cut Feedback (Ages 18-25)

What Went Well:

     5.  The film is pretty cool

     6.  Loved the soundtrack; adds good effect.

What Could Be Improved:

   21.  At the hedge scene in the POV you can't see the Protagonist go into the science block and then in the next scene he is already in the corridor with door shut.

Analysis of Feedback

1. The improvements suggest redoing this shot because Connor appears on the other side of the door without being seen by Seth's POV. However, as you can see in the picture immediately below, you can see Connor's arm. This is not clear enough, and so we went out and reshot the scene. You can see the improvement in the picture underneath the picture below.

Before

After

2, 3 and 5. We had a grave mistake here. We were already aware of the mistakes (reflection in the glass) and were going to fix it before we presented it to the class. We went off and reshot the scene, which was a success. We changed the camera angle to move the reflection away, which eliminated the problem. This also made the shot more interesting because the ground-level shot shows the power of the two characters.

Before

After

4. We were recommended to change the fade of Seth in the window because it is confusing. However, we wanted this because it was to make the viewers think he may or may not actually be real, hence the name 'Shadowed'. We changed it anyway because we thought if the viewers don't really understand, then the others won't if we get a wide distribution. We decided to play it safe, and the finished product was still as effective.

6. We decided to reshoot the beginning to make it faster and more obvious that he's running from something. We originally tried to get his feet in shot and nothing else, to show that he is running away. We carried this idea forward and underneath you can see the results.

Before

After

 7. We took this improvement on board instantly. It gave us another reason to mess with the soundtrack, which we enjoyed. We looked for sounds and found a perfect one, which ended up being a pair of them overlapping to create a tense effect.

8. We addressed this by reshooting the scene where Alex looks directly at the camera. By doing this, we eliminated the risk of the problem reoccurring, and also when we filmed it, we paid extra close attention to make sure he didn't look at the camera, and we informed him of the mistake.

Alex looking at the camera

9. Here, we were advised to move or get rid of the point of view shot from Connor's eyes. We decided against this, however, because we thought it created a great effect and we wanted to have a point of view from both characters at some point in the opening.

10. A suggested improvement was to change the box for something else. But, we again decided against it because the idea of the box was to hide the fact there was a gun inside, so we kept it as 'random' as possible; to make sure nobody would suspect a revolver...

11. We were suggested to hide the gun within a cloth or towel-like item. We went against this because we figured it wouldn't have as great an effect as just finding it amongst the paper.

12. We went along with this suggestion because we agreed it was too long in the first place. We deleted the middle shot (we had three, now we have two) and re-edited it to fit. Without much extra trouble, it fit together better than before and looked more realistic.

13. We have changed this sound effect to a glass smash and a door closing. We went along with it because the sound we did change it to was much more effective, and a more interesting sound.

14. We tried cutting the middle away, but it just looked like it jumped. This was worse than previously, but we knew more could be done. We decided to speed up the middle of the shot (as the camera passes over the jacket) to decrease the length, but to stop it from jumping.

15. We couldn't edit this cut. This is because we had a member of the crew standing at the bottom of the corridor on 'light duty', to make sure the lighting of the setting was good. This is why we cut early, and it also increased editing speed as the climax approached.

16. We heeded this piece of advice, and found a new handgun sound from freesfx.com.

17. We were concerned about our title sequence to begin with, so we altered them. We are pleased with the overall results as we have had positive feedback since.

18. Here, you can see Alex's arm if you look closely. But, we did take it into consideration and did reshoot the scene. Below are the before and after pictures.

19. We took this advice into consideration and slowed down the shot of Seth's grin.

20. We decided against this, and kept the sound in. However, we have clipped and cut it around, making it more of a background than a foreground sound effect; reducing focus and improving the effect.

Evidence of Ident Construction

        For my production company's ident, we used a program on the iMacs called After Effects. We selected one of the preset behaviours (templates) and quickly edited it. We wanted a dragon to be involved with the ident, if you can remember from the ident post I did previously, and that's what we ended up with.

A screenshot of our ident construction

Below here I will embed a short clip showing our completed film ident.

Evidence of Editing

Introduction
        The editing process was a long one. We saved, undid, redid and overwrote things more times than I remember, but, in the end, it was a success. Underneath I will talk about each section of editing below.
        The sound editing was tedious because every time we changed something's length in Final Cut - even if it's a 5% speed change - then the entire soundtrack will have to be shifted over, which can lead to synchronisation problems, which can take a long time to right.

Evidence of Editing in Final Cut

I will first talk about the editing process using Final Cut

Screenshot of Video Editing 1 

Screenshot of Video Editing 2

Speed Changes

        Speeding up different shots was interesting. We'd change something's speed and it would look wrong, then, just by changing it by no more than 10%, it looks right. We spend countless hours editing the film's effects to create our 

Brightness Changes

        The same idea applies to the brightness editing. We'd change a brightness level, too high and it appears fuzzy and unnatural, but too dark and nothing can be seen. Then, by changing it by a fraction, we can make it look natural again.

Greyscale

        The greyscale editing was quick and simple. All we had to do was drag a saturation effect over each shot, and it was done. Around halfway through, however, we found that just selecting a number of shots and dragging the effect over was much easier, and so it took no more than five or ten minutes. We did the effect because it brought out the 'creepiness' in our film, and created a really tense atmosphere.

Us Using the Desaturate Effect

The Desaturate Effect

Evidence of Editing in SoundTrack Pro

I will now talk about the editing process using SoundTrack Pro

Screenshot of Sound Editing 1

Screenshot of Sound Editing 2

Sound Effect Editing

        The sound editing was great, issues aside. The sound effects were changed over and over again, as we looked for more suiting, dripping and realistic sounds. Things like the ending gunshot and the glass smashing sound during the 'box scene' were changed multiple times. The gunshot wasn't realistic enough in our rough cut, and the glass smashing sound was an improvement suggestion, and we put in more than one sound to make this sound much more thrilling.

Soundtrack Editing

        We completed our original soundtrack after a long period of editing, and the background sounds were found after a long time searching. We took a huge gamble by changing the entire soundtrack for out final cut, and it worried us a little. The feedback for our old soundtrack was positive, yet we wanted more. We were looking around for more sounds, and found some great ones. We inserted these and muted the old ones, and loved them. This was the beginning of a new soundtrack, which proved to be greater than the last. The soundtrack in our film created the atmosphere, and the tension-building we created was pleasing.