Week 1 Edit

This has been a long week, we powered through our final shoot at the manor house and came ready to smash this edit. Its been rather stressful, we have had a few days editing here and there, but this week was when we really got into it. It often felt like we were running a marathon and every time we closed in on the finish line it was moved further and further out. 

Luckily me and Mikey were willing to put the time in. We took things one step at a time, so firstly we just began to put our a sequence together. We arranged the shots how we wanted to just to get a feel for each scene and then moved on, we never stuck to one thing for too long, which I think helped to keep things fresh. After we had our first rough cut assembled we moved on to laying in the basic sound sequence, dialogue and so on. 

We were really worried about the sound, the stuff Jacob has recorded for us is great but we haven't had enough time to execute it as well as we would have hoped. One of the first parts we had completed was the ending, luckily we have Davids song, which I think really helped us edit and find our groove. It also helped while editing the montage scene and just giving us a great song to play over that. One of my favourite cuts is when the song fades out and you just see David stand off the bed and it cuts to black. I think its so effective of reflecting his endless stay within this place. 

Once the sound was added it was just about building up the catalogue from there. Firstly we added Chip, which took us around 3 hours, we hoped to go back and add an effect to his voice but the time limit didn't allow it. After Chip was added, we focused on our other voice over character Hannah. We could not find the time to get an actress to read the lines so I got a stand in to do it for the hand in version. It seemed really wooden and out of place when we first started dropping it in, and while I still don't think the voice is great, once the tinny effect was added it really helped the narrative of that she was located beyond this vent. 

One of the things we added last was some final music cues which I had purchased from audio network. I looked for hours on that website, I often feel like a lot of their songs sound similar. Until I eventually found a few songs I liked in quick succession of each other. When I first showed Mikey one, he cringed and felt it was too over the top, but I had faith, the song was for when Hannah and David first meet and introduce themselves. I think listening to the song loud it was over the top, but laid in subtly over the scene it really works and its now one of my favourite scenes. 

Finally with everything in, we were allowed to mess around with a few things and polish them, firstly we played around with the dream sequence, adding flashes of the garden and office. I like this effect and feel like if anything more should be added. We also added a sound effect of Chip which I really like, a thinking bleep, I think it really makes him feel more robotic rather than just a voice from a wall. 

Overall, I am happy with the cut we handed in, we still want to improve it, because as it is now its a glorified first cut. However I think there are some things which really work about the film as is. I also think its important to note that we were the only film to actually hand in on deadline day. If we had the additional day even to clean up a few things I believe most of peoples problems with this edit would be resolved.