Editing

Editing

After all of the filming the next job was to edit all the footage and turn it into the two minute opening. So 1st obviously we uploaded all of our footage off the tape onto an iMac using a fire-wire and then watched through it all, cutting it into the separate shots and moving them to the side so that it was easy to see them all. The next thing to do was turn the shots of the building from outside into the shots we wanted at the start of the film. To do this I created a still frame in each shot at the part that showed the building the best. Throughout the editing I was the one sat at the computer actually doing it, with everyone else sat around me helping with the ideas on how we wanted it to look. It was now that I had the idea of having shots of me flashing between the images of the outside whilst they were changing. To do this I cut up a close up of me tied to the chair which started at one shoulder and panned over showing my face and then my other shoulder. I then created three more still frames, one of my head and one shoulder, one of my head, then one of my head and my other shoulder. I then also created a still frame of a shot from behind the chair showing me tied up. I then put these shots into the start of the film, one between each of the shots of the outside. To make the transitions smoother I then put a flash effect on, which would make it flash from a shot of outside quickly to one of me inside. The idea of the flash would later tie in with when I created the sound for the film. After doing all of this we decided to put the credits of the film at the start, with shots showing the film company JamesWorks films producing the film in association with GC Productions

Now we had the opening of the two minutes we now needed to make up the rest of it, the rest being footage of the goings on inside the building. The 1st shot I put in was one that starts tilting up to the ceiling showing the light turning on, after which it then tilts down to show me tied to a chair in the middle of a room looking as if i've just com around after being knocked out or something. The next load of shots show the kidnappers entering the room and revealing a range of weapons on a table at the side of the room, except I can't see any of this of course as I'm blindfolded. In the end we had to cut down these shots as the opening ran over two minutes, and also there were slight pauses at the end of some shots where a person acting had finished acting the scene but the camera was still rolling.. We now had to bring the opening of the film to an end. My idea for the end was to show a shot of the kidnappers leaving the room., The door shutting then a zoom on the back of the door which has a piece of paper showing the films name being held up by a knife. As I stated earlier in the production log though we had a propblem with this as it wasn't clear enough to read what it said on the paper. To get around this I played around with the contrast and brightness of the shot to make it clear. To then finish it off I created more still frames of me tied up and applied the same flashing effect as at the start of the film. Eventually though we thought this was too similar to the start of the opening so we changed the shots of to still frames of the building. We also then decided the part with the title on the back of the door didn't work as it didn't look smooth enough so we changed it to just show a shot of the door closing before the shots of the building with the flashing effect. We then ended the openin with with the title of the film over a black background which then faded out. The last thing I did wasa to put in titles showing our names the 1st time we were shown in the opening sequences, which made it look more like a film opening when the main actors names are shown.