visual editing blog notes

8/12/2019 Visual Editing Blog Notes

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Editing Blog Notes:

The Visuals.

We decided on editing all of the visuals in Adobe After Effects CS5.5 and CS6. We

were using both CS5.5 and CS6 because we changed between using CS5.5 on mycomputer at home and CS6 at school. As the CS6 project files did not have any

backwards compatibility we ran into a slight problem at the start of our editing

process.

We started editing on my software at

home, which was CS5.5. When we first

transferred the project onto CS6 we had

troubles sourcing the video files. After

researching into our problem we

realised that it is prevalent for manypeople and found a source for our

solution.

We were initially editing on the IT

computer also, this computer was very

slow and had very long render times.

We decided to move location within the

school and work on an Apple Mac in the

media studies room.

Once we relocated we were able to fully get into the editing process. We brought

up our animatic of our film on a separate computer and had the storyboard in

paper copy.

We first started looking through all of the footage we gathered over roughly 16

hours of filming and began marking our favourite shots. Once we had gotten

quite far into the shot list we were raring to get started. We worked

chronologically when placing our videos into the timeline as this seemed like the

most practical way to edit. We first placed down all of our raw footage into the

timeline and then began trimming and changing the timings of our shots.


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Once we had done all of our timings of our clips we now had to start thinking

about different editing techniques we would use to create the visual aesthetics

we wanted.

Vignetting:

In our first shot we wanted the hands to emerge out of the darkness with the

help of the light from the match. It was impractical to change the settings on the

camera so that we could create this as we would have to quickly change the

aperture just as the match is lit, so we had to do it on after effects.

In the raw shot the hands are visible even before the match is lit. In order to hide

the hands we turned down the brightness of the entire video until they werent

visible in the moment before the match is lit. We then introduced a vignette that

would manipulate the brightness of the video inside it. We wanted to enhance

the brightness of the clip within the vignette so that the flame is able to light the

frame.

We created a mask and linked it to the video clip and them key framed the

brightness and contrast so that it increased as the match was struck.

A brightness vignette of the first shot.

This effect is used in Shutter Island and was our inspiration for this shot. We

used a black backdrop around the hands to make it seem as though they are

shrouded in darkness. We also introduced a similar effect in the following shot as

the candle is lit.

Other than the vignette and some basic colour correction most of our editing

involved animating in text in interesting ways that can link it to the actor and the

movement within the frame.


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Swipe Transition:

This was quite a simple transition to animate. We wanted to link the Jazzhands

production title credits with the diary as it is the pivotal prop in the film. We

added a sideswipe effect and manipulated the speed and feathering of the sweep

so the book revealed the text perfectly.

Flame Overlay transition

We had planned to implement this effect prior to filming as it required some

preparation. I have previously experimented with film burn transitions and this

helped me learn the process of animating it well. The transition uses a clip of alarge flame consuming the frame whilst the shot changes underneath the flame.


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In order to animate this we created an opacity dissolve transition between the

two storyboard clips, in which we changed their opacity to fall from 100 to zero

and vice versa for the following clip. As the clips underneath dissolve we have

the flame clip fade in over the top and allow the shot change. We needed to

prepare this because we needed to film some stock footage of paper burning so

that we could use it for the transition.

Ink Reveal:

This was another text reveal we knew we were going to implement before we

started filming.

This animation required us to draw a mask around the ink frame by frame. We

had to go through roughly 100 frames in order to create this animation. We set

the alpha matte of the mask to add, this means that when the text is inside the

mask it is revealed. This meant that because we traced around the movement ofthe ink the text will be revealed inside the ink.

As we have never done this before we had to do a few practice goes on a separate

project to get it perfect. We then experimented with some feathering and

bevelling to finish it off.

In order to enhance the realism of this text we decided to motion track the

movement the camera made as there was quite some shake. We chose a tracking

point within the frame and then applied the X and Y coordinates to a null layer,

we then copied the keyframes of the positions on the null layer and pasted them

onto the text. After testing we realised this didnt work as we chose a keyframe

on the edge of the frame, where there was more movement than in the middle.


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We were not able to find a suitable tracking point close enough to the text for

this to work, so we had to animate some of the larger shakes by hand but make

do without for most of the camera shake. Although the shake is barely noticeable

in this shot when watching it with the entire video.

Gaussian Blur:

This is quite a simple but effective way to link the text with the camera work.

We introduced the effect Gaussian Blur to our Casting By Leo Romero text. Wehad planned to use the Gaussian blur even before filming as I included it in my

help pack for our group. We used the Gaussian Blur to embed the text into the

video and have the text follow the rack focus. We key framed the Gaussian blur

so that the focus followed the cameras focus change. It worked very well.

FRANTIC ENDING:

When editing we experimented with using a frantic collaboration of different

shots in the last two seconds of the film. We thought it would work with the

crescendo in the music and the very busy visuals would work with the very

busy music, we found that it did not work well so we decided to go for a moresimple ending, where it cuts to black.

Conclusion:

Overall our editing went very well and our extensive preparation made it very

easy for ourselves once we were on the computer. We didnt find ourselvesmissing any shots or needing to reshoot any. We were pleased with our colour

correction and with our original text animation, some of which we have never

seen before.

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