Putting in the Titles

Although we originally specified that only Sam and Toby would work on the titles, I did do some work on them as well and helped Sam. The first thing that we would have to do would be to chose a font and transitioning effect that would be suitable, so we began by searching through everything that final cut had to offer title-wise, which was a long process because a pro level programme like that has a lot of titles.

We finally settled for a title that had a relitively simple font in white. We felt that it was simple enough that it made a professional looking title but at the same time it didn’t really fit with the themes of our sequence, but we decided that through the use of video effects we could make it fit nicely so we kept with it. We put the titles in the order that we found out in our research and put them in a variety of places that looked good. There were a few that were just at the bottom or the top left or right as a plain title, but sam editied some to make them look like they were fitted into a wall or fence or other object which really added emphasis to the title. This was achieved using the transform tool in final cut.

Once the titles we looked at them and realised that they were good put they could do with something extra to make them really stand out and to make the titles look like they would fit well with the themes that our present in our sequence, so because of this we decided that we would search through the video effects to find something that would add another dimension to our titles. We decided to add the hardlight effect to some of them because we had used this effect on certain shots however we discovered another effect that worked really nicely which was called old TV and gave a kind of shakey effect which looked really good on our titles. We added this to almost all our titles, with the exeption of a few that included the directed by title because this looked better without effects. For the Main Title ‘One month earlier we decided to make it come up first without effects but then as the shot of the phone behind it fades out, the titles fade to the old TV effect.

Title Research

Of course we were never going to make a seperate title sequence, the plan all the way through had been to create a hybrid between an opening and title sequence. This would require us to put our titles over the opening sequence that we had already created. As we got all ready to put in our first title we realised that we couldn’t just write whatever we wanted wherever with no kind of thought behind it. We realised that first off we needed to do some research into what order the credits of an opening title sequence are normally in because we had no idea if producer would go before director or actors after editor and so on.

We visited wikipedia which gave us a rough outline of the order the credits could go in and they did seem to make sense. They go as follows:

• Name of the Studio – In our case Fox Searchlight.
• Name of the Production Company – Vertigo Films.
• The name of the producer or director – This would be all of us.
• Starring – Myself, Heather Paxton, Toby Broughton.
• Music Composed by – Myself
• Edited By – All of us.
• Camera Work – Sam and Toby.
• Written By – All of us.
• Title of the film – One Month Earlier.

This gives us a much better idea now of hoe to put the titles into our work and in what order we can put them in to make them look like a real opening credit sequence.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opening_credits

Creating the Sound Track – 2

When I came back to the half of the sound track I had made I listened to it through and decided that I didn’t like it. The guitars were slightly out of tune and it depended on which times I listened to it as to if I thought that it fit together well or not. Because of this I decided that I would make a new one, and as a rule all of the best opening sequences i have seen have some kind of a song behind them. What I had created before was a vaguely shaped piece of music lacking structure so I decided that it was now time to start over and make something with these things. I decided that as I created this new version, I would do it in the same logic file as the first idea, just with those tracks muted so i could quickly compare the two at anytime. I began by micing up a guitar amp for a good quality sound and using a focusrite pro audio interface instead of the IO2, then messing with some ideas. To start with a chord sequence, so I used one I had been messing around with, then a simply, catchy melody. Well that comes quickly after messing around with some octave chords. I now had something I was far happier with and that sounded leagues better.

Next I needed some more development on the melody as there was still some time left before the heroin section, the crucial mid point. Once I had this a began on the build up. I used the same kind of fast bending guitar I did on the original and it still worked really well although this time as the texture built up creating a bigger effect, I decided that once it dropped I could use the feedback from the overdriven guitar to provide a good background noise as the character is passed out. This sounded fantastic and all put together it sounded far better than before. I then began on the second half, the suicide section which had one chord played in a pattern that conveyed sinister determination along with some midi drums to add to the texture. on top of this i added another guitar playing notes chromatically that clash and sound like a long sinister build up, the notes being played faster each time all the way up until he cuts his wrists at which point the instruments begin slowing down and playing out of sync with each other, representing the character feeling woozy because of the blood loss until the completely stop as he dies, then silence as the character re-thinks his decision. As the screen goes black we then hear one chord played mysteriously.

I listened to this again and decided that i should un-mute the waking up noise on the electric piano as that fitted in well already. Happy with this sound track i played both versions to Sam and Toby to see what they thought. They said that both were good and had good things about them, but the second fitted together better and sounded better overall, but one thing that would improve it would be to un-mute the synth from the first one and add it to the guitar feedback as background noise and leave it there to emphasise the effects of the cocaine. I also agreed with this and decided that I would do that to complete the soundtrack. Once it was finished we saved it to MP3 format and added it into our final opening sequence in final cut pro so that it was part of the sequence.

Creating the Sound Track – 1

With the final cut of our opening sequence ready to go I began work on the sound track. For this I used another apple programme, Logic Express 9. I decided to use this programme because it is a professional level audio editing software package. It is also a product that I use almost everyday in my other AS/BTEC courses, so i am very familiar with it and all of its functions. I also knew that it has a feature that allows a video to be put in on a video track so that it is easy to sync music to video, a feature that would prove extremely useful to me.

I began the process of creating the soundtrack by using an Alesis IO2 USB Audio interface which is very useful for plugging in microphones as well as Direct Inputting guitars and bass. I began by direct inputting a guitar and messing around with some note patterns.

I decided there was one that I liked so I decided to build the beginnings of the sound track around that. I found that it sounded good with a tape delay insert (effect slot insert) so I used that. It was in E minor so I played on another track a straight E minor chord behind it to build up the texture. This was beginning to sound good so I decided to add a new layer of guitar playing every 4 bars, creating the effect of the music building up. As the video got to the heroin scene I decided that I wanted the build up to increase dramatically so I added a guitar with distortion playing extremely fast on one high note that was slowly bent up, so that it started sounding good with the rest of the music but then as the situation became more and more dire it began to clash and sound dissonant. I then decided to create a cracking noise that accompanied the flashes that signified the injection. To do this I used a midi keyboard with an electric piano sound that I completely messed with using a bit-crusher effect, making the sound harsh and whip like. I decided that I wanted the same kind of noise but less harsh right at the begging of the sequence to make it seem like he is waking up. For this I just duplicated the track and toned down the effect and then played a different note in. I then changed the volumes so that the noise fades in. With all this I then decided that this track would benefit from a kind of synth that comes in as he takes the cocaine the second time, so I used a pre programmed synth that sounded good, that played it in at that point, but then held the note so that when all the layers of music stop as he passes out the synths can be heard droning through the background.

Tweaking Our Cut

Now that we have a basic cut of our opening sequence we could begin tweaking it to make it exactly how we would like it. To begin with we showed our basic cut to our teacher to get some feedback. Once we had the feedback we began working on the sequence to improve it based on it. To begin with our teacher raised a good point which was that although the actually suicide shots were good, if the main character were to kill himself this early on in the film, the audience may not have a great deal of interest in watching the rest of it. Even if the film focuses on the month leading up to this point they would still know that the character was dead at the end. for this reason we decided to put in another shot just after the suicide shot. It was actually part of one of the previous shots that we slowed down and put in reverse, so instead of bringing the knife to his wrists and cutting them it looks like the whole suicide shot was him thinking through his death and then snapping out of it, hesitating and pulling the knife away slowly, leading to the audience wanting to know if he has decided against it or if he is purely putting it off. We felt that his was a far better end to the sequence and then moved onto some other minor sections so we began those with cutting certain shots out such as the cereal part. We did this because, although it was a part that we liked and thought was good, it was unnecessary and once deleted it made the sequence look smoother. With this in mind we thought about the rest of the sequence and how it did go on for longer than we would have liked it to. We felt that it if it was shorter then it would look and feel more like an opening sequence so we set the goal of bringing it down from 3 minutes to between 2 and 2 and a half. This was not going to be easy as we wanted to keep all of the main parts of it to convey the story, however we felt that this would be possible.

We decided to start by editing everything extremely precisely and not miss any opportunities. This meant trimming anything we could of each clip, every half a second matters. So that is what we did to each and every clip, cutting of as much as we could (without making the clips look to fast or too jumpy, we cut as much of as we felt we could without ruining each shot). As well as trimming we also cut out a few more unnecessary shots, including two of the transition shots in the drug deal.

With this all done we decided that we were happy with our opening sequence and that the length, now roughly 2:20, was much better. At this point we changed some transitions, partly on our teachers advise (the cross dissolves between the shots as the character wakes up and making the colour effects appear earlier as the character takes cocaine the second time), but mostly on our own decision (some flashes here and there, mostly where the character takes drugs).

With all this in mind we showed some classmates and and teachers who seemed to be impressed and decided that we were happy with our work, and with the positive feedback we had got from others

Editing – 6

Once we had the character going upstairs the only part left to edit (to get the basic cut) was the actual suicide part of the sequence. We began this part by cutting in the close up of the bath taps being turned on and cutting it down to size. We then cut to the shot of the suicide note being written, cutting large parts out to make it look jumpy and to make it go faster, as well as speeding it up to 200% speed. This made it look really edgy which was good. We decided to put cross dissolves in to make the shots fade into each other. Once we had the suicide note written we moved onto the tap being turned off, putting dissolves in between to give a fade transition. This shot was followed by another close up of the suicide note but with a phone being thrown down onto it, then the shot of the character getting into the bath. This final shot had a flash transition before it.

This shot, like the herion section is one we are very proud of and think we have edited well. The is stationary for this whole section as the character walks past it, into the bath. it is stratigically cut at different points with clips sped up to 150% and 200% to continue with the jumpy, edgy feel of the adrenaline the character feels at this point. At the point where the knife would actually cut him we cut in an extremely quick flashback with the flashback, indie red effect. Just afetr the flash back, as he cuts the other wrist and begins to become woozy we put a shot that we created by dripping red food colouring into a bucket of water with a pipet, showing the effect of simulated blood hitting water at an increasing rate, on a layer above the shot of him in the bath and changed the opaquity setting to make it go transparent over the orginal shot. as more and more blood drips in we cut the shot of him in the bath in half, adding a red effect ontop of the black and white to the second half and putting a crossdissolve in to make the shot fade more to red the more blood that drips. We also cut another part of the clip out and made a long cross dissolve as he sits back, giving the effect that he sits back then it fades out as he sits back again making him look like he is starting to lose a lot of blood. After this shot the screen goes black. It then goes back to the shot of the phone on the suicide note. The phone goes off (this is the only sound in the whole sequence so far) with the name sarah coming up as the caller ID. From the suicide note

the audience can assume sarah is his ex-girlfriend who has been appearing in the flashbacks. We kept the black and white effect on the phone ringing because we felt that although the depressed characters life is over it would not fit to have just this section in colour. We put in a mock up of the title (One Month Earlier…) this was just to show where it would be, the title is not the one we will actually use in the final production. we put a cross dissolve on the title so that it fades in and then shortly after we added a cross dissolve to the shot so that it fades out leaving just the title for a few more seconds.

This was the final part of our first basic cut meaning we now have a cut that is now ready for tweaking.

Editing – 5

We continued today with editing. As the the character gets thrown out of the pub, presumably because he was caught taking class A drugs in their toilets, he limps away. We Decided that this shot needed to look like late evening-early night so we added the black and white effect as well as the day to night effect which makes the clip much darker and look quite convincing. Although this effect was good we decided that some sunlight was still visible in the top of the shot so we cropped it accordingly. We cut some of this clip out so that it would look smoother, making it cut from him getting thrown out to limping away.

At this point the next part of the sequence was the shots of the character sitting down on the bench and then having a flashback of his girlfriend sitting there with him. This was a part of the sequence that we filmed and we got some good shots with a bench overlooking a lake in werrington, however most of these shots were too dark to be used effectively. This is where we had to choose between refilming this section or cutting the shots from the final production. We took into consideration the time set backs of filming again and the re organisation required as well as finding a camera and tripod and getting the actors together in the same location and decided that due to that, and the fact that the shot was only semi important and the length of our sequence already that we would cut that part of the sequence. Instead we edited in the shots we had of the character walking back, adding a black and white effect and cutting to tiny, fraction of a second long clips of the flash backs to show they were still really messing him up. We added the indie red effect to the flashbacks to keep with the theme of the previous flashbacks. We finished with a slightly longer flashback of the burning photo. We then cut to the shot of the character coming back into the house and going into his kitchen (all the shots now until the end are in black and white unless specified). After this we cut between the shot from inside the drawer and outside the drawer as the character picks up the knife. We cut this shot right in the middle of the character picking up the knife and used what we learned about match on action from our preliminary task, editing the shots together so that the action looks continuous through the cut. After this we cut to the over-the-shoulder tracking shot of the character walking upstairs with the knife. In this shot we made cuts in different places and sped certain parts up to 200% speed  to make the character look slightly crazy.

Editing – 4

After we had finished the walking up to the pub, we began putting together the heroine scene. We wanted to use effects and transitions to make our raw footage look really good, and to once again reflect the charcters state onto what happens on camera.

We began by putting the raw clips in, putting the clip of the character sitting down in and then adding a dissovle transition in between that and the outside of the pub shot. We cutthe sitting down shot in certain places, cutting small parts out and then putting dissolve transitions in, this was to show some of the characters adrenaline as he goes to do it. Each clip was put with the same hard light effect as the outside of the pub. This part the dissolves into a close up of the belt around his arm and then the needle going into his arm. We retimed these clips and sped them up slightly to emphasis the adrenaline rush. We cut this clip in half and added a dissolve so and then added hardlight to the first part and then a threshold effect to the second. The threshold effect lets more blue light through as aposed to the red/yellow light of the hard light, giving a colour effect which is meant to show the contrast in the effects of cocaine and herion. The dissolve meant that these effects faded into each other. We decded that it was missing something, so we tried lots of effects but found that a really good effect was the flashing video effect (not to be confused with the flash transition we have used earlier on). This effect really emphasises the actions and effects. we then used the flash transition to go between a shot of the character sitting on the floor losing consiousness (still with the threshhold and flashing effects) and the another flash transition to the first flash back which we added and indie red effect to to show the contrast between real life and flash back. We did this again with the other two flash backs, swiching between the character in the toielet to the flashbacks with the same effects on each one, and then on the last flash back of the photo burining we cut bits out to make it look jerky and fast. We then cut with flash transition to a close up of the characters face on the floor with a syringe infront of his face. as his eyes open we cut the clip in half again and added a dissolve so that the threshhold and flashing effects fade out as his eyes open showing the effects of the herion wearing off. After this we cut to a clip of the charcter being thrown out of the pub.

Editing – 3

Today we continued our editing from where we left off with the character walking down the street. We began by editing in the shot of the drug deal and cutting it up to shorten it down. We cut it into five parts and then added effects and adjusted them so that throughout the shots the effects shift from triple hard light all the way back down to black and white gradually. We did this to give the impression that the effects of the cocaine were starting to wear off during the actions. We also detached the audio from all the clips. This is a process that we have being doing to all the clips since the start. Once the audio is detched we can delete it, effectively muting the clip. We do this because we do not want any of the sound from the clips because all our sound is going to be made in post production. We are creating our own music for our production so that we can custom create it around events that happen in the video and because of this we can add other key sounds in in the logic file and edit them in that way.

After this we edited in the shot of the character taking more cocaine off a bench. This shot tells us a lot about the character even though only a couple of seconds long. It tells us that he doesn’t care about people seeing him take drugs as he does it in pubic. It also tells us that as soon as the effects of the last lot of drugs wear off he needs more and more, showing that he  is heavily dependant on drugs. In this shot we edited a flash transtion in before the next shot of the character walking into the pub. This shows that the drugs are taking effect immediatly. The outside of the pub is affected with triple hardlight.

Editing – 2

Today we continued editing our shots together. We started to use some different effects and new transitions as well as making progress with the main shots.

We continued the editing from our last aditing session by making the shot of cocine go into colour. We decided that it was a bit too quick and that it should maybe happen in the point of view shot just after, as he wipes his face (causing the camera to go black briefly) the transition occurs so after the wipe everything is in colour. We decided to make the colour more vibrant by adding a doubled up hardlight effect to the shot, increasing colour vibrancy and contrast. we decided to cut some of the shots out and then put them back together with a cross dissolve (fade) to make it look like the drugs have influenced him, and so are influence the camera. we did the same thing in the next shot of him walking out of the house, except this time adding a triple hardlight to really make it look bright as he goes outside. We also faded the motion as he walks away from the door.

We Pulled in the shots of the character walking down the street, both over the shoulder and from across the street. We decided to cut between these shots so it goes over the shoulder then dissolves to across the street then dissolves back. We decided that due to the effects of cocaine on the body, we would speed the clip up. This continued with the impression that the camera sees his influence. It was also helpful in cutting down the time of the clips. We liked this effect so also added it to the shots of him leaving the house.

At this point we asked our teacher to take a look at our sequence and see what he thought of it. He said that it was good and that it was coming along well, although commented that the shot from across the street was quite a bad shot, partly due to the location and the way the houses look. He also said that the brekfast section was unnecessary. We took these comments into account and decided that he was right that the across the street shot wasn’t very good, so cut it out and left the other over the shoulder shots dissolving into each other, this worked better. We were relactant to get rid of our cereal shot as we thought it was a good shot so decided to look at it later on.