The First piece we decided to call Amber. I think we used this more of a technical experiment to see what effect we could do and see if it works in regards to getting the audience to feel as though they are inside the characters head. We didn't really have a narrative or story other then a guy driving and his vision playing up.

I think technically I was pleased with how it worked out and I think because there was a wide range of good footage I was able to then play around a lot with the effects in post. I did a simple blurred edge and then though about ways of distorting the centre. I added a bulge and then altered the mix down so that there was the original image still underneath. I liked how it added another layer on top of the image and almost reflect the shape of the pupil in the centre of the screen. 

The blinking effects, i was unsure of at first. I didn’t know if they would take away form the piece too much but in the end i think they work well. I looked at a piece on youtube that uses blinks and it really makes it feel like you are looking through his eyes. (Heres a link to the video). I think by seeing how it was done effectively helped me in creating an effective effect. I also used key frames and added a Mask Shapes so that when he blinks a bit slower it showed the sys lids opening and closing not just going straight to black. I am really pleased with how this turned out and the group seemed happy. 

In the 10 minute one I was worried on time as we were behind but overall the group pulled it all together really well. I wasn’t present during the shoot but I meet after and collected to footage ready to proress. I was really please with the rushes and it all fitted together well. As I had Peters shot list I used this as my basic structure and then Sam would meet and go through his opinions on the piece.

I think this worked out really well as it gave me a chance as editor to play around with effects and timings without too much input and Sam so was like having a second opinion rather then Him just telling me what to do. I was a nice group dynamic that he trusted me as editor and he trusted my ability. I think this is why our group worked well. Sam used each of us to our best ability and let us try out what we thought without taking over too much.

Overall I was pleased and unhappy with this peace. I liked how it all fitted together and flows but I still wasn’t happy with the dream scene fully. I had done several different edits for it and each time it improved and I think if we were to have more time I would have wanted to do a couple more and see if I could have improved it further. I think also I would have turned out a lot different if we had actually had to shot of Robert hitting Eric. This problem of not having the shot made us become more creative in trying to solve the problem which I think made our piece stronger as it wouldn’t have been how it was but then it could have made this piece stronger by having this shot. If we were to do it again it would be nice to see how it would have turned out if we did.

One of the sequences I really liked was when there if the transition between the lights to daffodils. I really liked how it worked. Peter managed to capture the focus pulls really nicely so all I did was put in cross fades between then. What I think works really well is when the light goes out of focus there are light beams from them and the same on the clubs, there is a few light beams, so then they merge together really well and make the transition really smooth.

The main problem as a team that we got was that during pre-production there was very little communication between the team so we lost a lot of time. I think we should have filmed the 2 min at the latest during the easter break so i had longer to edit it. This would have helped as me and Grace wouldn't have to rush this, the 2 min and all the other work we have in the last few weeks so it just meant we had to work harder.

Sure Swing :

https://vimeo.com/65239036

Amber (2min):

https://vimeo.com/65717574

Once having gone through several versions of the edit, when Grace was editing the sound design Sam decided he wanted even more cutting out and we cut out the whole conversation scene at the end. I think this makes it stronger as the piece has near to no dialogue and this scene didn't seen to fit in with the rest of it. 

I wasn't sure on keeping the shots of the tennis ball but Sam had several reasons as to why he wanted them and it needed something in between him being sick and playing golf again so I left these in.

Grace had edited that last scene in a ough version so I had to re edit the last few shots to the sound but then al I had to do was export and burn. This took several attempts and the exports were not showing the effects correctly and the fades were liney. In the end Sam had a software to burn the discs and this smoothed these back out.

In the presentation I was happy with the overall piece but the projector made some of the shots look really over saturated and the colours were all over the place which I wasn’t too happy about.

Here are a copy of Peters Shot list for the 10 min that i used when doing my rough edit:

Going throught tutorials with Annie and Chris they Both said similar things about how we need to cutit down and cut out any unnecessary shots. Here were a few notes I made While chris was going through it and what he think should be changed:


(IMAGE)

Going through my notes i went and made the changes that chris suggested and thought they made a big difference to the pass of the film. I think that we had a lot of nice shots in but they slowed the piece down but i think cutting the scenes right down makes a big difference.

Sam found this Quote from a Dean lecture and thought it would be helpful when thinking up ideas on the effects during the dream sequence:

There is a rare but dramatic neurological disturbance that a number of my patients have experienced during attacks of migraine, when they may lose the sense of visual continuity and motion and see instead a flickering series of "stills." The stills may be clear-cut and sharp, and succeed one another without superimposition or overlap, but more commonly they are somewhat blurred, as with a too-long photographic exposure, and they persist for so long that each is still visible when the next "frame" is seen, and three or four frames, the earlier ones progressively fainter, are apt to be superimposed on each other. While the effect is somewhat like that of a film (albeit an improperly shot and presented one, in which each exposure has been too long to freeze motion completely and the rate of presentation too slow to achieve fusion), it also resembles some of E.J. Marey's "chronophotographs" of the 1880s, in which one sees a whole array of photographic moments or time frames

I think that this could be really good idea with the use of overlaying the seperate shots and playing around the composition and opacity. I think it was a good way of adding an effects to the dream sequence without taking away from the images and it just adds this sense of confusion almost to the sequence.

As the editor I will have to make the structure of the film work and when it comes to drama the most common structure is the 3 act structure. I was watching Pitch Perfect the other day and towards the end I, for some reason, thought of the 3 act structure and how it is actually so common in most films. I think that this is a good example to demonstrate how the 3 act structure works. They work their way up and become close to qualifying but then they don't and loose everything. They then get a second chance when another team pull out and then go through and win.

I think in our piece it starts with Robert and him happily playing golf but then it starts to take everything away from him. He looses his sight and can not play golf properly. Its not till after he looses himself and hallucinates about killing a homeless man and taking his eye out that he then starts to get himself back. He then realises he can still play golf and actually he's not lost everything

The group was out filming the majority of the shots Saturday and Sunday so I went to meet them after to get the footage. After I ProRess it all I started with the labelling. As the group used a clapper board it was easy to label them up in regard to the scene, therefore when they were organised in alphabetical order the scenes would automatically be group together so that it would be easier when putting them together.

I then just started placing the scene together following the shot list and what I thought best fits. I started with the rough edit and had lots of small gaps in between each scene. I thought the house sequence fitted together really well and flowed nicely. The scene I had a bit of trouble with was the dream sequence scene. We had the shots leading up and after the point when Eric gets hit by the golf club and the point when Robert pulls his eye out after being hit.

I really didn't have a clue on how to fix this problem so I came across this dream sequence from shutter island. I liked the flashing effects used to get into the dream so played around with a similar effect in our piece. The first attempt at editing the dream i used a flashing effect throughout but it was obvious we didn't have to footage and trying to cover it up but i left 2 flashing at the beginning to enter the dream.