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.

When editing the 2 Minute i was looking at clips that show POV shots and found this short which showed a really good example oh POV.

I think this is a really good example of the use of blinking and how subtle it can be. I think they are a really good length as they are enough for you to notice them but not to break the movement and flow of the shot.

I think i will try this in our piece as could be effective, also i need to add blinking as at the end it goes very distort and shows CU on his face blinking so in the POV i need him blinking too.

Meet with sam to get his opinions on the edit so far and thought on what sort of effects he's thinking off. He like the overall edit of it and we looked at the using the Circle Blur as i could the use this to make certain areas out of focus and keep other in focus. As Sam wasn't too fussed about being present during this edit i took it home and went to work on it.

I found this short video all in a point of view shot and i looked at it for the blinking i didn't know whether to add in blinking or not as you consciously don't notice when you blink its just a natural occurrence. Toward the edit there is a car approaching and i though if i did add in the blinking i could make this fit in a bit better as he wouldn't see it as would be a moment when his eyes are shut then he opens them and the cars there. Therefore if i was going to add the blink to these part i will have to put it throughout the entire POV shots. All i did was add in a slug of one frame length as i think this was just enough to be there but not too long to take away from the action. Then toward the end was a lot more complicated. When his sight goes and if he was rubbing his eyes he would be opening and closing them slower so i thought would be better as would see the eye lids closing and opening. I did this by adding a Mask Shape and using key frames to change the positions of it to simulate eye lids.

Eyelids Shutting

Marking when to open and close them

As in my research the focus around the edge of the vision start to go first i though i would gradually increase this throughout the piece. I did this by layering up a second layer. One on top being the centre focused area and the bottom the defocus bit. I blended by using a mask again feathering the edges to make to layers merge better and each part of the POV shots I increased the intensity of the blur and I think this works well.

Top layer of Focus area

In the centre of the frames i've added a bulge effect that i cant work out if I like or not. At times I think it works but as other I don't. When Sam saw it he seemed to like it so at the moments i left it and added it to the other POV shots and will see what he thinks when he see it. 

Bulge Effect

When discussing the idea of the film with Anne she mentioned this film a lot and how it shows the point of view trough someones eyes.

Even in the first opening sequences you can see the use of the effects and how effective they are. for example here are a few screne grabs:

This effect has stretched it round much like a fish bowl sort of look to it. I think this is a good way as reflects the eyes roundness but i think for our film it would be a bit too much as he is only on the verge of loosing his sight. I think if i was to try something like this out it would be a lot less subtle.

I think using this tinted skin colour is a good way to show coming in and out of a blink as is the light on your eye lids. i think if i was to have parts in which he blinks and tries to focus on things i might add in a slight colour change like this and see what its like. I think it could work quite well as long as its not over used.

I think i like the fact that its not just a certain area or depth that they make soft focus but its changing. i think this could work well for ours. I think it helps show the eyes trying to figure out what they have to be focusing on and no actually being able to focus everything at the same time. Like the other effects above i think that i will try this but in a more subtle way as its the early stages of him loosing his sight. 

Getting the footage of Peter and then looking through it i was quite pleased with some of the stuff they had got as was good. There was a few of the hand held shots that were really shaky as they were driving along but i really like the GoPro shots of Sams head as they were really good point of views shots and I look forward to starting my edit with it.

First thing I had to do once I had the footage was to ProRess it so that it was all the same format and would work better in Final Cut Pro. This took a while to do so in the mean time I went over the Camera  Log that Peter did so that this would help me in the edit

Apple ProRess

Peters Camera Log

I went through all the clips now they were in FCP and renamed and organised them. While looking through the footage i decided that i would use one of the GoPro shots as the main body of the piece then use the other shots and add to it. I found it easier to place the whole clip on the timeline then this helped with continuity as all the takes would need to follow this shot.

It didn't take too long to do a basic edit that I felt happy with. As I wasn't too sure with what Sam was visioning with this piece I made a decision to use more cuts towards the beginning as this is where it just shows a normal man driving then hold the longer shots towards the middle where I will then at a later stage add the effects. I sent him a message saying this and he seemed happy and we have planned to meet tomorrow to go through what I have done.

I am getting worried at the very slow progress that we are having with this and the lack of development as it is now the eater break and still not filmed. In meeting in the last week it was discussed that would be filming the next day (Tuesday) but then on Facebook in the group it was discussed later on that would actually be filming on the Wednesday. Due to Sam not being well this then got changed to Filming in the 2 weeks off. I am worried as to whether I will have time to edit it or not due to only having a few weeks left to do both the 2 minute and 10minute one. Im am worried but i have faith in the others that they will in fact film in this time so that i can try and edit before i get the footage for the next piece.

Reading the script sam wrote, there is a scene in which there is a yellow umbrella and everything else looks dull and grey washed so I thought I would use this as a chance to experiment with the colour effects. I have used chroma key before where you get ride of a colour and change the overall colour in a shot but wasn't sure on how to manipulate just a small number of colours, in this case a yellow. As i knew we wouldn't have long for the edit i best make sure i knew how to do this in order to save time in the edit week.

As I was unclear on how to do this i found this video online to help me. It is much more easy then i though and here is a screen grab of me having a go at it.

The idea for our main drama is about a golfer that kills a tramp in order to get his eyes in an attempt to get his sight back. So the idea was to focus on the tramp in the 2 minute piece.

As editor Sam had said about putting effects on to make it look like a POV through the golfer to see that he's loosing his sight so i decided to play around on FCP at the effects. Here are a few of the better ones I found.

This effect is just simply a circulr blur where I can change the radius, amount and mis in prder to create different effects. i think at the level it is at in this screen shot is quite a good level. I quite like this sort of effect as could be made very subtle at the early stages of looking his sight.

Looking on the Eye Health website i found this image under the segment about blurred vision so thought i would try attempt an effect like that this is what i managed to do by putting quite a lot of blurr around the edge with more subtle blurr in the centre. I think depending on the shots that Sam wants these sort of effects could be good to help put the audience in the position of the golfer.

Sourced from - http://www.eyehealthweb.com/blurred-vision/

Playing around with effects on FCP I created a similar effect to the image that was on this website and I think event though it is not as harsh as the image but I think if we over do the effect it will become to much an take away from the original image.

My group for this module is as follows:

Director - Sam Brown
Producer - Owen Feltham
Camera - Peter Farley
Sound - Grace Walker
Art Direction - Georgina Mcloughlin
Editor - Me

 3 Act Structure:

The class did character studies and these are some of the notes I made on other peoples to help decide on the group I wanted to join.

Watched Clips of films to distinguish how an emotion is created and portrayed in short sequences. here are some notes that I made: