Post Production Evaluation (2000 Words)

Post Production 2000 word Evaluation

Lesson: Comedy Edit Feedback and Changes.

The feedback I received from the comedy edit was mixed, i got a few laughs from the montage scene though this was most likely down to the choice of music I used. This was as expected as the scene and acting as a whole was nowhere near funny especially as we all have the same footage, therefore it was necessary to use sound to manipulate audience reaction. Aside from that a few jibes were made about the pacing of the scene, and the length of the montage, but overall it wasn't too bad and with the constructive criticism I then went about making the necessary adjustments to the scene.

I began by taking the montage scene and putting it in its own sequence, this made it easier and gave me space to deconstruct it so I could play around with the shortening and reordering of the scene, whilst still making sure it was in time with the music.
 

Another comment that was made was that the mouth of the character Tony was moving but no sound was coming out as he laughed. This was a difficult one to fix as, the character himself only laughs silently. There was never an uninterrupted track where he alone was laughing at an audible level to duplicate and place under. Therefore I went about trying to find a laughter clip on youtube. I found two that were feasible but unfortunately sounded to pitchy and or mechanical. Nevertheless I tried out both then got an opinion; did it sound better with or was it better to leave it without. The latter won out.

After all those adjustments were made I put the pieces back together in a new sequence just to make everything more organised and tidy.

With that ended the last Editing Project. Along with this Comedy Edit, the Drama Piece (Night Journey) and Documentary (In A Climbers Hands) all had to be put on to a disk and handed in, the three together making up the assessed piece for the module.

Assignment: Changes and Touch Ups

Having more or less finished the piece the previous week, I can back and looked at it this week and got some informal feedback. From this I had to tweak and add a few things to the piece. First of all I had avoided cutting the montage sequence to the beat of the chosen music because I knew it would make the piece be a lot shorter than the designated two minute allowance. Realising that that meant loosing possible comedic points I has to work out something else.

 I broke up my initially finished piece and began to rework at it, by separating the sections that needed reworking (The Montage scene) from the others and going from there.

At a second look I realised I needed to diversify my shot choices, which was agreed upon during the informal feedback I got. So I added more wides whereas before I had relied on close ups to tell the story and give it more comedy. I realised this just made me an an audience member feel claustrophobic.

Finally as suspected the montage sequence now having been cut to the beat, meant that the overall sequence running time had been pulled down. To make up for this I had to incorporate the beginning of the next scene, which in the end I thought worked really well, giving this short two minute sequence a beginning a middle and an end. Now all that's left is for it to be judged with the others next week when it's due.

Lesson: Racing, The Sound Of Music and H2O.

SENNA
The film Senna (Kapadia, 2010) is a British made film about the life and eventual death of Brazilian car racer Ayrton Senna. The Documentary is portrayed through a range of archive footage of the racer as well as interviews with friends family and colleagues. The movie won a BAFTA for best documentary and best editing, beating the likes of Drive and Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy in the latter category.
The film was edited by Gregers Sall and Chris King. Reading articles about the film [http://www.firstpost.com/sports/senna-wins-baftas-for-best-documentary-and-editing-211171.html] [http://docgeeks.com/2012/02/13/senna-wins-baftas-for-best-documentary-and-best-editing/] it seems that the editing won audience members over through the use of telling an emotional story whilst being limited to not using any Live TV footage, and by having a subject matter that was a good person taken before their time. As well as that the way the movie itself is quite slow which is then juxtaposed with speed and dangerousness of racing and knowing what the outcome of this beloved protagonist will be keeps you on edge through out. And this is seen not only in the movie but gives you a glimpse of in the trailer as well.



Use of music in Shane Meadows Films
Shane Meadows is a British director most commonly known for his directorial films; Dead Man's Shoes (2004) and This is England (2006). He is one of Film4's most well known directors and as well as directing films he also has a number of short films and Television series under his belt.





After listening to a few songs from the various soundtracks and rewatching both trailers I can deduce that Shane Meadows uses music that is soft and seemingly non-threatening but holds a chilling undertone to them, possibly described a a terrible beauty. As well as that the music there are a few songs with lyrics that hold meaning to the goings on of the movie, which can be noticed in the Dead Mna's Shoes Trailer above. Of course for authenticity reasons, there are a few songs in the soundtrack that are present for that reason only, which can mainly be seen in the This Is England soundtrack whereby well known early eighties songs are played. In retrospect, though a few songs from the ear were necessary there was still a whole library of musical selection that could have been chosen, but by picking happy-go-lucky tunes it is seen as sort of irony to the actions that will later take place to or around the characters.

The Swimmer by Lynne Ramsay


SWIMMER from Natasha Braier on Vimeo.

This short film was uniquely co commissioned by the BBC, Film 4 and The Olympic/Paralympic Games, from the snippet shown above, the first thing that stood out to me once I had finished was that I cannot imagine the film being in anything other than black and white. It was really powerful as I could imagine the colour but the absence of it made more sense. The metaphors/ correlating images between the swimmer and his inner turmoil were brought together really well through the use of music, especially in the first scene where the swimmer was being hunted under what seemed to be a murky lake. Though when reading the synopsis of the film after...
SWIMMER is a poetic journey through the waterways and coastline of the British Isles, following a lone swimmer through lakes, rivers and coves. The journey is framed by a soundtrack of seminal British music, combined with a sound tapestry of hydrophonic recordings and snippets of bankside conversations. The film aims to give a real feel for the diversity of landscape and people of Britain.
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfilms/film/swimmer]
...In a way by saying that the film aims to give a feel for the diversity of landscape and people of Britain, my own interpretation stems from my diversity of understanding which relates to the theme of the short itself. Overall I wasn't sure what I was expecting but found this clip very enjoyable and hope to one day find and watch the full version.

Further Reading: Film Editing: Great Cuts Every Filmmaker and Movie Lover Must Know by Gael Chandler

This book is really simple and uses modern films to explain the basis and basics of cutting.
Page 2 entitled CUT states: Every cut must be motivated; in other words, the editor must have a reason for making it. A cut builds story, idea, or emotion, changes the point of view, or keeps the pace going: In fact a cut may do some or all of these things. This statement is accompanied by two pictures from Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Mans Chest signifying one cut. The book continues in the same style through out, addressing a range of editing techniques from Cutting for Pace, Rhythm and Time (Stopping, Expanding, Compression of time etc.), Cuts That Use Time Effects  (Freeze Frame, Slow Motion, Speed Up) .

Even though it feels and reads like a beginners to editing book it takes away all the complicated jargon and lays it out on the table simple, which is sometimes what you need.

Chandler, G. 2009. Great Cuts Every Filmmaker and Movie Lover Must Know. USA. Michael Wiese Productions

Editing Review: Grown Ups 2 Trailer

As a change I will be looking at the editing of a movie trailer, continuing in the spirit of the latest assignment it will be a comedy. 

Edited By: Tom Costain (Also edited the first instalment Grown Ups in 2010)

The opening immediately comes in with a guitar riff that is uplifting with a pinch of retro. The colour of the titles also adds to the uplifting theme as a quick back-story is displayed through the texts and the yearbook style photos, everything is kept short, sweet and to the point. The opening texts also appear to the guitar notes being strummed in the background, emphasising the point.
As this film is a sequel an appropriate amount of "Previously On..." footage is displayed as a quick, reminder to viewers who might have forgotten the plot etc and to show those who loved it the first time just why they did by choosing clips that are funny.
The audio then changes as we are then lead on to the trailer of the actual movie, the Text emphasises this by stating boldly "THIS SUMMER" As we all know the point of a trailer is to give a brief synopsis of the movie without giving away any major spoilers, or in the case of a comedy reveal to many of the funniest lines and scenes. This is done by using a mixture of text and In Film Dialogue. A taste of what kind of humour this film will have is essential for those who may not have seen it's predecessor  and so a couple of examples are shown (The Deer and the Cop Scene).
Lastly this film stars four very well known comedic actors so it's essential to try and capture all of them in a funny action as they are introduced to the audience. This trailer cleverly combines that by the jumping off the rock naked scene.
The trailer also ends on a funny and most importantly memorable gag. Then after the movie title appears we get a coda (Post Credit Scene) that adds that extra bit of laughter to the movie, this is backed by a well known song that may stick in audience members heads subconsciously preparing them to see the movie when it comes out.
I though this trailer worked really well as a short comedy piece, it made me laugh and I watched it twice, though the plot seems really thin in a comedy nobody really cares, the main point is to make audience members laugh.

Assignment: Progress

Having already decided on which scene I would be focusing on I went about putting together an assembly then a rough cut before then going on to find an appropriate soundtrack to go with the montage piece.

I chose the music because I thought it was appropriately comedic with a touch of irony as well as being a well known tune.

After down loading it as an MP3 I had to then convert it to a WAV format, and I was told that this could be done through iTunes as my Soundtrack Pro kept crashing. I went on an Apple forum and followed the steps to change my chosen song into the right format.

After that I put together the final cut, playing around with what section of the music worked the best with what part of the montage sequence.

I then tidied everything up adding fades to make the coming in and out of the music smooth, and added the appropriate titles etc. Then I was done, but I decided not to export it, deciding to come back a week later and re-watch it before I export it an add it to the disk with my other two pair projects which will make up my portfolio for the semester module.