Editing Diary

As I used a MacBook Pro for the editing of our Thriller opening I was able to use Final Cut Pro X. Before this project, I only had limited experience using Final Cut Pro after watching a few YouTube tutorials. I then got to experience using many different transitions, effects and sound in Media lessons whilst working on Underpass.

The first thing to do was import all the footage from the iPhone 5 and had to sort through what clips were suitable to use and also to keep within the time limit. To start doing this, I put all of the clips in chronological order based on our storyboard and watch the film through without clipping or editing any of it. After I was happy with the order, I deleted the clips, which were either outtakes or didn’t fit and scaled it down to two and a half minutes. Next, I had to focus on our flash-forwards that occur at different times in our Thriller to act as a transition between scenes.  To do this I put a “Flash” transition at the start and end of the clip where James the teenager is lying dead in the underpass. Then I put the Old TV effect to give the footage the impression that it had to come from a CCTV camera. When these two elements combined, it gave it a convincing CCTV look.

I then had to focus on the titles that were going to be put at the start of the film. I looked through all of the 155 titles that could possibly have been used and saw a range of different ones that could be used. They ranged from flashy, flamboyant animations to simple words that can flash up on screen. Not wanting to detract from the dark feel to the movie, I decided to use simple titles. I got a font from DaFont.com and tried putting the titles on top of the footage. They seemed to work and after consulting my teacher, we agreed that they looked good and they have been used ever since.

The rest of the editing process was fairly straight forward and the majority of what was left was trimming the final clips to get it under the time limit and to make sure one shot wasn’t on screen for too long. The main problem came when it came to choosing the music. We as a group wanted to use the track No Church in the Wild but then found out we were only able to use copyright free music. After a quick Google search, I found the website Incompetech. This website allows you to search music based on feel and so I searched Dark and Eerie. I found some good tracks and the start of our Thriller uses the track Bent and Broken. The problem I had was when it came to the chase scene. The music that Incompetech had was too cheesy and made the Thriller quite comical, which was not what the group wanted. I then looked at another blog and spoke to fellow Media students and one of the groups said there was some good music on YouTube. I searched “copyright free music” and in the first few hits I found a good track to use.

After this was sorted, the editing process was complete and this left us to complete our evaluations.