Editing Experience

After finishing the filming side of our project my group and I moved onto the editing side. This meant that each of us would get the opportunity to edit parts of our opening. I was able to edit a lot of what we had filmed, meaning I was able to put a lot of the shots together, this included the beginning, which meant mainly the bedroom scene. The parts of the bedroom scene that I was able to cut and put together would be the pan, track, montage of shots, text message shots etc. When editing the pan shot we made sure that the small beginning part was cut because as the pan begun it was quite jumpy (due to the tripod), cutting this part made the pan smoother and more effective. With the track shot I also cut the beginning and end sections, this is because they speed of the track was slower at these times, I wanted to make sure the track was all one speed in order for it too not look odd or out of place from the rest of the shots, making it look as realistic as possible was important in order to make it believable for the audience. Moreover, when putting together the montage of shots my main aim was to make sure that they were all the same amount of seconds long. This is because I wanted the illusion of time passing to be obvious and clear to the audience and by having them all the same in terms of how many seconds allowed us to achieve this. In addition, the way they were edited and put together allowed them to go effectively with the soundtrack we had chosen. What I mean by this is during the soundtrack there were continuous 'ding' sounds at one point while it was playing. At each of these distinctive sounds a shot from the montage would flip to the next one, making the soundtrack and clips we have filmed go together effectively and efficiently. Moving onto the text message shots that were taken, we filmed different angles and views of 'Lydia' receiving and replying to 'Mia's' text messages. A lot of the shots where over the shoulder shots, some close up so the messages can be read by the audience. Other shots were mid shots and close ups where we could see 'Lydia' typing. When editing and putting these clips together I made sure they all flowed well from shot to shot e.g. where I might be typing I did not jump to just holding the phone, making it unrealistic for the audience. When cutting each shot of the text messages down in order for the audience to read their conversation, I made sure their was enough of them and also enough time to read the messages, this is because we wanted their to be enough time for the audience to read the messages, in order to understand the dialogue.

Another part of our opening I was able to edit were the titles at the beginning and end of the opening, these are a vital part of any film as they outline who made and contributed to the film;

Here are all the titles we used in we planned to use in our opening and I was able to edit and put into the beginning of our opening. When I first began putting the titles in I took into account that it was vital that our audience was able to read our titles and not only know who was staring in the movie but what companies where behind it. I chose a simple font whilst also changing the colour of the words to white, in order for it to look more professional and not too complicated. In addition to this I wanted to make sure that the titles would either be in the bottom corners of the screen or in the top left hand corner depending on the shot the title will be e.g.  if the lighting in one of the corners was too bright, causing the white title to be unclear to the audience, I would put it in the other corner where it was clearer. This was what I had to for the 'In association with Village Roadshow Pictures' and I chose which corners to put the titles. Another aspect of the titles that I took into account, in order to make them more clear and effective for the audience was making the names of companies and names in capital letters. This was effective because it states to the audience the important information (names of companies and actors are put in capitals and the rest are not). Moreover, at the end of our opening I put the title of our film which is 'Deceptive' and used a title that dissolved into the the name of our film. This I found linked to the thriller theme because it created a sinister and gloomy feeling to it as it slowly dissolved into a word. After doing this I wanted the transition between the last scene we filmed and the showing of the title. This is when I decided to put a 'fade to black' transition into a black screen and then the title appears, I also made sure the music carried on in order for the tension and sympathy for 'Lydia' carried on for the audience until the title went.