Editing

To start with we had to insert the images form the cameras to the Macs, this was done by plugging the camera into the Mac and then copying and saving them into a file. We then opened Final Cut and inserted the video clips we wanted/needed.

Editing was arguably the most important part to the whole process of making the film. We were lucky enough at school to be able to use an editing software called Final Cut. To start with it was quite a complicated software to get your head around, but as the time went on it was a lot simpler to use due mainly to the fact that you just had to get used to it. It was also made easier because we were given a guide to Final Cut booklet made by someone from our school (which is in my book and is looked at in more detail).

When editing there were many things we had to do to make the final piece that we have today. Things we had to change varied dramatically from the length of the shots to the colour of the shots to the timing of the music but the list goes on and on so I am going to talk about three or four of the key pieces in my opinion that I thought contributed to the most to making our opening what it is.

Firstly I feel that the ability to choose different transactions to change from shot to shot helped brilliantly. For example during the parts when Harri is walking, being able to put in dissolves and fades really helped create quite a calm atmosphere but then when we wanted the audience to feel like she was in danger we could alter the transactions from a dissolve to say for example a slide effect or even nothing at all to create sharper cuts between shots making a much more tense and anxious atmosphere. We used dissolves throughout the film, like I mentioned earlier, in the calmer parts but also to create tension as well. For example when Harri is walking it goes straight from a black screen through a quick cross dissolve to a close up shot of her upper body walking. Along with the music it creates a very eerie atmosphere.

Next was inserting text into the opening. This was used to make it look professional and a lot more like a film. We included the producer, music by etc and put each of our names by either of them. Although we all did a bit of everything we just put one person's name by each thing. Inserting text was reasonably easy but the harder bit as moving the text so it wasn't just located in the middle of the page. Once we found out how to do this (simply by just double clicking on the text and dragging it to the place you wanted it) we could do it a lot quicker. We also used the dissolve here to dissolve the text in and out.

Another big part of the editing was the colour. We didn't actually change any clips to a different colour but we did have to brighten/darken certain clips. This was because it was quite dark in some areas and if we didn't brighten them up then you would have hardly of been able to see anything. This was especially important towards the end in the murder scene and where Harri is in bed because they had to be filmed in reasonably dark lighting otherwise they would not have the same effect if they were in the light. 

Right at the end of our opening we sped up the filming to create a panicky atmosphere. This is where Harri goes back to sleep but the camera pans up and reveals the murderer at the end of the hall. If we just left it and played it in normal time the clip went of for ages and this would be boring for the viewer. We changed the speed of this by simply right clicking on the clip then selecting change speed.