The completed project

The short film

The film poster

The film review

Final edit editing: putting it all together

This is my final editing post for my final edit.

Most of the editing here was just simply placing new footage in any gaps of where old footage used to be. Again, you can see that I’ve had to speed up some footage as it was too long to begin with. If you haven’t seen the previous editing posts, the sign that I’ve sped up or slowed down some footage is the zig zag line.

As I said in the previous post, I talked about adjusting the colours using colour correction for some shots so the new light replicates the original yellow light in the shot. There was however, a way to change the colour of the light through adjustment settings on the light itself. Although this is easier, it somehow came out green at long distances.

There was now to add the the new voice of the killer. This was also the time where I had to add the reverb (echo) to create the killer’s signature laugh. The reverberation mode at the top chooses the type of echo will be made in terms of room name. For example, the reverberation here is a “rich hall”. The 3 meters beneath adjust the compression in and out and length of the echo. The laugh occurs twice. Each laugh has different echo ranges between them. One laugh occurs when the killer picks up the saucepan while the other is when he starts strangling Toby in the 2nd ending. The laugh in the 2nd ending has the longer echo as it will help imply the killer’s sadistic interests. This would mean with the the more intensified laugh when strangling Toby, it would convey that the killer is more into hand based killings rather than relying on objects.

With this done, I’ve now completed my final edit. I’ll show this in “The completed project” post when everything is done.

Final edit editing: What is new?

I was now able to start editing my final edit.

I’ve done a little extra while I was away. I recorded some new dialogue from the killer. This time, it will not be low pitched and it will and it be more a realistic sounding voice. However, John wasn’t really comfortable with recording the killer’s signature laugh, so instead, I went and recorded this myself. This new laugh is based on the Happy Mask Salesman’s laugh of the N64 game Majora’s Mask (Yes, I’m aware of how nerdy I sound), adding the additional reverb (echo) as well. This is the laugh:

The new lighting was easily adjustable to the real lighting in the shot. Colour correction is set into 3 adjustments: low, medium and high. Low must be left alone as it changes the colour of the entire shot. Medium changes colours of most of the main images and foregrounds inside the shot. High changes the colour of any detail and edges.

I’ve also made my own punching sound effects as well. Like many professional mainstream films, I created my sound effects with specific objects. I made these sounds with a pillow, 2 coasters and a hot water bottle with its specific furry coating. The hot water bottle simulate the material of skin, the 2 coasters replicate the bones and the pillow makes sure my fist didn’t touch the floor.

The editing process: First edit audio track complete

On this final day of editing I’m going to add in the remaining sound effects into Dangerous Dreamspace.

What I’ve been doing this whole time on sound was adding the music and sound effects from the animatic. It worked for most of the short film but in some places it doesn’t.

The green audio track used the animatic music…

Whereas audio tracks at the bottom of the timeline are used to create the music again.

One section of this problem was in the second ending when the killer is repeatedly punching the protagonist; as shown in the top of 2 pictures above. The punching movements were much earlier to the actual sound effects. The only way I could change when the sound effects play was to re-create the musical score played at that part of the action sequence and then, re-add the sound effects in.

I also wanted to add in a new neck snapping sound effect because I wasn’t too happy with the animatic’s neck snap because it didn’t sound as graphic. For this, I recorded me crushing some crisps for the neck snap and then I slightly compressed the sound so it sound like it’s coming from inside the neck.

The next thing I had to do was add the killer’s voice into certain areas. For this I’ll just use the earlier animatic recordings just to save time. In the future though, I will be recording the killers new voice.

This concluded the audio track for Dangerous Dreamspace; I’ve finally done my first edit. There are definitely some changes I wish to do for the final edit, here are some of the changes:

• I’ll ask John if he can wear something black to cover his face. This would help reduce time on editing and it would stop me from making a hole through John’s face to fill up.
• Record my own sound effects. This include: punching, neck snapping (which I’ve already done but can retry to see if I can improve it), killer’s voice and the occasional one shot sound effects like the activation of the torch.
• Purchase better lighting equipment so I can light up some shots better.

 

The editing process: First edit video track complete

On this day I was determined to finish the video track of my first edit. This doesn’t mean that I’ve finished the first edit entirely; I will have to go back and add all of the sound effects in. Firstly I started editing the end of the 2nd ending. I as always, had to shorten certain shot durations to make the first edit shorter than the animatic length.

The left screen showing the shot before the jump cut and the right screen shows the shot after the jump cut.

One thing I did was add a jump cut to the scene where Toby patches up his arm. At first it was a poor excuse for shortening the first edit but there is however a clever connotation behind this. The jump cut comes in randomly, which might confuse the viewer. However, with something so random, it can create a mini enigma code saying “What’s wrong?” or “Has something just happened?” which gives the viewer a sense of warning that something might be wrong. In the short film, this could just look like a glitch in the protagonist’s dreamspace. The sense of warning is related to the next couple of shots which displays that the killer has disappeared.

With the 2nd ending done, I moved on to complete the final ending of Dangerous Dreamspace. The first few shots which displays Toby’s annoyed emotions towards the repetition of the scenario could have been shorter but I decided not to because firstly it was shorter than the original animatic length and secondly because I didn’t want the 3rd ending to look shockingly obvious that I was trying to speed the ending up to shorten the film.

If you look at the audio timeline in green, you can see loud points in the musical score. These loud points of the snare drum hits. Originally there was supposed to be 9 snare drum hits, now there are 7; implying that the jump cut scenes have shortened.

 

As I said in previous posts, there are 2 jump cuts every time Toby seals a door. Just to make it a bit quicker the 2nd jump cuts’ durations were quicker. Besides the fact that it will shorten the film, it can also convey that time is running out and quicker cuts of shots can create lots of tension to a final resolution.

After the killer stops attempting to enter the house, the shots where Toby goes back to his settee can be slightly quicker anyway as there wasn’t any music here to worry about. The only worrying shot on this day of editing was the last shot where I thought it was way too long. What’s worse about it was that the end music plays before its trigger movement again; bringing back the panic of long durations again.

The blue cross on the timeline displays the fade established.

 

Halfway through this last shot, there was the panning to the window. When panning through the curtains, the camera literally rubbed against the curtains; making a dark blurry mess on the screen. However, as nothing could truly have been seen on the screen at this time. It was a perfect time to fade to a second part of the shot but at a faster speed. This was the last and good enough solution for the long duration problem. This left me with the credits to do.

I was unsure what to put in the credits so for the first edit I stuck with the actors and director. For the director’s name, the font glitches out a few times. This would imply that the dreamspace still remains out of control; leading to a potential 4th ending. Despite all of the shortening I’ve tried to do, the first edit remains the exact same length as the animatic.

This completes the video track of my first edit. On the next day of editing I will add the remaining sound effects in and discuss certain changes I will definitely make for the final edit.

The editing process: 2nd ending begins

On this day of editing, I started to edit the 2nd ending of my short film.

Before anything happened, I wanted to check if adding black around John’s face would be effect and visible; especially in the dark shots. I masked out a hole around John’s face and added some black inside and sadly it proved to have had disastrous results. In some shots, the black blended in with the hoodie John was wearing but the shot just wasn’t visible enough. The worst shot that this applied to was when the killer stops at the top of the hill. I’ve decided that I will re-film a lot of these shots. I asked John if he could bring something black to cover his face with in the re-filming sessions in case I have no other choice and editing won’t do the trick.

You’ll probably not see it but this is the 1st picture from my first editing post. Look closely and you can see a hole where John’s face used to be. It may not look as black as I said it might be because I didn’t want a black hole that clearly looked like a visual effect; so I wanted the hole to blend in.

After I added all of the blackness to any shots needed, I then started editing my 2nd ending. Already I was struggling with shot duration lengths. As I said in previous posts, I’ve been trying to shorten my first edit by around 31 seconds. The scene where Toby thinks for a while about a solution and spins around in panic to the situation caused the most duration consumption. The way I can tell that this was time consuming is when I match the scene to the soundtrack that’s supposed to accompany it. If parts of the soundtrack play earlier than they should to matching certain actions e.g. body movements in some shots, then you can tell that the scene is too long.

There are 2 sound files shown on the timeline; they are displayed in green. The music shown at the end of the 1st sound file is actually the start of the start of the 2nd sound file. This 2nd sound file is where I want the music playing while matching with the 2nd sound file but it’s behind the first sound file; meaning the short film is taking longer durations than it should be.

 

1 minor problem with the editing process was that I forgot to film certain shots. The first shot was the shot of the killer searching for Toby in a 1st person view. This is also where a piece of diegetic jukebox music starts playing; conventional to the horror genre.

For some reason it is slightly blurry. I’ll have to re-film that soon but for now, you can still see what is happening. For the soundtrack I didn’t just add a resonant filter from Sony Vegas like I did for the animatic. instead I just recorded the soundtrack through the camera’s speaker. I did this instead of the resonant filter in case viewers think there is an obvious sign that this was edited.

The other shot that I had to film was when the torch is thrown against a wall but falls in an angle so it can become a light source for the action scene occurring.

This took me many takes to do. This is because the movements of the torch had to be exact. This required me to throw the torch at a certain speed, spin (if needed), and angle so it aimed towards the position of where I wanted the torch to light up.

Then the main action sequence of the 2nd ending began, starting with with Toby punching John a few times and ending with John getting killed by his own axe. Surprisingly, this sequence didn’t run into the problem of long shot durations; in fact, it was slightly shorter. However I had to greatly crop a shot because of an acting mistake in one of the shots.

You can see Toby’s face in pain and his arm moving towards the wound.

 

This is the shot that had to be cropped. Basically Toby had his arm cut by John’s axe at this point. Instead of Toby holding the wound point on his arm, he holds somewhere far above the wound point. I may have also had some lighting issues with some shots. I thought some shots were just too dark. The main shots being where Toby is being punched/strangled through a 1st person view of John.

With the sequence with John punching and strangling Toby being faster than the actual soundtrack. I was thinking that the tempo and pitch of the soundtrack could gradually speed up. This idea would create an increasing amount of tension towards Toby’s supposable time of death.

After the action sequence came the slow resolution when Toby calls the police. In this part of the short film, I was pressured by time consumption again as once again, the soundtrack ended far earlier than the duration of the footage. There were however, lots of bits that I could cut down heavily.

There was an example when Toby turns on the lights. I was able to cut out a good 3ish seconds out of the clip with a little extra help with effects to avoid any cutting continuity mistakes.

The only thing that caused a problem, was a reflection of Toby on a switch in the shot. What I did was mask out the switch and played it over the setting when the lights are on, adding any brightness keyframes to match the type of lighting. When it stopped playing, it then showed Toby walking away to the phone; so the mask blended in with Toby’s reflective movements perfectly.

I had to stop again as I forgot to film 2 other shots. These were when the killer’s vision goes black and the location of where the killer died but he’s disappeared.

Currently I’m almost at the end of the 2nd ending. The next time I edit I will be finishing the 2nd ending and then possibly completing the 3rd ending too; ending the first edit altogether.

 

 

 

 

The editing process: Success of the first ending

On the next day of editing Dangerous Dreamspace, I finished off the 1st ending and started on the 2nd ending.

After the problems of the 1st editing day occurred, I eventually pulled through some success in the last scene where Toby is about to be beaten to death by the killer. While editing this, my main goal was to try and shorten it as much as possible. The first 2 shots are incredibly well connected together. I was able to cut from the first shot to the next with Toby’s head in the same position, making a very successful match on action.

There are 2 shots above the timeline. The one on the left is the previous shot and the one on the right is the next shot. I showed this so I can display how Toby’s head movements at the end of the previous shot match with his head movements at the start of the next shot.

I never mentioned this in the previous posts, but I had 1 shot that was incredibly frustrating that it took me 7 takes to do right and even the shot I was going to used for my first edit had a problem. This was shot 37 where I had to track the killer as he switches his weapon from the axe to a saucepan.

The shot I’m using for editing above has a tiny glimpse of my knee showing in the bottom right side of the screen. The box with the F inside shows how the shot will be cropped. Since my knee is outside the box, it won’t be in the shot.

As I said in the “Day 2 of filming” post, shot 38 was really successful because I managed to avoid the camera’s shadow when John was approaching Toby with the saucepan.

Surprisingly enough was that the whole scene was shortened much more than I expected while still keeping around the same shot durations as the original shots did. This gave me a chance to make sure the first edit was under 5 minutes. However, thanks to the certain shots in the 1st ending’s pursuit, it will require a vast amount of editing to shorten the first edit by 31 seconds

One of the last shots of the 1st ending.

This concludes the editing for my first ending of Dangerous Dreamspace. In the next day of editing I will move on to editing the 2nd ending.

This is the first shot of the next ending.

The editing process: Filming errors

It was now time to start editing the first edit of Dangerous Dreamspace.

As I said in the “Day 1 of filming” post, I would’ve increased the brightness and reduce the gamma in some of the shots in case they were too dark. Some of these shots were successful, some were a bit iffy in terms of the visibility of some mise-en-scene and characters and some were still just too dark for anything to be seen. The problematic shots were mostly the shots when the killer stops in front of the house and when he tries to enter the house. The shots will definitely have to be re-filmed for the final edit.

Definitely the darkest shot I recorded. You can just see John’s face, but it will be covered with black in post production which my not look good.

There were some bits after the dark scenes where shots (mainly of Toby) had a longer duration than the animatic indicated. This is a serious problem as my animatic was 31 seconds too long. In response to this, I had no choice but to slightly quicken some scenes. However, a potential problem here was the fact that I needed to be careful on how faster my scene are going to be because it can be visually obvious that a scene is sped up if I speed up a clip too much.

You can see this shot on the timeline below. You can see a zig zag line, showing the speed the shot is played. The thinner the zig zags are, the faster the shot is.

The main scene here that is the most troublesome is the scene where Toby is thrown back when John bashes through the door and knocks Toby out. This scene was so long that I had to extend my soundtrack so the music could keep playing while the scene happened.

I’m currently 1 minute and 18 seconds into editing my short film. This is in the middle of the 1st ending where Toby is about to wake up detained by the settee. In my next day of editing, I plan to finish off the 1st ending and move on to the second.

 

 

 

 

Animatic feedback

2 people from my media group have looked at my animatic and have given feedback. Here are the comments:

First reviewer

Positives:

• Really good use of a variety of shots
• Appropriate pacing
• Appropriate content
• Clear character representations
• Clearly shows the target audience
• Very good use of music and sound effects
• Really good editing with nice transitions
• Interesting throughout

Negatives and improvements:

• None 😀

Second reviewer

Positives:

• A range of shots
• Fast paced
• Good idea using no dialogue
• Targets the audience brilliantly
• Nice use of sound effects
• Conventional silence
• Conventional use of music
• Nice use of transitions

Negatives and improvements:

• A few more camera movements
• A bit repetitive
• Can’t really get to know the character

What I’m going to do

I’m definitely going to add more detail into some of the storyboards because it seems like some of my shots don’t show everything vital in the shot. If I do this it will show more camera movements and places where there is a little character development.

Textual Analysis on 2:20

Title: 2:20
Director: Jason Wingard

Storyline

The time is 2:20, Dave is waiting for his girlfriend to meet him at a restaurant. While waiting, a mysterious women is walking by on the other side of the road but stops, stares and points at Dave. The women approaches Dave and gives him some glasses. Dave is curious to try them on so he slowly put the glasses. Looking through the glasses however, displays a time which indicates when a certain person will die. As Dave discovers more dates of people he is shaken by the power of these glasses. He leaves the restaurant and looks in the reflection of a car to know his date. However when he looks he notices that the date will occur in less than 30 seconds. Dave is shocked while the mysterious women walks by again. Dave turns around and stares at the women while she stares back. when the time runs out, there is a few milliseconds showing a bus almost hitting Dave but cuts to the credits before the impact happens.

Location

The short film is set in a street filled with kebab takeaways and other asian restaurants. 2:20 is set a night. This is to portray a mysterious presence in the area and is conventional time to potentially do possibly suspicious things. However despite being shot at night, the lighting is fairly bright due to the lights from buildings. This is to make it impossible to pull anything suspicious off because you would be easily seen.

An example of the bright light coming from buildings; making any undetected suspicion possible.

Characters

The first character introduced is Dave. He is dressed in blue jeans and a white shirt. The white shirt can convey a sense of innocence. The jeans also support this idea as the blue jeans can convey sense of calmness. Dave is also fairly young which can imply that he is not particularly a strong character.

A shot of Dave staring back at the women when realising his remaining seconds of life.

The other character introduced is the unnamed mysterious women. She is seen carrying a trolley around; which could create some suspicion of what she has inside the shopping. She is dressed very roughly which can convey that she has a dark background and can be stereotypically looked at negatively by not only the public, but the viewer also. When a shot of her face is shown she looks like she’s in her late 40s to mid 50s. As she is presented as the mysterious women, this can imply that she has had some years of experience doing suspicious actions.

A shot of the mysterious women stopping when he notices Dave sitting at a restaurant table.

Cinematography

There is an over the shoulder shot when the women is staring at Dave, where the shot is over Dave’s shoulder. This is to convey some sort of warning to the viewer that the women is going to do something that will affect Dave. There are several close ups on his face to display the shocked emotion he makes when he discovers the power of the glasses.

An over the shoulder shot of the women pointing at Dave; conveying that Dave is an important figure in some way that isn’t announced at this part of the short film.

Sound

Any musical score is played at a low volume throughout the short film. This is to make a distracting conveyance that the location is unconventional and uninteresting for anything to happen. The volume of the music is underpowered compared to the loud diegetic ambience on the street. This is done to imply that the scenario given is secretly hidden under the distraction of the busy street and the unimportant events around them. When Dave puts on the glasses, you can hear sci-fi computer scanning sounds coming from the glasses. This is to give the glasses its own genre characteristic. To the end of 2:20, the music coming from nearby restaurants become more and more louder. As this music is at a fast pace, this can convey that something intense is about to happen; which in the short film leads to Dave getting hit by a bus.

Editing

The main continuity editing technique shown in 2:20 was eyeline matches. These eyeline matches are used to get a better understanding of what the glasses can do through the eyes of the wearer. As Dave realises his time is running out there is a shot that focuses on Dave to re-adjusting focus to the women passing by in the back of the scene. This is to imply that he is not important anymore as the women will become the lone survivor in the short film. 2:20 only uses cuts throughout the film. Unlike fades which are used to imply that time has flown by, time in the short film is an important element in the film so every single second need to be seen to thoroughly display the remaining time Dave has left. The duration of the shots were somewhat long. This could imply that there was nothing adventurous or heroic that Dave could’ve done as the women knew it was going to happen. Thus the short film remained slow paced, acting like everything was just a normal situation.

The last remaining staring shots lasted 3-4 seconds long. This is after the discovery of Dave’s remaining time and the progressing volume of the music from restaurants; and yet the short film ends at a slow pace.

My thoughts

2:20 is a slow paced thriller which builds up a lot of tension towards the final remaining seconds. Sound and shot durations are distracting to the viewer and tries to make this short film more uninteresting than it should be. The only thing I can say though is that there were certain scenes where I think there could have been a lot more in; mainly Dave wearing the glasses.

 

Development of my own ideas

2:20 has a very dark ending that goes to show that my short film idea doesn’t have to end on a good, funny or cliffhanger ending.