One piece of feedback we received was to cut up the conversation in the car in scene 2, and maybe discover and discuss the drugs once we have got to the owl academy. This referred me back to my research from the stages of the rough cut. Now all the footage is down, it will be clearer to see if any of the lines or scenes need changing around. This is the stage in which I can start asking myself questions as Brad Schwartz suggested, such as how can I enhance the story? Can I restructure elements in order to make the story more powerful? So far I have been quite confident that the edit is making sense in the same order as the script, however, when the advice about the drugs came to light, it made me re-think the edit. I liaised with Alex about the drugs conversation and he said that he would rather the drugs reveal before they reverse off the drive, as Alex aimed to show Tim exploring the van as soon as he gets in it. If he had driven off, hit the dog, met Sheila and then arrived at the academy, it would be odd if Tim started looking around the van after everything has happened. Alex and I established the idea of keeping the drugs conversation in the same place when the van is on the drive, however, this got me thinking of the rest of the story and whether any other sections of the story would be better rearranged.
New footage for Rough Cut 3
As a group we decided to re-shoot scenes 4 and 6 and collect additional footage of the Vet Van. I scheduled the re-shoot with our cast and crew relatively soon after we decided to go ahead with it so we could keep progressing in the edit, and so I wouldn't have to leave it on rough cut 2 for too long. During the two weeks between deciding the re-shoot date and the actual shoot, I improved the scenes that we were happy with in the edit, therefore, by the time we re-shoot, I will be ready to import the new footage on the timeline. This should be the only thing I need to work on as the rest I had continued with while arranging the re-shoot and GV day.
Similarly to when I started the edit a few weeks ago, I had to sync the audio on the new footage in the re-shoot. For the GV's we had the microphone on top of the camera to get atmos next to the roads, therefore, this audio didn't need to be synced. We didn't have as many takes for the re-shoot in Margate as we did last time. Possibly because we were more focused on the shots we knew we needed to re-shoot. However, this made syncing the audio for the new footage take less time than it did during the main shoot week which was beneficial to me. As I mentioned in the Re-Shoot, GV Pickups & Dog Shot blog post, I tried to stay in the mindset of an editor in order to improve shots and audio which didn't quite work in the edit, making the most of the time we had with the cast and equipment. As a result of this, I remembered to ask to use the clapperboard in the surgery scene as this is where I struggled to sync the audio the first time round.
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| Syncing audio |
From the first edit, I knew that Alex wanted the surgery scene to be choppy and fast-paced as at this point in the story we are in Tim's mind where he believes he is being a successful vet (similarly to the first scene of Tim searching through Tess's living room drawers, and setting up the printer to print his fake diploma). As a result of re-shooting and getting more coverage I was able to use a number of different shots to cut together quickly showing the build up of the surgery on the dog. We had enough footage so I was able to make the shots quick, without making the scene go by too quickly.
While I was creating Rough Cut 3 after the re-shoot, I noticed a continuity issue. In the mid shots of Luke getting the tools and stethoscope out of the bag and running round the van to give them to Tim. When he does this he stays there and keeps his head poked into the van, however, when we shot the preparation for the surgery scene we didn't think about Luke's head having to stay in the top left corner, we instead told him that he wouldn't be needed for these shots. As a result of this, the footage shot from inside the back of the van, which pans to meet Luke and Tim, shows Luke's head near Tim's watching what he's doing with the gloves and syringe. But then I cut to Tim prepping the surgery and Luke isn't there. To add to the lack of continuity, once Sheila notices them and walks over, we see Luke jump and look away from the inside of the van and towards Sheila. To put this more simply, in the current edit Luke is there, then he's not and then he's there again. However, we didn't get any footage of prepping the surgery with Luke's face in the corner so I am unable to make these shots flow well as they are. In order to work around this, I liaised with Alex and we agreed to crop into the footage with just Tim prepping the surgery, making the shot closer to his face with the intention of cropping out Luke's face in the top left corner.
The difference in the shots before and after the crop is shown below.
Before:
After:
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| Cropping into shots due to a lack of continuity |
While I was editing this sequence together, Alex suggested seeing Sheila calling for Sooty in between seeing the build up to the surgery. This made sense as it's her who makes Tim slip and kill the dog, therefore, from the audience's point of view it may make more sense to see her beforehand to set up the idea of an elderly woman looking for her pet. This also allows me to extend the quick cuts, keeping the build up to the blood splatter at a good length and allows the pace of the film to stay the same throughout.
I followed the same method of using jump cuts with the new footage in the same way I used them in the first rough cut. This sequence looked a lot better purely for the fact that we captured better footage in the re-shoot. The surgery scene with the old footage was only made up of 6 shots, whereas this new sequence with the new footage is made from 9 shots. I believe that this has improved the pacing of the film and it is slightly longer which helps build the tension leading up to the blood splatter. The sequence could still be refined, however, I think I have used the shots correctly creating a successful and tension-building sequence.
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| Sequence of surgery scene in jump cuts |
Comparison from Transitions to Major Project
Discussing the idea of changing the pace of the film by using jump cuts led me onto reflecting back on the Transitions unit. The aim of creating another VET-MAN film in the Major Project unit was to try and improve the film we submitted for the Transitions unit. We liked the concept of the film and felt that we could do it again but improve it.
As I am reflecting on the previous film and that we are creating a film with a similar comedic tone, it may be beneficial for me to compare what I felt didn't work well in that film, so I can improve on it for this unit. I was the sole editor for the Transitions film but in this project I am one of the editors, however as I am creating the rough cut, I am in the same position within the edit role that I was previously. In the Transitions film I was unhappy with the surgery scene. We filmed everything separately like normal and like we have for this unit, but I knew that it would be down to the editing which would help build the tension and create the gory part of the vet butchering the dog. Obviously we had to pretend to kill the dog, therefore, I had to make this look real in the edit. The sequence I am describing is shown below:
The video starts at 2:40 which is the first time we see the vet prepping for the surgery, and although the video above continues, the actual surgery scenes ends at around 3:00. The sequence shown in the video above is what I was unhappy with the most. The main problem I felt with this sequence was that the timing didn't match the rest of the film. The film was only short in the first place, with the requirements being 2-3 minutes long, but I felt that the sequence showing the preparation of the surgery was very brief and then the rest of the sequence was made up of cutaways of the animals' owner with overlays of dialogue from the vet. This part of the film may have felt like it was over quite quickly because I was using jump cuts. Looking back at the film, I have learnt that jump cuts are ideal to build the tension however I need enough of them to maintain the pace of the film. The pace of the film may have also seemed quicker because this was the only time I used jump cuts. Due to the length of the film I only needed to use the jump cut technique once. There were also only a couple of shots of the surgery happening that I was able to use in the previous film until I had to cut away for the audience to hear the vet butchering the dog, which may have also added to the quickness of it.
By re-watching the film, I have decided that I wanted to improve this with similar jump cuts to help build the tension for the blood splatter, but I want to use more of them to keep in time with the pace of the film. I believe that a part of the reason why I wasn't happy with the surgery scene in the previous film may be because of the smaller amount of coverage we had. If I had more shots to work from I may have been able to make the jump cuts go on for longer. I believe that jump cuts are ideal, but they just didn't quite work in the previous film.
Current edit of VET-MAN - prep for surgery scene:
The short video above is my current edit of VET-MAN just after they hit the dog. The video starts at 5:00 where the surgery scene begins, similarly to the comparison video, and the surgery scene ends at around 5:25. This is only 5 seconds longer than the Transitions film but I believe that those 5 seconds make all the difference in terms of matching the pace of the rest of the film. I feel that we gained more coverage in these shoot days allowing me to use more jump cuts which fit with the pace of the film. In addition to this, I believe that the jump cuts feel more natural here to build up the tension because I've used them in earlier in the film when Tim is looking through Tess's living room drawers. In the Transitions unit, I felt that the jump cuts were slightly out of place due to not using them more than once, whereas, I believe that I have tackled this in the current edit by using them more than once.
I created rough cut 3 after the re-shoot which happened to be of the surgery scene that I wasn't initially happy with. By watching back the Transitions film, I understand where I went wrong from the editors perspective and what I wanted to improve on - creating quick jumps cuts which don't speed up the film too much. I want the tension to build and then end appropriately on the blood splatter with the same timing as the rest of the film. During this shoot we shot a lot more footage and focused a lot more on the surgery scene as this is such a vital part of the film. Since this has happened, I was able to create the sequence above (current edit of VET-MAN - prep for surgery scene), which includes a few more jump cuts, which was all that was needed, and I was able to split it up a bit by cutting away to Sheila looking for her dog. Although I used cutaways to the animals' owner in the Transitions film, the dialogue was on top of these shots which didn't help the quick paced scene, whereas in the current video, I prolonged the surgery scene entirely when I cut away to Sheila, and then cut back to the surgery scene after, lengthening it.
By reviewing my most recent edit from this unit, it is clear that with more coverage I was able to create quick jump cuts, but the pace of the film still matches throughout.
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| Improving the dog hit scene |
The sequence after Sheila has walked away also needed work. We re-shot this as well in order to improve the amount of coverage we needed for the edit. In rough cut 1 and 2 this sequence is mainly made up of two shots, rather than cutting between the characters talking. Now we have re-shot and have more coverage, I am able to do quick cuts between the characters, highlighting their reactions. For example, Luke's reaction when Tim says the dog situation is all his fault. As you can see from the edit timeline below, there are quite a few cuts for a short section of the scene (about 30 seconds long).
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| Improving the sequence after Sheila |
Importing the GVs into the edit
The idea of getting the GVs was to be used with the voice overs we got previously. We got a lot of GVs and relatively long voice overs, which meant that they needed to be cut down quite a lot. I started with putting in the GVs to see which scenery looked the most aesthetic. I started with a couple of GVs in between scenes 6 and 7 to get the audience to the owl academy, with a voice over combination of the different clips we got on the voice over day, but this seemed to drag slightly and for a fast paced comedy, didn't fit very well.
To work around this, Alex suggested just using one clip of the van turning a corner and using the voiceover of Luke saying - "it's up here on the left". We originally had a longer conversation of Luke and Tim getting lost, however, we felt that it would be better left shorter for this scene transition and I cut the voice over and GV's apart from that one line and the one van shot. We can always add to it later in the fine cut, but for now it seemed to fit better. Now I have the GV in place with the small piece of dialogue, I can see how it helps the transition from Sheila's house to finding the owl academy. The other scene transitions just cut to black, but I believe this one adds to the story more. In addition to this, I didn't want each scene to end in black as the film would be cut into sections, I much prefer combining scenes with something as simple as watching the van drive to the next location. I understand that this can't happen with all the scene transitions but I am pleased with this transition in particular.
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| Adding in van GVs |
Using the voice overs
As well as the voice over designed to transition from scene 6 and 7, I had to insert the other two voice over clips that we deliberately recorded. Starting with scene 2 when Tim drives the van off the drive, I knew we needed a short clip to fill the shot of the van. I expressed the idea of a shorter clip to Ed and Dan when they were in the sound booth, and they did just that. Once I picked a short line about the drugs I inserted it over the top of the van driving off the drive. However, as expected Tim getting into the reverse gear and then starting to move off the drive was quite dragged out, even with the voice over on top. I didn't expect him to reverse the van to fast due to having to watch his mirrors and for safety of the two of them even though we had a runner on hand to watch the traffic. As a result of the slow movement of the van, I liaised with Alex and we decided to cut the shot of them turning the engine on and reversing. Instead, I've cut from them noticing the drugs, putting their belts on and then I cut to a short GV of the van driving down the road, without a voice over. Surprisingly this worked better as the next scene is when Tim and Luke are driving around lost before hitting the dog. The story flows better with this sequence of shots, starting with Tim turning the engine on, then seeing the van driving around, to then cutting inside the van of them using the map on the phone for directions. Rather than seeing the van drive slowly off the drive to then cutting to insight the van when they're on a stretch of road. This also adds a better transition from scene 2 to 3 than just cutting to black. This means there's now two transitions that fit well together rather than cutting them all to black.
The final deliberate voice over clip we recorded is situated at the end of the film to run over the credits. As I explained in the Voice Over Day blog post, Alex and I liked the idea of ending with the ferret comment and then completely cutting the film and credits there. This was inevitable to be the final word, so as a result of this, I just had to make a shorter conversation between the voice over clips that makes sense. Getting the mix of clips to make sense was the most difficult bit I found because as the clips were improvised there was usually a word or sentence which leaded them onto thinking of the next line. For example, the ferret clip was essential to be included, but then I had to include the story leading up until this otherwise it wouldn't make sense. As a result of this, I had to include Luke's ex-girlfriend story to bring in the ferret and the iconic "did it end amicably" line. Before the ex-girlfriend line, they are talking about small animals, so it all has to make sense even though I wanted to cut between the voice over clips. In the end the chosen dialogue I cut together:
"So, where to next?"
"The dog thing didn't go particularly well"
"No, no"
"It was a minor speed bump"
"Speed bump!!!"
"No no I'm afraid that was not a good analogy, it was a minor hiccup... and the owl thing"
"Steer clear of dogs for now, and owls"
"Owl could have gone better.... So I'm thinking maybe something slower, or bigger, or less... wingy"
"less wingy... what about a rabbit?"
"rabbits are good"
"point is small, rabbits, ferrets... my ex-girlfriend has a ferret"
"does she"
"yeah"
"is it sick?"
"It might be, we could check?"
"Yeah, yeah. Did it end amicably?"
"What the ferret?"
I think this short story makes sense. There were a couple of lines I liked and wanted to keep in it, such as the - "it was a minor speed bump" - as this quite ironic as they bumped over the dog in the road, similarly to a speed bump. In one of the clips Ed says - "is it sick" - referring to another animal Dan brought up, but after this line he says - "can we make it sick?" and I really liked this line. It shows his thought process of 'oh the animal isn't sick but maybe we can do something about that'. The way in which he says it as well adds to the humour. He says it slowly - "can we.. make it.. sick?" - as if he knows its wrong but wants to see how Dan feels about it anyway. Unfortunately, I couldn't fit the second line of "can we make it sick" into the final voice over because the ferret joke was more important and Dan talks too closely together towards the end so I struggled to cut it up more. Nevertheless, the main part of the voice over that we wanted featured was the ferret line so we have a good place to finish the entire film. I showed Alex and he agreed that it makes sense and he was happy with it.
Solving the missing audio
During the first rough cut, I realised that we had lost some audio from the owl academy shoot days. Fortunately, it wasn't much but it was from the owl punch scene which is an important part of the story. When Katie was editing the shots from the owl academy, she didn't do all of it and she didn't look over the audio so we didn't notice until I synced the audio after the shooting period. We believe that there was a connection problem with the boom and tascam as our sound assistant didn't notice anything was wrong with the audio from the headphones, and it still recorded despite not actually the recording sound. As a result of this, I decided to organise an ADR session during the time when Ed and Dan were due to come in for the voiceover day. I have explained the ADR session in a previous blog post, but we didn't realise the preparation that went into ADR, despite the research I did into it. Whenever we mentioned it to a lecturer they didn't mention the fact that we'd need to prep in advance and practice. In addition to this, I only researched into the actual process of the actor watching themselves and trying to recreate the dialogue with the same expressions, rather than the preparation needed to contain ADR successfully. Due to all of this, we decided that we would recreate the audio but I would edit it so we didn't see their mouths for the audio that we had lost. Then I could put in any piece of dialogue but as we aren't seeing their mouths move, it doesn't matter whether it matches or not.
The first part of audio that we lost was the comment Tim makes to Luke when they enter the academy. This wasn't actually in the script we used for filming (draft 8), it was decided on the day. As shown in the screenshot below, Tim turns to Luke and the audience would expect to hear some dialogue. However, unless I cut out their entrance, I needed something to go in when Tim leans in to talk to Luke. In addition to this, we also didn't get a close up of them, so the wide shot below is the one which needs to be used for their entrance. This felt odd as usually when someone talks, the camera is typically on the action with a close up. As a result of this, ideally, I would then cut to a 2-shot of Tim and Luke so we could hear what Tim said. However, as this shot wasn't written on the shot list we didn't record it, and on the shoot day I didn't think about it when we were getting the wide shot. When I realised we didn't have the coverage of the 2-shot, I liaised with Alex to see what he suggested. He said he preferred the shot on the wide as we are focusing on the owner, Mollie, and the distressed owl rather than their entrance. As Alex was happy with the shot, it just required a voiceover from Tim so we could hear what he says to Luke. As we are a distance away from Tim, it is not obvious what he says, and as a result of this, it didn't require ADR, just simply some dialogue. Due to this, on the voiceover day Alex asked Tim to say - "the game is a foot" - and I imported this onto the timeline.
Personally I believe that, that line of dialogue doesn't sound quite right. As the characters are further away than normal, I think the dialogue should be quieter than what it is on the current edit. The voiceover is quite clear and for me, this doesn't quite match the idea of them standing away from the camera. Tim also looks as if he could be whispering the line, which again means that the dialogue should be quieter. Alex was happy with the audio once I had put it in place, but I will pass this information onto Katie to see what she thinks, we also need to import some more atmos which may muffle the dialogue slightly to make more sense in the fact that Tim's voice should be quieter as he isn't the main focus of the shot.
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| Importing new dialogue |
During the owl punch scene and the build up to this, we only had complete audio for the wide shots and one close up shot of Mollie. Unfortunately, we didn't have the audio for Tim or Luke's close ups. In rough cut 1 and 2, I tried my best to use the wide shots as much as I could to reduce the amount of close ups due to the missing audio. However, there are some shots that needed the close ups, such as when Luke discovers that Tim has given the owl the wrong needle. As I explained previously, as long as the mouths aren't showing, it doesn't matter whether the dialogue syncs with the faces. As a result of this, on the re-shoot day we got Ed and Dan to recite their lines from the missing audio and I aimed to use the new dialogue over shots where we didn't see their mouths. Surprisingly worked well. I tried to cut back to Mollie's close ups where I could as we had this audio, this was ideal as Simon suggested as part of the feedback to cut to her more often to show her concern for the owl when Tim is injecting it. There is one section when Tim says - "there we go, that should've done the trick" - fortunately, we had Tim injecting the owl on a shot which was focused more on the distress of the owl, and Tim's face was slightly out of shot. I simply cropped the shot to take Tim completely out of it. This meant that I was able to use the dialogue we recorded on the re-shoot to replace the missing audio.
There was one shot where I couldn't work around the sync between dialogue and footage - when Luke realises Tim has given the owl the wrong needle and he is trying to get his attention. He says "Tim!!" twice and the first one is when we are watching Tim talking to Mollie, and we just hear Luke talk rather than see him. This is understandable as Tim is trying to ignore him which is why we are focusing on Tim and Mollie's conversation, however, Luke calls Tim again and I couldn't not focus on Luke again so I had to stay on Luke's close up. Fortunately, he only says "Tim" which is easier to sync than a sentence would be. I just had to ensure I had the word "Tim" as close as I could to look like Luke is saying it.
The remaining shots which were missing audio I had to work around with cover ups. For example, the screenshot below is showing Luke putting the doctors bag on the table ready for Tim to get the needle out. While we are watching Luke move warily around the owl we are listening to some of Tim's dialogue.
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| Solving missing audio with cover ups |
Making the editing snappier
Scene 1 - Tim looking through drawers
Scene 2 - Cut Tim looking around the van
Scene 8 - making the meeting between Tim, Luke and Mollie quicker - shot reverse shot between Luke and the owl over the top of Tim and Mollie's conversation rather than in between
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| Making scenes feel quicker to aid the comedy |
After I had synced and imported the new footage and audio onto the timeline, I went through the film from the beginning to see if there were any bits of audio or footage which cut too early or any that cut to black, preparing for the viewing with Beth and Simon. I also finished sections of audio which were incomplete.
Atmos which needs to be found online is part of the fine cut as the rough cut is simply working with the recorded visuals and audio, however, we recorded some pub atmos in the The Bell Inn when we filmed there for the day. As a result of this, I put this sound on the timeline underneath the footage for inside the pub.
In scene 3 we aim to make the van look as if it's moving in the edit, as we shot this while the van was stationary. Katie has more knowledge than me about the track and motion effect and as a result of this, I felt it was best for her to apply this effect in the fine cut. However, to make good use of my time during the rough cut, I started the process of making the van look as if it was moving by creating an audio track of the van engine from inside the van. Initially, I was going to use an engine sound we recorded (from outside the van) and muffle it. It would have to be muffled because the sound of a van's engine doesn't sound the same from outside to inside the van, this is the same with any vehicle. As a result of this, it wouldn't be believable to use the sound of the van's engine from outside for the sound Tim and Luke would be hearing from the inside. Another option I had was to use the audio from the GoPro footage we got during the main shoot week, on the same day as performing the scene with the dog hit. Due to the lack of back seats, we were unable to have Katie film Tim and Luke from the back of the van. To work around this, we attached a GoPro to the dashboard of the van, without getting it in Tim's view of the road. Securing a camera to the inside of the van allows the van to be driven as normal and for everyone inside to be seated and belted while it's moving. I didn't use the GoPro footage in the edit as the footage wasn't great. In addition to this, because the camera was fixed the footage didn't quite match the rest of the handheld style we wanted. As a result of this, the audio from that footage was perfect to be used inside the van before they hit the dog because it was used when the van was moving and therefore, gives the sound of the inside of the van while moving.
Vans can be quite noisy inside due to commercial equipment needed for whatever business the van is being used for. I know this from personal experience from my dad's van. Whenever he turned a corner or changed speed his work tools hung on the inside would crash around in the back. Although having noise like this is more believable it would interrupt the dialogue and may take the focus off the characters in the scene. I felt that the focus of the characters was more important than having realistic noises from the van in this instance, especially as the characters are talking in this scene. From these reasons, I only used sections of the GoPro footage that were clean. Unfortunately, the audio wasn't clean for a large part at a time so I had to paste many sections of the audio together, creating one long piece of clean audio. If I hadn't cut around this audio track, the sound from the tools in the back of the van may have brought the quality of the film down. As a result of this, I am glad I spent the time gathering clean audio for this scene.
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| Starting the process of making the van feel as if it's moving |
As it can be seen from the screenshot above, I had to gather a lot of clean audio to create one audio track. In order to stop the change in pitch between each individual audio clip, I added a Constant Gain audio effect to the end of each clip. This allows the sound to stay the same across each individual clip. There is dialogue on top of this audio track as well, which will also hide any pitch changes in the van engine track.
Unfortunately we don't have a dog yet to film on the floor and in the side of the van. As we are currently struggling to find an obedient dog, I simply put in placeholders in order to signpost where the dog footage will be placed. We want to refer back to the dog a couple of times so the idea of running over a dog is more believable, therefore, I have put in two placeholders with the text 'dog' where our footage will eventually go.
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| Placeholder for needed footage |
I included extra shots of Mark, Sheila, Tim and Luke in scene 12 (inside the pub) when Luke notices Sheila and Mark starts to walk over. I had previous feedback to focus more on Tim and his reaction to Mark walking over, however, before I added extra shots, I cut from Luke to Sheila and back to Luke while Mark walks over. I felt as if Tim needed to be involved there, so I added in Tim when he responds to Luke's "Tim" with "What?". After this I felt that I would be able to build the tension up until Tim faces Mark by adding further shots of the cast. As a result of this, I ended with a shot of Luke reacting to Tess saying his name - to Sheila noticing them - back to Luke saying "Tim" - back to Sheila pointing for Mark to walk up to Tim and Luke - to Tim responding to his name with "What?" - back to Luke saying "Sheila!" - to Tim saying "Sh*t" - back to Mark walking through the room - back to Tim gulping his drink, zipping his top, saying "I'll deal with this" before facing up to Mark. By continuously cutting between the characters, I am able to build the tension up to Tim's comedic - "You're not Sheila!" - before he gets punched in the face.
In addition to these improvements on the edit, I also refined the continuity in places. Particularly, in scene 6 when Luke is running back to the van from Sheila's house. In the re-shoot we shot more coverage inside the van of Tim and Luke panicking, getting their belts on quickly and speeding away from Sheila's house, rather than keeping it as one complete take. In an early edit of rough cut 3, the continuity didn't add up with them putting their seat belts on, however, I corrected this by playing about with the time when I cut between both characters. Simple tasks like these, making sure the shots flow smoothly and the continuity isn't disrupted unless intentional allows the quality of the edit to improve. As the rough cut editor, I want to make sure all the footage is complete to the best of my ability before passing it onto Katie for the fine cut. Due to time constraints, Katie needs to concentrate on further refinement of the film, sound design and colour and not on jobs that I should be doing in the rough cut.
Alex and I decided to get rid of the hand signals in the night scene due to the footage being so dark it's actually quite hard to see what they are doing with their hands. By removing this footage, it also shortens the film which is what I am aiming towards.
I added in the voiceovers we got with our characters for Tim and Luke on the voiceover day. These were quite long with each recording being around 2 minutes long. This would be a very long time to sit and watch the van driving around just listening to some dialogue, therefore I picked out the best parts of the voiceover and joined these together to make sense. I placed the voiceover when we would see the van driving around looking for the owl academy, and I put a section of the voiceover at the end of the film for the credits. We aren't completely sure on music yet, but we know we don't want too much as our inspiration The Thick Of It doesn't have any music and we want to use the least amount as possible to fit with their tone. We have established that we might need some for the titles at the beginning and during the night scene, but that's it. As a result of this, Alex and I decided to have some of the voiceover for the credits and to end the film instead of music. When we had Ed and Dan in for the voiceover day they had some good stories and we wanted to use them in the film. Due to this, the credits were the best place to put them. The voiceover I have chosen to put as the end credits also finishes with a comedic line, which would be a good place to cut off to signify the end of the film. They discuss the animals they should see next and they get onto the topic of ferrets, Luke continues by saying his ex-girlfriend had a ferret and Tim suggests meeting it. He asks if it ended well (referring to the relationship, as this would established whether or not they could visit her ferret), but Luke asks "what, the ferret?". When we listened to him say this line, Ed, Dan, Alex and I all found this quite amusing and thought it would be a good place to end the film completely.
I changed the panning footage in the back of the van after Tim and Luke hit the dog. Instead of keeping both pans - from the side door to Luke and then from Luke to Tim - I decided to keep the one pan to Luke and then cut to Tim's reaction to the screwdrivers. I did this because Tim had a good reaction to Luke thinking he wanted screwdrivers to operate on the dog, and because of this the pan didn't quite get there in time to see it. As a result of this, I cut into the pan, but as I kept the first pan I was still replicating editing techniques that are used in our inspiration, The Thick Of It.
While I was creating rough cut 3, Alex and I have established that we are happy with the footage and length of scenes 1 & 2. Unless we receive anymore feedback and ideas in relation to cutting the scenes down slightly, which we will take onboard as the shorter, the better with comedy.
It is clear that I am being successful in making the scenes shorter and choppier because the length of the whole film is getting shorter on each rough cut. Rough Cut 1 was timed at 20:20, and Rough Cut 2 was timed at 20:06. Rough Cut 3 is 16:33. Although the first two rough cuts were only slight changes I knew I was going in the correct direction. The third rough cut clearly shows this as it's a lot shorter.
I made a few final tweaks so the film was further towards complete before the next viewing. Ideally, I'd like to pass the edit onto Katie soon so she can work with the sound design to see if we need to conduct an ADR day. We are hoping not to due to availability and saving the budget, however, if the sound design doesn't work as well as we are hoping, I will not hesitate to organise an additional day to bring the cast in as the quality of the film is most important. However, whether I can pass the film on or not will be determined from the feedback I'll receive from Beth and Simon.
Rough Cut 3
Beth's notes:
- work out how it could sustain - keeping the blood-stained costume on, think about future episodes,
- opening sequence a bit long - cut beginning down - 30 seconds/1 minute
- first half is funnier
- fine tune the edit - sound, colour etc
- tighten up, sound, humour
- watch After Life - Ricky Gervais
- Get someone else to look at it for tightness - are we sitting here watching something we don't need to - help with the comedy - maybe time to pass it on to Katie - fresh mind
Simon's notes:
- sound in car park scene
- light passing the car
- tighter shot on “I’m VET-MAN”
- sound effects - e.g. punch noises, printer etc
- music on night scene?
- tighter in owl academy car park
Reflection
- I found it beneficial to re-watch the previous film we created in the transitions unit in order to help me improve our current film. By reviewing the old film, I was able to pick out the sections that I was unhappy with the most (just the surgery scene in this case) and to find out where I went wrong with it and how I could improve my editing techniques for this project.
- Using shots to cover dialogue in the owl punch scene actually worked quite well. There are no awkward cuts and it's not obvious that Luke's "Tim" isn't genuine. So far in the viewing, no one has noticed it and they all think it works well. As a result of this, it has shown that the ADR day wasn't essential. It would have helped with the wind in the owl academy car park scene, however, Katie is going to work on the audio for this scene. Fixing the missing audio is one problem towards the audio solved. Ideally, Katie will fix the background noise in scene 7 & 9 and then I would agree with Katie and Alex that the ADR day was not needed.
- Beth's feedback included the idea of getting someone to watch it objectively to see whether we are spending too much time on something that isn't very funny or doesn't add anything to the story. As Katie hasn't been involved with the rough cut, I believe that it may be time to pass it to her to work on the fine cut. If she comes across something which should have been done by me, such as rearranging shots, then I can take the edit back and amend bits that need it.
- Cutting between characters in the pub worked really well I think. It helped to build the tension as the audience don't know what he's going to do, because the tension builds the audience may expect something big, and then they'll see Tim sat in the van with a bloody nose.
- fine tune the edit - sound, colour etc
- tighten up, sound, humour
- watch After Life - Ricky Gervais
- Get someone else to look at it for tightness - are we sitting here watching something we don't need to - help with the comedy - maybe time to pass it on to Katie - fresh mind
Simon's notes:
- sound in car park scene
- light passing the car
- tighter shot on “I’m VET-MAN”
- sound effects - e.g. punch noises, printer etc
- music on night scene?
- tighter in owl academy car park
Reflection
- I found it beneficial to re-watch the previous film we created in the transitions unit in order to help me improve our current film. By reviewing the old film, I was able to pick out the sections that I was unhappy with the most (just the surgery scene in this case) and to find out where I went wrong with it and how I could improve my editing techniques for this project.
- Using shots to cover dialogue in the owl punch scene actually worked quite well. There are no awkward cuts and it's not obvious that Luke's "Tim" isn't genuine. So far in the viewing, no one has noticed it and they all think it works well. As a result of this, it has shown that the ADR day wasn't essential. It would have helped with the wind in the owl academy car park scene, however, Katie is going to work on the audio for this scene. Fixing the missing audio is one problem towards the audio solved. Ideally, Katie will fix the background noise in scene 7 & 9 and then I would agree with Katie and Alex that the ADR day was not needed.
- Beth's feedback included the idea of getting someone to watch it objectively to see whether we are spending too much time on something that isn't very funny or doesn't add anything to the story. As Katie hasn't been involved with the rough cut, I believe that it may be time to pass it to her to work on the fine cut. If she comes across something which should have been done by me, such as rearranging shots, then I can take the edit back and amend bits that need it.
- Cutting between characters in the pub worked really well I think. It helped to build the tension as the audience don't know what he's going to do, because the tension builds the audience may expect something big, and then they'll see Tim sat in the van with a bloody nose.
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