editing blog 2

This week, Janelle finished editing the surgery scene of our opening sequence (the half of the sequence with the most complex effects and transitions-- the forest scenes will mostly just be long cuts to slow the pace more and heighten the audience's sense of Dr. Carter's mental instability). Janelle finally decided upon a specific font-- called Shlop on Adobe products-- and color for the font that will show in the final moments of the sequence. Janelle decided upon this particular one because it reminded us of classic horror movies, with fonts that look like blood is dripping from the title. Because our genre is horror, and the whole plot is that Dr. Carter killed a patient purposefully, Janelle thought it was perfect to simulate that blood splatter in **our** title sequence by choosing this font and coloring the title red. Similarly, our credits will use a very similar font that looks slightly less splattered, and will be colored white to ensure the dramatic moment reaches its height only when the title is revealed as the last credit. 

Transitions-wise, Janelle decided to add an additional moment where the screen cuts straight to black immediately after the monitor flatlines and the patient is assumed to have died, before it fades into the next scene where blood splatters on Dr. Carter's scrubs. The J-cut will feature different voices saying "Dr. Carter" as the black screen lingers for around 5 seconds, before fading back in to the following scene to further convey Dr. Carter's sense of insanity. Janelle also decided to make the entire scene black and white to further convey the idea that the scene is merely a memory that Dr. Carter is reliving, as he drives himself insane trying to figure out what happened.

While editing, Janelle also realized that to smooth transitions a little more, we were going to film Dr. Carter putting down the syringe after he finished using it, rather than just straight cutting to another scene entirely, to create more continuity.

Overall, our main problem has just been time management. Sound design has taken a lot of time, as we were also trying to navigate new software. Creating a schedule for when we would edit what and collaborating together in class helped us navigate this issue a little bit better, though, especially as Janelle helped Carl edit the video in a few scenes so he could focus on the sound design. It has mainly been Carl and Janelle editing (primarily him, though), so it has taken a great deal of class time as well as a couple of hours at home.

editing 1

 

This week, we began editing the scenes we filmed last week together. Carl-Daniel will be the primary editor because he has the most experience; however, Janelle also helped edit one particular scene to draw more attention to the focus shift within the scene and add realistic sound to it as Janelle had access to a more detailed editing software. The scene was only about 10 seconds long, but it took Janelle a good 2-3 hours to finish getting the sound effects we wanted using a sound-designing software and making the focus shift look more noticeable and seamless. Carl-Daniel also spent a few hours this week piecing together the other shots we took to make them coherent and added transitions to them. We are mostly just using straight cuts in this part of the sequence to speed up the pace and build anticipation for what's happening; however, we also realized while editing that we wanted to film an additional scene with a close-up of a flashlight (making it look like a surgical light) to do a graphic match to the first part of the sequence (in the woods) to better connect the 2 parts of the sequence. 

Other than that, we mostly only used blur effects to create different focus-effects to draw attention to the right parts of the scene (i.e. what Janelle did with the focus-shift). Audio-wise, in the scene we've been editing, we are primarily just going to add in beeping monitors and add a voiceover of the few lines of dialogue in this part of the scene (e.g. of William saying "scalpel" and "14-gauge"). Janelle was able to find a free version of a beeping heart-rate monitor that quickens and eventually stops that Janelle added to the track after adjusting it, time wise, to fit into what's happening on the monitor using Adobe Audition. The main problem we've had editing so far has been inconsistency and the time-consuming nature of editing, primarily because Carl wanted to edit most of the scenes himself. That is why Janelle insisted on editing the focus-shift scene, as Janelle knew that would only present an additional task for him to do when Janelle had access to Adobe Premiere Pro, which made it easier anyway. We have yet to decide on fonts we are using in the film; however, we know we want it to be something horror-esc. We know that the title will be "Dr. Carter" and will come on screen in the last few seconds of the film as an action match (when Dr. Carter is attacked at the end, the letters will follow the movement of the bat used to attack him as the camera jerks to black). At the beginning, we will also include the names of the main actors (Kobe and William), as well as the director (Janelle) and the editor (Carl).

Filming Process

Our group began filming last week, this time it went pretty smoothly we started by going on the list of shots we were gonna take then we proceeded by doing a practice shot first and started went on to record our film. For the first shot of the short scene we recorded in the zen room {teachers lounge) where it was perfect to record the medical scene since it was small and compact. For our second part of the film it will be in the forest where the surgeon where as if he feels lost because it has been days since the accident.

Challenges in filming

 As we started filming we had quite the few challenges before we began we had to make sure our set up for the location was organized and we have what we needed. Some of the challenges we face was how tight the room for the operation part of the short opening it was a bit cramped, Everyone helped and pulled their own weight, we had a bit of trouble recording as I feel we might come a bit unprepared during our 1st take but its  a good lesson to keep in mind, for example we should have covered the floor with a paper to keep the fake blood splatter clean, also as for the recording we should mind the distance of our recording device to how close and how far we are recording, some problem did come after recording a phone broke but not too much damage.  Continuing on our project we will be much better organize and next time we are going to fix our lighting keeping the main lights on, knowing what kind of shots we will be taking, and for the blood splatter we will use a paper to cover the floor to make it more clean and professional.