Production Portfolio: The Final Cut

 

CCR 1: How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?

 

CCR 2: How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?

 

CCR 3: How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

 

CCR 4: How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project?

 

The Title of our Film

This project would only showcase the first two minutes of our film. That isn't a lot of time to showcase everything we wanted and thought an introduction should have. One of the parts of the film we wanted to make sure to include was the title. 

As a group, we decided that the title of our film would be "A Golden Clue" due to the significance that a piece of gold jewelry played in the film. This would be useful in the way I would make the title look. 

For one, as the film was more comedic and over the top, I wanted to make the font very bold. A thinner font might make the film look more sophisticated or seem like it should be taken very seriously which would be the complete opposite of what we wanted. As for the color, nothing else made more sense than to use a golden yellow.

Still displaying the title of our film

What was more challenging with the title was the way it would be incorporated into the film. I thought developing the title itself would be the most challenging part but with a set tone and use of the word "golden" it became very easy. However, introducing the title into the frame and the way it would disappear needed much more thought. 

I knew that we needed the title behind a black background in order to transition from the running away scene to the following interrogation scene. To do I ended the scene with a fade to black and left a black space to place the title. Now I had to think about how I wanted the text to be introduced. With some brainstorming, we thought it would make sense for the words to be typed on the screen in order to match the detective feel like one would do when creating a report.

Finally, to cut away from it, it made most sense to backspace the title away and bring back the black space to fade out into the next scene. The black is used to indicate the passage of time but also acts as the background of the title to make it stick out 

Shot that shows how the title is brought in and transitions into the next shot

Editing the title of our film was very interesting and way different than I thought it was going to be. Initially, I thought it was going to be a challenge to create the title and choose the right aspects like the font, color, and background. Thankfully for me most of these aspects were obvious. The title fit right between the two scenes so a black background would do. It would be a golden color to match the words used and the text would be thick to seem more funny and less sophisticated. Instead, I found out it isn't just about how a title looks but how it is introduced and edited into a film that equally matters. I didn't want to just fade the title in as it wouldn't add to the film and it just seems lazy to do. I wanted it to feel tied to the film and foreshadow the detective aspect of the film. Writing or typing fit this idea best in my opinion and the one that would fit equally as well in leaving the tile would be the typing. The way a title is specifically edited can be as important as the way a title looks and takes important decision-making in order to express the ideas of your film. 

Color Correcting the FIlm

A big aspect of the editing I wanted to focus on for this film was the color correction. It was something I didn't touch on during my first film but I now see that it is helpful in creating a certain mood or making the film look consistent. 

My main focus with the color correction at first was making the film look consistent. There were shots of the film that you could easily tell were taken on different days or with different settings. One of these shots was very bright and had an obvious yellow hue to it when compared to the other shots we had of the same scene. It stuck out like a sore thumb so I needed to go in and try to fix it. To do this I tried to alter all of the shots to have a similar look instead of trying to match the different shots to the rest.

Still of our shot that looked very yellow

Still of the shot right before that looked normal

To do this I asked the cinematographer for help in order to establish a vision of what the film should look like visually. The overall idea for the film was that it took itself so seriously that it came off as humorous. We wanted a slightly darker tone to match that energy. to make it feel more "serious", we darkened the shots we had for the interrogation scene and made sure the colors weren't very vibrant. This would juxtapose the scene right before it.

The running scene was shot in a park and the footage we took of it had its colors very toned down. this slightly matched the look we wanted but it mostly just made the film look boring. The cinematographer had the idea of making the scenery more vibrant by using CapCut so I did. It made the shots look more appealing and were better at keeping someone's attention.

Still from the raw footage of the chase scene

Still from the new edited footage that made the shot look better

This experience overall taught me about the relationship between an editor and cinematographer in achieving the look of a film. When first starting with the color grading I thought I had an idea of what I wanted to do. It wasn't until discussing with the person who shot the scenes that I was able to alter the shots effectively. I was also able to bounce ideas and see what someone else thought without having to edit something fully in multiple ways and see which got the best reception. Most importantly, I was introduced to other editing softwares and ideas that helped me create the first scene of our film.