Post Production

Rough Cut:

https://poppycrossmanlr.wixsite.com/my-site-5

(Click Link to watch rough cut)

When I had completed filming on the production dates, I assembled a rough cut of the footage in story order. This process gave me an idea of what, if anything, would need to be reshot. I was happy with a lot of the scenes, including the gym, which featured the characters Mia and Frankie training together and when I cut together the footage, found that it ran smoothly, helping with audience understanding. The same applied to the dialogue between Mia and Frankie, as they discuss university, the various over-the-shoulder shots allowed the audience to feel part of the conversation, keeping the dialogue and action more dynamic so that the audience were involved rather than keeping it as on a continuous shot, which may have been less interesting for the viewer. I will keep these edited scenes, as the footage reflects the results that I wanted from my storyboard. Overall, I was happy with how the scenes cut together, but to improve my rough cut, I needed to add & improve certain elements, these included foley sound, colour grading and some footage that required reshooting.

Some shots run for too long, for example, when the protagonist Frankie arrives home, the shot on the door needs to be edited down to a shorter length - I will do this by cutting back the footage to make it shorter. As this is a rough cut, I didn't spend any time colour grading meaning that the footage doesn’t match the description in my proposal. The intention was to use a more realistic colour, this applies to Frankie getting a train, where the lighting is too bright and creates a white tint. This is something I need to improve on and can resolve by using the white tint filter, bring the line lower to show more shadows, which will create a more natural look. The foley ambient recordings could be improved and rerecorded due to sound levels being too loud, distracting the audience, in particular, the scene where Frankie arrives home, the ambient noise is so loud it would take ruin the audience’s focus. To rectify this, I will re-record this. Finally, as spoken about in the production stages, there are a few shots that need to be re-shot that were filmed on 15/03/23. After viewing these scenes, I found the background posters in the shot is a distraction, not allowing the audience to focus on the narrative - so have had to re-shoot this scene. After improving these aspects on my final cut, I feel my project will be completed to a high standard.

After considering what went well and how I can improve, I wanted to hear other people's thoughts on my rough cut. I had interesting and varied feedback, including how much they liked some of the shots and that the footage was edited together well, especially when the character Frankie is running and a tracking element is used. To improve, they agreed that the footage filmed in Frankie’s house needed to be re-filmed, due to the background not matching her personality and the artwork being a distraction. This process of gathering audience members’ feedback has helped me see a different perspective on the film and given me useful insight into how I can improve.

Final Cut Edit:

After re-shooting the required scenes, I moved on to the final stage of creating the final cut of the film. This stage in the post-production process is where I edited together my original and new footage to give me a final outcome. To prepare, I sorted through the footage I wanted to use and labelled them, this planning made the process easier as I then knew exactly what clips I wanted to use. I then began editing by using the template of my rough cut and applying the new clips I had reshot in Frankie’s house. To achieve the naturalistic stylistic approach, I colour-graded all the footage so that everything matched and had continuity. I changed the white to a lower bar which brought in more shadowing while also having the correct lighting. This improved what I wasn't happy with in the rough cut. However, whilst doing this, I had to overcome some problems of the colouring matching, so to overcome these issues, I made sure that the point where the bar was dropped was the same point in most of the videos, so the lighting and colour remain the same. Other than that, there were no other problems that I had to face when creating the final edit. Overall, I am very happy with my final edit and I think that the look and feel has been completed to a high standard. By improving on the aspects that I wasn’t happy with in the rough cut, I feel that the final piece showcases my camera, editing, planning and scriptwriting skills.

Audience Opinion:

With the final cut completed, I wanted to once again get an indication of the opinion of an audience. This will tell me if the film appeals to them and see if the film has been completed to a high standard. This process will also tell me what improvements can be made when moving forward to the next project. The consensus was that the audience enjoyed the film and thought it had a strong narrative, that the shots were entertaining and clever with the choices of movements. To improve, music could be used to create more ambience, emotion and bring a sports genre feel to the film. They also said some of the shots could have been longer to allow the audience to understand what is happening in the scene. After receiving the audience’s feedback, I agree that the film could be improved by using music to enhance the scenes by adding emotional value and aiding the codes and conventions of the sports genre. I could have used music in the opening scene where the character Frankie is training. I also feel I could have made certain shots longer, to allow the audience to understand what is happening, especially in the boxing pad training scenes between Frankie and Mia - to allow more emotion to be seen by the audience. I feel both happy and confident with my final edited version of the short film and feel it matches the original concept idea.