Forever In days (Post Production)

I always felt Post production was a breeze but today I found I was wrong. After feeling successful with filming, I learnt that my sound had a lot of background noise which would irritate the audience and following my review with simon it was clear that I needed to demonstrate more effort where sound is concerned. I also noticed you never really realise what you've filmed unless you planned well which I didn't. When I started to edit, I realised I didn't have much coverage despite filming 70 clips which is why PLANNING IS ESSENTIAL and a team too to help point out where I could do more.

So with the little I had I tried the best I could to make the most of it, although I feel the story won't translate well as I had to cut out certain parts. I also noticed my script was very unrealistic in terms of bringing it  to life. It's great to have an active imagination that can sound good on paper but as a student, when it comes to making the production, it has to be reasonable which is something I really need to come to terms with as it has repeatedly happened and is partially the reason I failed this project the first time around. I complicate and make my project difficult by attempting things that are way beyond my reach and experience. Now I'm understanding that I can do that once I've learnt the various skill sets that a quality film demands and when I have the money to make it possible. 

Having had many problems with my edit process already, I was glad that Fergus came to save the day. He was kind enough to give me a mini tutorial on final cut pro and how to make the most of this project. One of the key things he said was that the piece controlled me which, in this case is true. I didn't feel proud of the work, nor comfortable with it because I know the standard I'm aiming for. And this created a situation where I created a piece of work which doesn't match up to my work ethic at the studios. 

That said, he showed me ways to improve sound by adding effects, changing frequencies and shifting other components that make sound what it is. Which helped reduce the noise level and brought out the vocal of one of the characters. Due to the other being ill, I had to put subtitles as she can hardly be heard by me, let alone anyone else. in addition to the sound my visuals had slight problems as well. The white balance was odd and gave my clips a reddish tint which made it hard to see. I had previously changed it myself to what I saw fit, but then Fergus told me that there is more to colour correction than moving little dots around. I needed to know what I was doing and I didn't I just gave it a blue tint thinking it would cancel out the reds. Fergus then showed me with one of my clips how to colour correct monitoring the vector-scope and luma to know what needed correcting like blacks, and harsh highlights. 

The structure of the story was missing a few things. I started with a black screen over a voice over which consumed the first half minute. Simon reviewed my work and told me the start of the project needed some reworking. So I tried to find ways to fill up the space but with little coverage i found it difficult. I then thought perhaps a dream or premonition hinting towards what was coming which was a meeting with her doctor, so I did but then something still didn't feel right until adele gave me a helping hand with adding something that was missing in the beginning scene which was a sleeping shot as I went straight into the dream. 

Overall, I'm glad that in the mist of production mistakes I've made, and slight lack of belief for my work during the process; I managed to put this piece together. Last year I made a brutal mistake of not submitting because I was embarrassed by the quality of my work which cost me continuing on into the second year. But mistakes are made for a reason. I'm just happy I haven't made one so bad this time that can't be rectified.