February 04, 2009

Today we started editing the footage we shot last period. Although the task at hand was quite simple, it was quite a lengthy process.

Before we could start editing we first had to capture the footage on Final Cut Pro but connecting the firewire to the computer, then capture, or transfer the footage into the editing program. The first scene which we had to edit was exercise two, in which we had to create a sensation of "anger" and "sadness" by altering the colours. For "anger" we decided to enhance the redness of the shot. This is because the colour red is mostly widely related to hate and contempt. Although I have had experience with Final Cut Pro, we were unsure of how to edit it and had to test out different effects. This exercised the "Thinkers" and problem solving aspects of the IB leaner profile. Soon, by using the colour balance function we managed to modify the RGB (red, green, blue) colour schemes. By emphasizing the redness and making the shot slightly brighter, it was able to convey a sensation of anger. One unanticipated advantage our the location of the shot, was the red brick staircase was a natural sources of red as well and was very compatible when enhancing the redness of the shot.

Secondly, we had to convey an atmosphere of sadness and grief using the same shot. We did this by doing the opposite of what we did when conveying the sense of anger. We did this by enhancing the blues and purples of the shot and making the shot slightly dimmer. The "cool" darker colours provided an aura of sadness; the outcome was quite successful. In addition adjusting the colours we also explored some other functions. One of which was the speed, or frames per second, of the shots. Xiang Yi suggested that we slow the shot down when the actor was surprised to emphasize his emotions. By making the shot 50fps rather than the original 100fps, it blurred the shot as well as slowing it down and we were very content with the outcome.

Other than footage editing, we also did some sound editing. While brainstorming on how we can improve our "work" sound effect; we decided that we can have multiple tracks going on simultaneously to obtain the "busy" feel. Ms.Wong also got us to contemplate what other sounds may be present in a work environment and we soon devised many more sounds that we could incorporate, such as: a phone ringing, the hitting of keys on a calculator, coughing and the rustling of paper. We also made the sound effect more realistic by typing and writing naturally, in a systematic way, as supposed to the original random typing and scribbling which just sounded very messing. After capturing the new sound recording and overlapping the new clip and the original clip we obtained a very convincing sound effect of work.

Today we more of a self-learning lesson. Rather than being taught, we learned from solving problems and from each other. Both in the editing process and in the filming process, we had little guidance and had to interpret our instructions by ourselves. I learned to be a "risk taker" by slowing down the dramatic frames to enhance certain emotions and features and well as be "open minded" to ideas such as overlapping the sounds clips to achieve a more realistic result. And I think we all benefited from deciphering the many functions on Final Cut Pro. Overall, although we had little experience with the program, using the knowledge that we knew, we were able to reason with each other which function to use and obtained a very pleasing outcome.