1/04/09 - Final Day - Last Minute Fine Tuning

Yesterday was the very last day of filming four our thriller opening. Although I could not make it to the shoot, the other members of my group were successful in obtaining every shot from the list given to us by our teacher (see blog post '19/03/09 - Feedback and Further Improvements'). The members of my group were sure that the footage shot was of a high standard and would be more than enough to be able to finalize our opening.

Today, with the new footage uploaded on to the Mac, we began editing and add last-minute touches to improve the standard of our piece. We began by adding the new footage in order to see exactly what we had in terms of amount and quality of the footage, and put it into the correct order - adjusting length of shots to improve the flow of the narrative and keep to the two minute requirement for the coursework.

Following this, we made a group decision that the music just didn't work. So we decide to get rid of 'Nina Simone - Sinnerman' and find a new, tense, and more engaging piece. I searched the Internet for copyright-free music and found the perfect piece of music. It slowly builds the tension by become louder and faster, so by matching the footage on screen to the music, we were able to make a much more engaging opening.

When the footage was fully edited and the sound matched it accordingly, titles were next. For this, we used Adobe After Affects as it allows some really professional titles effects to be applied, helping to achieve a high standard piece of work. As our thriller is based in a business / work associated location, and the characters look like businessmen themselves, we decided to go with simple, modern looking titles - that were both effective yet not too dominant, as this would draw focus.

Finally, we acquired the help of a fellow media student to teach us some basic skills in Adobe Flash. This is because we wanted to make some professional looking titles for our cinema and production company. They will appear at the very beginning of the opening, before the actual footage starts, as is seen in most professional movies,