WHAT HAVE I LEARNT INEDITING

Colour correction

Using the colour corrector tool within final cut, enabled us to adjust tones such as whites, mids blacks and saturation within the clips. We decided to go for a darkish, slightly bluely tone, to give a cold, sinister look. This helped enhance the mood represented in the shot.

OpacityWith this tool, we could easily fade in and out, crossfade and create a ‘blinking’ like effect in the clip. This became a useful, successful tool, to create length, and build ups, to slow down certain areas and speed up others. It gave us scope to become more professional in experimenting with different transitions instead of the typical ‘cut’.

Using Final cut to organise our finished clips and render the final sequence.Colour corrected did

however become frustrating in final cut as the lack of filters meant we couldn’t create a correction with really enhanced colour change. This meant we lacked professionalism in our clips at the start, where we made it darker using a separate colour correcting programme we could have accomplished a more interesting, thriller like look.

Freeze FramingBy freeze framing a certain frame within the clip, allowed me to use the background of the field (around the scope) and mask out the area I wanted. This then created a still image around the outside of the scope.

The Wiggler EffectUsing this useful tool inside after effects allowed me to adjust how much movement (Sway) to give on the masked image. This gave a realistic handheld like feel, without looking to mechanically edited.

Opacity

We balanced the opacity here to get the right amount of darkness coming through in the clip. We didn’t want to create a ‘game like look’, so by lowering the opacity we could get more brightness coming through.

Using Adobe After Effects CS3 to create the title sequence and sniper scene

MaskingOriginally, we were not happy with a straight overlay of a sniper scope image placed on top of the original clip. So we decided to crop round it to give a sense of where the sniper was looking. The white area shows where we masked the scope, and faded (Feathered) it in.

AUDIO

We gathered our sounds from many different sources such as a complete sound effect design package called (Sound FXs extreme) and another package which came with Jacks Final Cut Pro X software in which we found hundreds of different

sound effects related to our thriller.

Once the sounds were imported we cut the relevant sections and moved the clips to fit the video. Using the Pen tool, we then created fade ins and fade outs of the audio, lowering the volume in places and enhancing the volume in others. We also took some sounds from the raw footage we shot. By

disconnecting the footage with the audio, we moved sections to other areas of the video which made it sound more interesting and exciting.

THE ORGANISATION STAGE FIRST STAGE OF EDITING THE TITLE SEQUENCE

Firstly, all the clips had to be organised into the relevant places within the timeline. For example first they had to be cut and moved so all flow as one. At this stage I also twixtored (an external plugin within after effects that allows for advance slow motion settings) Once I set

the key frames I could change what speed I wanted twixtor to be. I also Pre composed some layers so I didn’t have loads of layers which were all separate instead I put them all in one clip, in affect.

ADDING THE TITLES

Adding titles to the finished video background sequence was experimental. Firstly using the wiggler effect, I could give the titles a slow random movement or a fast paced movement. This was then refined by the use of the radical blur effects which were key framed at specific points to fit the relevant movement e.g. low blur slow pace, high blur fast pace. I had to be careful not to over blur areas of text as it could be easily lost, and unreadable.

Wiggler Effect

Key Frames

BEFORE RENDERING TIMELINE

Just before I began rendering my final title sequence, I made sure all my text layers were complete and refined, and checked the right effect was added onto each layer. Because of the lack of PC power I was restricted to rendering the whole thing out as one complete clip, instead I

had to render it in three, then put it back together again in Final Cut. This was the only drawback I had with edited in after effects on my computer.

Effects I used

One restriction was I had to preview my sequence in the lowest quality, meaning I might have missed areas of raw colour, and shape on some parts of the image being displayed.