“The post-production process can be the most important part of the filming process.”
How important has the post-production stage been in your foundation and advanced portfolios and how have your skills developed over these two years?
Throughout both of my productions I used post-production which helped a great deal to manipulate my filming making them look more professional. For AS, which was my first production I created a thriller opening and for A2, second production, I created a music video along with two ancillary tasks which used a star image motif which connected them together.
Eisenstein believed that editing was ‘the foundation of art’ and by this he meant that there is a relationship amongst multiple shots. He also created two types of montages which were ‘dialectical montages’ and ‘intellectual montages’. ‘Dialectical montages’ were abrupt and didn’t run smoothly which is the sort of effect which is used in the film ‘Seven’. I didn’t use montages like this in either of my productions because it didn’t suit what I was trying to portray to the audience. I would have liked to have made my thriller abrupt but the opening was more of a silent thriller which worked well. Although in the making of my music video, I did use Eisenstein’s theory of ‘intellectual montages’ which is editing to suggest ideas. I used this is the chorus of the song using the ‘dream’ effect which matched the lyrics of ‘a trick of the light’.
In my thriller opening production I adjusted the levels for brightness and contrast to make it more mysterious. This editing effect was used for the benefit of the audience and to make them feel like they were interpreting what the protagonist was experiencing throughout the opening. I used a basic software package which was available to me, this was iMovie and in the menu for changing the brightness and contrast, there were additional settings for changing the colours of the shot.
Another editing effect I used in my thriller opening was a cut to black right at the end, this made a prompt ending and fitted well to the protagonist screaming when the title of the thriller comes up on the screen just after the cut to black. The black, blank screen was to correspond with the darkness of the shots.
In my music video I used many effects and I think the post-production stage of this production was the most important throughout both of my productions. It was also the main process of my music video. I shot a lot more footage than I intended to or than I needed. This made the editing process quite tense for me because I wanted to get the most amount of footage from a lot of my shots. Most of the shots I took were of the band performing the song and I only did this multiple times to make sure the timings were perfect and easily sync able during the editing stages.
Fast cut montage was the main editing effect which I used because it brought a whole new level of dynamics to my music video. I had to make sure all of the shots were in time with the song and cut on the beat. The hardest part for this section was at the beginning where the music cut on every beat to each member of the band. It was about 0.5 seconds for each shot apart from the drummer who was 0.2.
I used a few preset effects which were in a little menu on the timeline. I clicked on it and a palette of effects came up on screen. I used these to make some shots fit in with the lyric, for example in the chorus – ‘a trick of light’, I used the ‘dream’ effect and other various sections of the drummer when I used the ‘vignette’ effect which was to make the audience focus on that part of the shot.
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