Our group decided to edit parts of our thriller opening in sections depending on how much experience each person has had before. Sapphire Sherbird was our main editor as she has had the most experience with iMacs and the iMovie programme.
I have edited the introduction up to when the lift doors open, as it is slow paced and doesn’t include a lot of cuts as i was only introduced to all of these technical programmes and equipment right before we started editing, which was done in the preliminary task where i got a small tutorial of how roughly things function and come together.
Billie edited the first-half of the elevator scene, up until Billie’s character pushes the ‘open doors’ button. This scene is more fast-paced than the introduction and Billie has had more experience with iMovie.
Sapphire’s was to edit the second-half of the elevator scene, which is also the ending. She has had the most experience on iMovie and handled the more complicated editing. To give the effect of a light flickering on and off, she cropped a frame and darkened it. To create more of an effect, she cropped more of the shots in random places and darkened them, making them flicker on and off randomly. When played back, it looks like the lights are flickering on and off looking realistic, we were all present when this was taking place so we learnt as well as getting our end needed result.
Klaudia’s job was to edit the sound and handle the sound effects, voice-overs and music.
The editing and effects of our thriller opening is clear to the audience. For example, match-on-action is used throughout the thriller opening and especially the lights flickering on and off.
![2](https://dominikaagnieszkakrywcun.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/2.jpg?w=610)
The print screens here, show a match-on-action edit. It shows Billie pushing a button, and as she pulls away, there is a middle shot.
![3](https://dominikaagnieszkakrywcun.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/3.jpg?w=610)
The most advanced edit that had to be done was the flickering of the lights. This was done using an effect called ‘exposure adjust’. It allows the user to adjust the amount of exposure of the clip, giving a dark effect as if the lights are dim. Instead of editing the lights to be completely dark, sapphire dimmed it so the audience could still see what was happening. This way, the audience have even more of a shock when the lights turn off completely.
![6](https://dominikaagnieszkakrywcun.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/6.jpg?w=610)
The order at which we worked at through the ‘editing’ stages in our group.
Lesson 1
- Uploading the footage
- Putting it in chronological order
- Watching over clips to ensure they do not need to be re-recorded.
Lesson 2
- Uploading the footage that was re-shot, and replacing it with the bad version.
- Trimming and splitting clips where necessary.
- Trimming to create match-on-action shots.
Lesson 3
- Adjusting the sound in necessary places to get rid of sound that isn’t needed in the scene, for example people talking in the background.
- Watching the opening back to see where voice overs and sound effects need to be put in.
Lesson 4
- Adding non-diagetic music to create more tension and atmosphere.
- Adding diagetic sound and sound effects to the thriller opening, such as any voice overs, lip-gloss noise etc.
- Adding titles
Sound
In most films, sound effects are added to emphasize realism and we proceeded to do just that. After watching the rough edit of the thriller opening, I was the one that wrote down a list of sound effects and voice overs that need to be put in and if they can be recorded if we need them from the internet, knowing we can only use copy-right free material.
- Dial tone for when Billie is calling her friend (record it)
- A man’s voice over for the elevator technician (record it – I will use a classmates deep voice)
- Breathing/panting from Billie for when the lights go out (record it)
- Clicking for when Dominika clicks her neck (internet)
- Scream for when Billie screams at the end (record it)
A problem occurred when trying to record Billie’s scream on the Mac, as it came out distorted and too high pitched due to the loudness of it. Our group decided to film Billie’s scream and all other sounds that need to be recorded on a flip-cam as it’s microphone is a higher quality than a Mac’s.
For the cracking of the neck, Sapphire browsed various copy-right free sound effect websites to search for the sound. She found a website called http://soundbible.com/ , which had a lot of sound effects that I could use. There, she found two sounds that worked well, so download them both.
http://soundbible.com/408-Velcro-Rip.html In the film industry, sounds aren’t what they all appear. So my neck cracking isn’t actually the sound of a neck cracking, it could be Velcro ripping, as it sounds the same all that we have to do is adjust its pitch and length in order to let it what we need.
http://soundbible.com/925-Bone-Crushing.html This sound is very short and quick, whereas I crack her neck slowly.