Editing Day #3

Well, you know what they say, third time's a charm! -At least I hope it is 😐-

Today was my third day editing the film opening and I may a final copy! I'll be sending the finished video to a focus group I assembled tomorrow at 6:00 am, all the group members have until 2:45 to email me their observations about the film (I'll discuss the process more later in the post). Today was a long day with many different parts, here's the breakdown of the editing process!

Oops, My Bad!
On my last editing post, I mentioned that my mom pointed out a problem with my audio which was preventing the diegetic sound that transitions into a voice over to be clearly heard. I wanted to get more opinions, not because I don't trust my mom's vast experience in the filed, but rather because I wanted to make sure it wasn't just her who felt the voice competed with the static in the voice over. I asked my friend Jake (who's portfolio blog is amazing! Check it out HERE!) to view the opening and give me feedback; I didn't tell him what my mom had pointed out so there weren't any demand characteristics. Jake agreed. I even asked one more person, whose opinion I highly value, to watch it and they gave me the same feedback; "the shots look great, but there's something about the audio that's not right."

I thought I had fixed my audio problem by creating the "dips" but it seems like I needed to revisit it. By discussing the feedback, I found the problem; I recorded the voice over on the sony recorder and later took a video of that recording which is what you could hear in the film opening. The audio sounded authentically old but the static was WAY too loud, which hindered the audience from hearing the dialogue (an essential part of the opening). When I explained the situation to my instructor, she recommended I changed the leveling; but that can't be done since they aren't separate tracks... I should have known better than to use a third generation of the audio!!

I had to sit down and re-record the ENTIRE audio directly into the editing platform (using a mic) so that I could manipulate the levels; sure, I could have left it as it was, but I'm committed to this project and when I commit, I commit my 110%. Since the static audio has a constant volume I had to create A LOT of  "dips" to get it to sound somewhat close to the original. The voice over is much clearer in the new version of the audio, but I'm just not convinced it's good enough, it sounds mediocre; my gut is telling me something isn't right. I plan on looking for a solution tomorrow as I haven't slept in days and I still need to get through writing this post while everything is still fresh on my mind.

Here is a short clip from both versions of the opening, try listening to hear the difference between the diagetic voice over.

Adding The New Scenes
When I recorded the filling cabinet scene I wasn't sure that I would use them in the opening because I was concerned about the quality of the production; however, after editing them together, I think it helped enhance the overall story just like in my storyboard! I added the new videos and decided to lower their brightness, increase their contrast, and increase their saturation to help disguise the backdrop. I was quite happy with the results! I edited the timing so that the shots would be quick, added the non-diegetic sound of a heartbeat, and left black frames between shots. When I first came up with the idea of adding a heartbeat I thought I would soon dismiss it, it turns out it was a great idea! The slowly increasing, low base, heartbeat builds up the tension into the experimenter's scene. I love how the scene turned out, have a look! PS: I recommend to wear headphones when listening because I'm finding some devices don't have enough base power like to hear the heartbeat. 

This scene is so fun to make because of one thing, there's a psychological reaction! When the audience hears the sound, it's a clue that the atmosphere is both very tense and potentially dangerous, this causes the viewer's own sympathetic nervous system to react by making them more alert (in a way warming up their "flight or fight" response). Knowing that the media I produce can have this type of effect has gotten me to question whether content creators are both aware of the power they have on the audience's emotions and whether they all use that influence responsibly.