Avid Editing Studio Shoot Task - Day 3

Today I revisited my rough cut which I completed last time with fresh eyes to see how I could refine it and make it better. I spent a lot of time going through and cutting clips down so that the piece flowed a lot faster and also I looked into the continuity because even though I have made my edit very conceptual and abstract I knew I still needed to be aware of the continuity so that it was still easily watchable to the viewers.

After I spent time working on my pace and continuity and improved this I revisited the ending of the piece as I still wasn't happy. Last time I had tried a lot of editing techniques which would slow it down at the end to add drama but after re-watching and also letting some other people view it I felt from ym own opinion and from their feedback that the ending lacked pace which meant it wasn't as intense and therefore I knew this effected the piece overall because there was no build. I tried thinking of ways to improve this and after thinking back to the flashing techniques I had used in the edit prior to this I realised that would help add tension. I originally used the flashed to not only build tension but to make the piece abstract and conceptual like the evil was slowly appearing as the characters begin to realise what is happening to them. I wanted to do this again but have the flashing speed up to such a fast pace and then suddenly end on black to show how bad the situation has now gotten to as the main character has lost the fight. I did this by taking three versions of the end shot, one with natural light, one with red lighting and one with blue lighting. I then layer all three on top of each other and ha points where it slowly flashed between the three but not regularly. Then i timed it so these flashes got quicker and more often until it finally reaches the climax where each clip is only on screen fro two frames. Here is how this looked on my timeline:

This took me a lot of time to do as I had to keep playing around with he timings to find the best way to make it flow but I really feel it was worth it as this ending is a lot more effective now and builds to a much better ending.

This is now what my timeline looked like after playing around with all the timing etc to create a faster pace:

I am much happier with this now as I feel my overall edit runs a lot smoother and therefore is much more exciting to watch.

I then moved on to making my title sequence which would appear at the beginning. I decided the best way to approach this was to use the extra B-roll footage we had captured of the set as this was be a good way to introduce the space almost like an establishing shot so that it isn't as abrupt at the beginning. I looked at this footage and I favoured the shots of the two desks we captured as this shows a nice comparison between the Id side of the set and the Ego side of the set. I felt like I should keep to my editing style in the intro and again decided to use my flashing (glitching) technique to have the Super Ego side slowly transform to show the Id side and then introduce the name of the piece. Here is how it looked when I began trying this out:

Again I played around a lot with the timing of this to get the best flow I could.

I then started to choose a type face for the title and decided that because I had used so much of this flashing effect which like I have said is almost like a glitch I wanted a very computer related typeface so chose one which seemed very uniformed and reflected the style of my piece. I then added an effect which makes the background blur out as the site appears which again matches the style I have worked in so far and this is where I got to:

I obviously then added this title sequence to the beginning of my timeline so I could see what it looked like running the whole way through.

I was very happy with what I achieved today as I felt like it runs a lot more smoothly now and that I have begun to develop a style to this edit which flows throughout.