Post-Production: Blank Space

On my time line I used a lot of black gaps in between most of my footage. Although they looked unintentional and unfinished, it was actually on purpose. I wanted to create an effect of my character blinking during a POV shot. I also liked the blank spaces because it gives more attention onto one clip. 

[video of blinking]

But after showing people, they said I should close the gaps. 

Post-Production: Smoothcam and Motion Blur

I chose the effect, "Smoothcam" to run throughout my title-sequence, I really like the effect of it as it reinforces the theme of, "dreaming" it's smoothing and motion blurring of the footage helps achieve this. Especially on the shot below, it shows her in the last state before she transitions to more sophisticated and wealthier.  Also, I didn't use much of a tripod whilst filming because it also aided into the weird motion I wanted to achieve.  This is it with smoothcam:

This is the scene without smoothcam:

In the scene above, I also added the motion-blur effect; I deliberately chose this clip as it will set the tone of the entire title sequence. The effect I was aiming to achieve is a go-pro over the shoulder effect, giving it that following + dreamy atmosphere. 

My favourite scene is the ending, it's the final two scenes that contain the smoothcam and motion blur; it really adds stress upon the "dream" theme:

The Play Of Dark-To-Light Lighting

As my narrative is to show the journey of improvement throughout my title-sequence, I want to stress upon this with the lighting. The connotations of "Dark" shows emotions of sadness whereas "Light" shows emotions of happiness.

To use the dark lighting at the beginning to clearly prove her sadness. The graffiti shot was lightly saturated:

As you can see, it has very beautiful and clear lighting, but I didn't really want this.











Although I was graced with beautiful lighting on the dates of my shootings, I had to reincorporate the idea of my lighting. Relying on post-production to help me convey this idea. Therefore, I used an editing technique called, "Gamma Correction"

Playing with the effect, I got to play with the darkness:

As you can see with the before and after shots, I was able to alter the lighting:

Before: Light

After: Dark

After doing this, I can see it improves the grittiness of the location adding emphasis on her poor background.

Whereas the light side of the title sequence, I got very lucky with the sunny lighting so I didn't have to rely much on post-production. The light depicts the happiness my protagonist has in her current state of being up London:

Changing Of The Escalator Scene

In my title-sequence I play upon the idea of a "dream" involving a set-goal for my protagonist. In my sequence I initially had a shot of my actor going down on the escalator, I realised I didn't like the idea of this due to the connotations of going down, luckily in my reshoot I filmed her also going up the escalator. Going up towards her goal seems much more suitable than going down.

The original shot.





















Nevertheless, I do like both over-the-shoulder cinematography in my sequence. This is to emphasise that we're following her. Although, I did change it to her going up, I prefer tis one because it's much more intimate than the last shot creating a synthetic relationship with the character; this is when the producer of the movie builds a relationship between the character and the audience, playing upon emotions.

 I prefer the closer, over-the-shoulder shot.

Alternating The Sound

Because my soundtrack is very long, almost seven minutes there was a specific section of this song that had an upbeat recurring beat that I wanted to integrate. Like previously, having a recurring theme of my typography, I want the similar effect with my soundtrack. I also had a thought that from the change from her being from poor-to-rich she's still the same person and still has the same values so therefore, by using the same font and soundtrack throughout this represents this. 

So to get the specific beat in the song, I copy and pasted the soundtrack twice into my timeline. One for the beginning and the second to crop to the specific part. I then discovered a problem with using two different sections of the same song - the crossover between the two. Luckily with my own knowledge, I knew I could use a fading crossover to help remove the major transition from the slow intro into the upbeat climax of the song. Done here, I used the Cross Fade (+3dB) because it gets louder so it adds three dB.

Also I added a cross fade at the beginning of my title sequence so there isn't an impactful start, it wouldn't fit my genre. Therefore by using a cross fade to let the music slowly come into play. 

On the note of the sound, as you can see in the photo above the sound doesn't start from the exact start. In fact, it starts after one clip of footage, I done this deliberately because I like the feel of the footsteps in the audio of the clip - it adds a dramatic start. It also adds emphasis on focusing on the character, you aren't drawn away by a soundtrack. 

I removed the audio from all off my clips, except the beginning: 

You can also see the fade effect appear at the end of the soundtrack. The reasoning behind this is because,just like the start, I don't want an abrupt ending to my title-sequence, I want it to fade into the start of the actual movie. Unlike last time, I increased the length of the cross fade because it adds to the idea of the "dream" theme I want to produce. Slowly ending to indicate her happy ending:

Post-Production: Money scene

I wanted to use direct symbolism to indicate certain aspects of my protagonist; as she starts off in a poor and run-down area, other than showing her location I went one step further and showing spare change to emphasise her wealth.

With the feedback from my peers and especially my teacher, they all mentioned that the money scene looked a bit out of place. Although I was able to capture the darks-to-lights that I planned for my film, the lighting of this part was very out of place - it had an orange tint to it.

 As you can see, the orange tint is very prominent. Almost matching the coins; because it really played on my mind, I went and reshot this scene in its entirety. Keeping in mind my actor doesn't go to the same school as me and as well living on the other side of London, I had to improvise. I looked around school to find a similar skin tone as my actor in order to redo this.




After the reshoot, this was my end result:

I then incorporated this into my sequence, finally showing the people around me they didn't really like the look of her hand. It looked out of place, as much as the last. Therefore, having to rethink again I discovered the power of 3-way colour correcting.

With the amazing use of Final Cut Pro, I was able to alter the colouring of this awful shot. Focusing on the blacks and the mid-tones, I played around with it until I got a satisfactory colour. In the end, I could see the difference and was much nicer than the last.









The money scene is specifically important as my genre is, "coming-of-age" it shows a journey from one place to the other. Showing she has not a lot of money and then comparing her to when she's looking more wealthy and in a different environment.

Post-Production: Typography Change

After watching my draft of my title-sequence over and over, I discovered the font I chosen didn't really suit well. Although, last time I chose font I got help my peers to help choose but this time round I went with my own opinion. 

I went from "Permanent marker" font to "KGSummer Sun":

The reasoning from this change was it looks very similar to the font from the movie, "Juno". I like its imperfectness about it, it also matches the background containing graffiti. As well it fits my genre conventions of a "coming of age" it looks as if a teenager has written it.

The Juno Font

 Previously, I wanted to use two different fonts for the titling of my film to the credits. However, this has changed. I have now used a recurring theme throughout as I believe it just indicates the genre of the movie.

The typography helps convey my genre, because my genre is a Coming Of Age story this contains a journey from one place to another; emphasising on the imperfect life (which happens with my settings) to when somebody is better off and living a happier life (which I show at the end). 

Post-Production: Soundtrack Change

After discovering that "HNSCC" by The 1975 doesn't fit my genre, I went on a quest to find a much more fitting song that'll best suit my genre, narrative as well as exerting that "feel-good" atmosphere.  I have chosen a song called "Hearts" as it has a dreamy and trance feel to it, creating that much desired atmosphere that I am seeking from my title sequence. It suits it effortlessly and definitely creates that tone, i'm very pleased with discovering this song.