Ben & Alex's Preliminary Task Log

Post-Production

The post-production side of the preliminary task was the editing of the video and the audience feedback. After shooting the video we had around 3 minutes of footage but most of the clips we wanted to keep in the final video so it ended up as a 1 minute video whereas most others are around 30 seconds. The individual clips that we filmed consisted of a scene at the stairs which was lost on the camera so we weren’t able to include it in our final video, a scene of the main character opening the main double doors, which was shortened from its original length to keep the video more flowing from one clip to another.

In the editing we used a fade from one ‘walking’ scene to another to give the impression that a small amount of time has passed between the two clips because a cut is used from the start of the corridor to halfway down otherwise the shot would go on forever. After this there was a conversation scene with the 2 main characters asking eachother how their weekend was when a ‘tender’ subject gets brought up by Alex. This provokes a reaction of RAGE from James who takes his anger out on anything he can get his hands on. Editing this scene was tough and on one part it is visible that it hasn’t worked because there is a slight pause between two different takes. This pause is between the first chair being pushed and the second one being thrown and it may only last for a split second but it still disrupts the flow of the anger. If I could change the way this scene flowed during filming I would have made it one long take instead of two shorter ones to compensate for the change of camera angle, whereas if it was in one take the transition would be seamless as there wouldn’t be two scenes to try and fit together like a jigsaw.

Overall I think that the editing of our prelim went well even though we didn’t have long to do it. The editing from start to finish took us about 10 minutes and it may have been a bit rushed but I think that the finished product was near enough what we wanted it to be.

The improvisation in the last scene was what we needed because the battery on the camera was about to run flat so without the last minute thinking by James we would not have had an ending to our preliminary task.

By Ben Marshall