PRODUCTION: Editing

The editing stage is possibly the most precise out of all of the stages. We took turns, Katie doing more of the physical work, and I took more of an artistic role, pointing out places we could cut and effects we could add. We effectivly mnaged to cut over 5 minutes of footage to just below the required 2 minutes.

We encountered a fair few probelms along the way, first and formost being in cutting the clips. We found that, after we had completed the filming, we had far too much footage, and even when cut down reached well over our two minute line. To overcome this we, first of all, cut down the clips to only the scenes we'd need, and then cut them so that they fitted well with the others. We did a fair amount if shuffling around of scenes, shaving a couple of seconds off here and there so that we would run to time.

One main problem we encountered was while we were trying to add the insert of the actors names, as the frames then spliced together, leaving duplicate copies. We managed to edit the frames whilst they were like that, and deleted the duplicate copies, and so effectively managed to overcome it. Here is an image of me working on the MAC.

Next came sound. First of all we edited the sound already on the video, keeping some of the more ambient pieces like the footsteps as Katie and I walk, and cutting anything necessary.
We spent around an hour searching for some copyright free music that we could use as a backing track for our piece. Eventually we came up with the perfect piece 'Got The Smarts' from freeplaymusic.com, which we decided was perfect. One we had added it, we had the problem where the music kicked in a little too early for the scene. We cut part of the music and moved it to where we wanted it, and then copied a section of the earlier rhythm and spliced it in so that it ran seamlessly to the timing we wanted.
We recorded Katie's voiceover straight onto the MAC, and added it to the clips. We had to bring up the sound levels so that it could be heard properly, and then drop the music sound level. Initially we couldn't hear the voiceover very well over the music, so I suggested we fade the volume of the music during the speech, and then make it louder in the action pieces. I found this worked pretty effectively. By then the only thing we had left to do was to add the 'zombie noises' for when the zombie is eating the male character. We found the perfect noise, but found it a little short for the length we envisioned it. To combat this we, again, copied a section of the noise and added it to the other. I noticed that the pitch rose slightly at the end, and suggested we cut the end of the first part so that the two ran smoothly together. We then faded out the music as the zombie noises faded in.

Katie and I wrote the script together on the day we recorded it. We collaborated on what should be said and in some instances changed word orders to accommodate both our ideas. Here is a picture of me making some alterations to the script.

And here's a copy of the the finished plan sheet for our voiceover script.














Katie and I managed to effectively overcome the obstacles we encountered both in filming with our actors dropping out, and in editing, and finished our piece well within the deadline.