Evaluation

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?



2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?



3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?



4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

5. How did you attract/address your audience?


6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?



7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK

Audience Feedback

To gain some opinions on our piece, I asked a couple of my friends from school to watch the film and give some feedback, and some constructive criticism.

What, in particular, did you like about our film?

My friends noted, in the questionnaire that I supplied them with, that they were impressed with the amount of attention we paid to small details. For example, the spray paint on the bus, during the drug deal scene. We didn't spray it ourselves, but they were impressed that we managed to find a location of this quality for the film. The paint reads "shoot 2 kill", and they thought that this was an effective use of foreshadowing. They also noted that we made good use of natural lighting. This is because during the drug deal scene, we managed to line up the sunlight with the shade for one of our long shots, highlighting that the film is a story with two clear sides of good and evil. They were also very happy with our location choices, and our decision to play homage to 'Odd Man Out' during the opening credits. Furthermore, they were very impressed with the acting. 

Do you have any criticisms of our film? If so, what?

They both noted that they thought the actors we got for the rookie police officer and the detective may have been a little young, considering they are in our year, while portraying cops in their mid 20s. Also, they thought that we should have had some more establishing shots, such as a couple of famous murals, or the peace wall. 

Are there any things you think we could have done to improve the film?

Both questionnaire participants felt that it probably would have been better for us to get older actors for the character of the rookie police officer, and that of the detective. However, we were unable to get actors of the appropriate age. They also thought that it may have been a good idea to film in black and white, to help add to the dark and gritty tone of the film, and especially considering the fact that it was bright during one of our scenes. However, they noted that this may have been for the best because, as previously mentioned, they thought that we made good use of the available natural lighting, with the sunlight and shade.

Our Final Film

'Undercover'

Make sure to watch in 1080p

Post-Production

Softwares used

Adobe Photoshop - I had little experience with photoshop, however I needed to use it in order to edit the newspaper cover

Adobe After effects - I used after effects for the majority of the editing process as I already have some experience with it and I am relatively efficient in it

Adobe Audition -  I used audition whilst trying to remove background noise from the audio recorded as well as trying to boost the vocals. I was new to audition and wasn't very efficient with it, and it also didn't work very well in removing the wind sounds.

Adobe Premiere - I used premiere during the latter stages of the editing process in order to sync up the new dubbed audio with the original footage. I was new to the software however I found it easy to use and I managed to use it efficiently

Pre-Production

Photoshopping the Newspaper Cover

As we needed the newspaper as a prop in the film, it was necessary for us to edit and develop the newspaper cover prior to filming. To do this, I downloaded a picture of the front cover of a copy of the irish news and then removed all titles and unnecessary pictures. I then edited a picture of our rookie cop actor onto the cover and added a title alerting the reader to his death, using the font  Times New Roman Bold. I then enlarged the cover to the resolution of a real newspaper and made sure to use bicubic smoother in order to maintain a high-quality resolution when the cover was scaled up. We then brought a copy of the finished newspaper on a USB stick to a printer in our art department and had the cover printed onto newspaper paper, and then we wrapped it up in other newspaper sheets to make it look realistic.

Post-Production

Video

Sequencing and applying fades

The first and most tedious part of editing is sequencing all of the clips and layers  together. This involves a great deal of trimming and altering the position of layers in order for the film to run smoothly together and maintain continuity. I also applied a fading effect to some layers in order to ensure that layers transitioned into eachother smoothly.

Adding Titles

A basic yet crucial phase in the post-production process is adding titles and credits to the film, both at the beginning and ending. I used the font 'Eras Bold ITC' as I believe it had a thick cinematic look to it and made the film look more professional.

Applying filters and removing grain

After I sequenced the clips together, I then got to work on removing grain and noise from the footage in after effects. Some layers needed more grain removal from others, especially the pool scene due to it's dark lighting. I also needed to make a conscious effort not to remove too much noise as making the footage too smooth would make it look artificial. I then got to work on colour grading and applying filters using the adobe after effects plugin Magic Bullet Looks. I applied a cinematic filter to the establishing shots, and a warm, melancholy filter to the bar scene. I also altered the brightness and contrast of the establishing shots to make them look slightly gloomier. I then went on to apply a cinematic filter to the pool hall scene as well as increasing the colour vibrancy due to it's dim lighting. The greatest challenge however came about in applying a filter to the docks scene. This is due to the fact that although the day had been dark and gloomy about an hour previously, the sun had arisen and the day had gotten bright. As a result I needed to lower the brightness and alter the contrast, as well as adding a filter which accentuated black tones, dulled vibrant colours and made the footage seem gloomier overall.

Applying stabilizer 

I applied a stabilizer on a variety of clips of footage in order to remove some shakiness, however it proved to have almost no effect on the shakiness of the footage.

Time Remapping

I found that the panning shot that first introduces us to the drug dealer lacked consistency and the shot sped up and slowed down in different places. In order to stabilize this, I used time remapping and key framing in order to make sure that the pan was roughly the same speed throughout and maintained consistency.

Audio

Altering audio volume

Due to the fact that the different layers and scenes were not of identical volume, I made an effort to reduce and amplify some of their audio in order balance it out. I also had to fade audio in and out to match the fading of the footage, as well as fading out or muting any external sounds such as laughter which I hadn't noticed while filming

Adding soundtrack and sound effects

For the soundtrack of the film, I chose moody melancholic jazz for the opening and ending scene, as well as ambient jazz for the dock scene. The music I used was independently made and copyright free, however I made sure to contact the artists to get their permission before I used their music. After downloading the music, I simply had to drag and drop it into the composition. As for the sound effects, I used freesounds.com to get download sound effects of ambiance, realistic pistol gunshots and a phone vibration before dragging it into the composition.

Applying telephone effect

In order to create the rather brief audio effect of giving the impression that the chief was speaking over the phone, I trimmed the clip of him speaking that I needed and opened it in adobe audition. Here I opened up an FFX equalizer and set the audio the telephone preset. This gave the audio the effect of sounding like it was coming from a mobile phone, adding reverb and slight echo while making it sound quite tinny.

Removing background noise and altering frequencies

Without a doubt the most difficult and time consuming part of the editing process was trying to remove the loud wind in the background of the docks scene. For this, I began by using adobe after effects' built in equalizer to try and remove the high and low wind frequencies while boosting the vocal frequencies, however this had very little effect. I then added a high/low pass to remove some of the low humming wind frequencies, however this gave the audio of the vocals quite a high tinny sound. I then closed after effects and opened the audio into adobe audition which I had no experience with whatsoever. Here I tried to edit the waveform of the file by selecting and cutting some low frequencies, however this damaged the dialogue audio as well. I opened up various equalizers and applied effects such vocal enhancers, before opening up adobe premiere and seeing if it's denoiser effect had any effect in reducing the background noise. While a lot of the wind sound was silenced, it was still clearly audible and the various effects used to lower it caused the original dialogue audio to sound tinny and somewhat distorted.

Overdubbing audio + adding ambiance

Due to the poor quality of the audio even after I edited it in Audition, I decided it'd be best just to retake the audio altogether. To do this I borrowed a mic from a friend and got Liam (drug dealer) and Matthew (rookie cop) to come back to my house to retake their dialogue. I then muted the audio of the original clip and synced the new audio together in Adobe Premiere before adding this new clip back into the After Effects composition and replacing the original footage. As the new footage is muted bar the dialogue, it is necessary to add some background ambiance which I downloaded from Freesounds.

Sound Editing and Music Research

Sound Editing and Music Research

Soundtrack

Establishing Shots

For the soundtrack to the opening scene of the film, we chose the song '4:18' by Chicago based hip-hop producer Dan the Automator. Dan has an eclectic discography, ranging from working with rapper Kool Keith, to futuristic sci-fi rap project Deltron 3030, and even to producing Gorillaz first album. The track we have chosen is a rather simplistic jazz loop, however it perfectly captures a moody and suspenseful atmosphere which sets the mood of the film.

Bar Scene

For this scene, we have decided to use the track 'Midnight Walker' by Bohren & Der Club of Gore, who are known as one of the key players in the jazz-noir renaissance.  Based in Germany,  In 1992 they produced a crossover of jazz and ambient, which they self described as an "unholy ambient mixture of slow jazz ballads, Black Sabbath doom and down tuned Autopsy sounds". This track perfectly captured the melancholy gloom and despair of the final scene.

Dialogue

Our film is going to relied heavily on dialogue and as a result we had to make extensive use of it during the phone call between the rookie cop and the chief and the encounter between the rookie cop and the drug dealer.

Overdubbing

As a result of the loud wind we experienced when filming the outdoors scene at the docks, it was necessary for us to overdub the dialogue. After filming the footage, we borrowed a mic and went to a friends house and redid the audio. We then muted the audio track of the original footage and overdubbed it with the new better quality audio.

Ambient Sound

As a result of our having to mute the original audio of the docks scene due to loud wind, it was necessary to add in some ambient sound to replace it. We downloaded some typical industrial ambiance and overlaid it on the original footage.

Diegetic Synchronous Sound

We made use of a variety of diagetic and synchronous sounds, such as the drug dealer's footsteps, the striking of the snooker balls and the lighting of the match.

Sound Perspective

We made use of sound perspective during the brief close-up noddy shot of the rookie cop while he's stressing out over the phonecall. We edited the chiefs voice to sound echoed and distorted to mimic the sound of a mobile phone and also give the impression that the sound is at a distance from the rookie cop.

Sound Effects

We made use of some sound effects in the post-production phase, for example adding in the sound of the chief's phone vibration and the sound of the gunshot.

Sound Mixing

Before we chose to overdub the audio, we spent a lot of time mixing the audio in post-production. We used various softwares along with equalizers and audio effects to alter frequencies to try and boost the sound of vocals along with removing background noise and wind sounds.

The Editing Process

Editing

Visual Effects

Filters were added to the footage along noise reduction. Brightness and contrast had to be tampered with to make the day seem gloomier than it was. I will go into more detail about this process in the post-production blogpost

Long Takes

The series of establishing shots are all rather long in order for it to be long enough for the credits scene

Titles

Titles and text are overlaid over the establishing shots in order to display both the title and the credits

Fade In/Out

The fade out technique is used both in the credits and at the end of the film in order to gradually transition out of their respective scenes, while the fade in technique is used in order to gradually fade into the bar scene

Parallel Editing/Crosscutting

This editing technique is used during the phonecall between the rookie cop and the young officer in order to show that their dialogue exchange is happening simultaneously even if they are in different locations

Action Match

Action matches are used throughout the film, for example during the phone call between the chief and young officer. Action Matches are used to create a continuity of action, such as occurs when the young officer dials a number on his phone which then cuts to the chief's phone ringing

Audio Match Cut

As the chief strikes the snooker balls, the sound it makes acts as a key for the young officer to snap back to reality

Ellipsis

An ellipsis is used at the end of the docks scene to indicate the passage of time from the rookie cop's execution to the young officer reading the news in the bar

Insert

An insert is used in the bar scene in order to abruptly cut away from the subject and show the text he had received on his phone