Conspiracy Theory Edit (3rd and final post)

Yesterday (6/12/2013), the final edit of the Reptilian Elite conspiracy theory was completed. More interviews regarding the objectives of the reptilian elite and who they are were added to the edit.

These clips help expand upon the idea of the elite, that they're the ones in control and always have been. To keep this interesting, these interviews are again cut between each other. The audio is also placed over relevant images to keep the viewer's attention.  The video then cuts to an audio extract from a "talk-back". In this one can hear quite disturbing sounds of a priest exorcising a girl, who sees visions of said reptiles. In betwen the priest, one can hear unnerving reptile sounds. This tonally changes the video to an even more serious note. Pictures drawn by children who were victims of the satanic rituals then appear on-screen.

This leads into their linkage with satanic stuff. However, this is not dwelled on for too long, as the narrative switches back to the reptilians endgame. This is achieved through more interviews with intermittent images and videos of world events and world leaders that are apart of the Reptilian Elite. The interviews explain the link between satanic cults and the government, due to the shape of the pentagon being almost too similar to that of a pentagram.

The film then ends on a quote from the bible- "For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles,
https://vimeo.com/81202703

Conspiracy Theory (2nd)

After completing the introductory montage, a bunch of different interviews with major theorists in the field of the Reptilian Elite. These include interviews with people like Jesse Ventura and David Icke (The main figure behind The Shapeshifting Reptilian Elite).

From these interviews, a cohesive narrative was structured. This helps in explaining the nature of the Reptilian Elite. It briefly describes their origins and their total endgame in the process. Their endgame being the enslavement of mankind. It provides the necessary information, but in an entertaining manner. It's done this way by quickly cutting between different interviews.

Following this, the interview is used as a voiceover on top of different clips and images that are relevant. This provides more visual stimulus for the viewer. It keeps the viewer engaged and pulls them more into the idea that there might be some truth behind this theory. This includes clips from They Live, images of figureheads such as The Queen, and juxtaposed clips of crocodiles and lizards. Also ancient relics of the past suggesting that the reptilians have been here all along. Then it cuts to images of timelines of different surnames and family trees, juxtaposed with a voiceover, which highlights the interbreeding of the reptilians over years and years.

Conspiracy Theory Edit (1st minute montage/introduction)

As an assignment, a 5 minute edit about a conspiracy theory must be assembled and convince the audience of its legitimacy. The edit must also show off the different techniques and elements learned over the past semester.

The chosen conspiracy theory is The Reptilian Elite and its ties with the illuminati. It's about how shapeshifting reptiles are secretly behind most of the major events in the world. They're a secret society, that are master of puppets, slowly trying to enslave mankind. So, for this assignment, the objective is to convince the viewer.

So far, there has been a minutes worth of the five minute limit assembled. This is essentially the opening for the conspiracy theory. It sets up the stage for information on The Reptilian Elite and gives a glimpse of what atrocities they were behind and who they are. The clip opens with an interview with US president Barack Obama. In said interview, Obama mentions the "Reptilians". The scene then quickly cuts to black and then follows a montage of different quick cuts of major events/disasters/attacks. i.e. 9/11, shots of bombs dropping, soldiers in conflict. Every so often there are clips from John Carpenter's "They Live", where it shows stores as just brainwashing people in with capitalism.

This accentuates that the Reptiles are enslaving us and suppressing us through means such as capitalism. All the while Rage Against the Machine's song "Wake Up" plays over the scenes at hand. It emphasises the control they have over us and how we need to "wake up" to it. Inbetween these shots are images of figureheads with reptile eyes and lizards.  The montage then ends on a clip from They Live where OBEY is plastered all along a convenience store.

This is the edit at the moment. The next step is introducing a brief history of the origins of the reptilians, who are reptiles (figureheads) and their ultimate endgame.

Editing Sound in Post.

Over the past weekend, a 30 second composition was shot but no sound was recorded. This was due to the lack of sound recording equipment and because the on-board mic on the camera was utterly useless.

So this left recording all the sounds separately and adding them in, in post. After going out and recording the relevant sounds ( wildtracks, footsteps, wind, sighs), they were all uploaded and put into the Avid bins. Following this, there was a struggle in syncing up the separate footsteps with the video on-screen. After a while, this was rectified. Thankfully, the wild tracks turned out perfectly for the different locations, which helped add more production value to the shots.

After spotting my actor sighing in one shot, I decided to take full advantage of this by adding in a sighing sound which added some drama to the shot. Once all the foley and other sounds were sorted out, music was then sought out. It had to be something that added some melancholic depth to the scene. It had to help portray the feelings of isolation and longing. After a while of searching, a very apt score was found. Having this placed into the sound mix helped mask one or two sounds that were out of place. However, there's an annoying clicking sound which occurs just after the first shot, which was near enough impossible to remove.

https://vimeo.com/80689334

Scene 37 Edit

Scene 37 from the film "Watching and Waiting" proved to be quite a challenge to edit. There were many obstacles in the footage that was given to be edited.

One of the scenes where the main character, Katherine, gets up to meet Dickie has quite a number of different takes. Each take has one thing or the other wrong with it. For example, in one of them you see the sound pack on the back of Katherine as she walks over to Dickie. And in another, as she walks over to Dickie, we see the boom in shot through a high up mirror on the wall. This was quickly rectified by cutting to the reverse-shot of Katherine coming over just before the boom came into shot.

There was also a problem with one of the actors dialogue. Dickie's dialogue changes in nearly every shot of him and the reverse-shots of Katherine. This proved to be quite arduous as the script had to be consulted several times and many changes had to be made before a compromise for the conversation could be found. Simply, different cuts had to be made and some dialogue had to be cut out for continuity and for the flow of the editing.

This time round in scene editing, sound didnt prove problematic at first. After finishing my edit and uploading it, I realised you can hear the slight jump in the levels differences on every different take.

After looking back at the edit, there a number of things that could be changed for the better. There are a couple of shots which are cut either slightly too quickly or linger for the tiniest bit too long. There was also some difficulty in cutting together the part where Katherine turns around looks at the targets, then cut to her turning back towards Dickie. This proved to be difficult as Dickie's dialogue altered between shots making it hard to cut it.

https://vimeo.com/80552260

Windsurfing Edit 2.0

Today, the windsurf edits were shown. These edits were a second try at editing with music in mind. This time around most of the edits vastly improved.

More suitable music was chosen and cuts were done on the beat rather than awkwardly staying on a shot for too long. It made the video flow and didn't have such an anti-climatic ending as the previous windsurfing edit.
However, the ending still doesn't quite fit as well, but it's much better than the previous attempt. A few fades were thrown into the mix to help transition well with the music.


https://vimeo.com/80449553

Derek Jarman's The Last of England

Jarman's film The Last of England is a personal commentary by the director about the 80s in England. Jarman visually describes the decline of England during this decade throughout the film. It is a non-narrative film that's very visual.

The film contains lots of quick cuts and fast-paced, almost repetitious, editing at points. One point in particular stands out. This is the scene where a man dances in a dress, while quite a booming, sort of industrial track plays over it. This scene's interesting because the film came out just before music videos and MTV became big.

Saying this, it could be suggested that Jarman was a pioneer of music video editing back in the day. This is because said scene is exactly what you'd expect from an MTV music video. The scene contains lots of quick cuts, zooms and flashes. It's quick cuts are similar to the almost ADHD editing nature of music videos today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSKd9bGeLWM

Pudovkin's Editing Techniques

The other day while I was browsing the internet regarding editing techniques, I came across a video on vimeo which discussed the techniques by Pudovkin. Pudovkin came about with five editing techniques which helped form cinema in terms of editing and placing shots together. Today, these techniques can be widely seen in most movies.

Pudovkin believed editing to be a method that controls the "psychological guidance" of the viewer rather than a mere method of placing separate scenes or pieces together. He called this relational editing. This can be clearly seen in his five different techniques of editing. These five techniques are:

1) Contrast
2) Parallelism
3) Symbolism
4) Simultaneity
5) Leit Motif


1) Contrast: This is one way of juxtaposition. It's showing two different shots put together show contrast between them to the spectator. An immaculate example given for this is the baptism scene in The Godfather, which cuts away to shots of people being killed. The contrasts shows the extent to which Al Pacino's character is willing to go.

.Anotherperfect example of this would be the iconic bone throwing scene from Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. In this scene, the first shot is of the monkey throwing a bone up into the sky, it then cuts to a match cut of a space station in space. Parallelism in this scene helps convey how far mankind has evolved.

2) Parallelism: Is used to convey a jump in time mostly. Spielberg does this in Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade. Indy dons the iconic hat as a young child the image then dissolves to that of Indy many years later wearing the same hat.

3) Symbolism: This can be seen in Lawrence of Arabia when the main character lights a match and blows it out, cutting to a shot of the sun setting over the horizon in the desert. This underscores the searing heat of the desert sun as it finally submerges below the horizon.

4) Simultaneity:  Also known as Cross-Cutting. The Red Herring scene in The Silence of the Lambs portrays cross cutting finely. In this scene when the SWAT team buzz the door of buffalo bills house, the audience is led to believe it's that house. It then cuts to clarissa, at buffalo bills actual house and it turns out the swat team are at the wrong one. This shows how vulnerable Clarissa is and in how much danger she's in.

5) Leit Motif: Is a musical technique used in cinema to describe a recurring scene or shot in a film. This is done with certain music themes which help the spectator identify certain scenes that are about to occur, which have some sort of meaning or symbolism. An example of this is the emperor's march in Star Wars. It shows the viewer that a certain "motif" will occur.

Juxtaposition

Another aspect of editing we looked at in post-production class was Juxtaposition. Juxtaposition is a very important tool in cinema as it allows filmmakers to create a contrast and/or comparison on-screen.

Juxtaposition is defined as placing two things close together or side by side. In film, as stated previously, this allows a contrast or a comparison to be made. The soviet idea of montage was based on juxtaposing  different shots together to create a montage. An example of creating contrast in a soviet montage would be Strike (1925) by Sergei Eisenstein. In one scene in Strike the slaughtering conducted by the Cossak Army's emphasised in the juxtaposition of three different shots: 1) Soldiers advancing  2) A bull being slaughtered and 3) Ink spilled over a street map. This comparison accentuates the brutal slaughtering done by the Cossaks. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWiDciPuSW4

A more recent example of juxtaposition that I've seen in a movie would be Beasts of the Southern Wild. As the storm approaches in a certain scene, Hushpussy hits her father in his chest. This images is then juxtaposed with that of a ice-breaking away from an arctic landscape. The shot changes to Hushpuppy's father falling back onto his kness, gripping his chest. These shot are comparisons, and both come together in the third shot when the storm begins.

Montage Editing

In class, the week before last, we learned about and discussed the editing technique called montage. This class covered the different interpretations of montage that exist in cinema today.

The Soviets idea of montage was a number/series of shots placed together consecutively. A perfect example of this would be Sergei Eisenstein's The Battleship Potemkin. The Odessa Step sequence illustrates exactly what a montage is according to the Soviet Montage Theory: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ps-v-kZzfec

Whereas, there's also the "Hollywood Montage". This is the classic montage that nearly everyone knows. The classic Hollywood montage comprises of a series of shots put together that condense the passing of time. The perfect paradigm of this sort of montage would be the training montage in the very first Rocky movie. In this scene, we see time pass as Rocky trains hard and becomes fit enough to take on the fight that occurs at the end of the film: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DP3MFBzMH2o

However, in class we learned the general idea of what a montage is and should be on screen. A montage is a composition made by compiling a bunch of pictures or images together. A montage is a relatively quick sequence of many different shots placed together in a film.

We also learned that a montage should:

It should flow in a continous motion.
It should vary in rhythm and different camera angles.
It should be two more things edited together to create a third called the Tertium Quid. Which should make the whole greater than the sum of the other parts.

Editing with audio: Scene 34 Creation

During the past week in post-production class, we were given the task to edit two different scenes. The first scene we had to edit involved cutting together a scene of dialogue by the seaside.

After editing together the different clips, the audio proved to be a problem. Since the scene was shot by the sea, there were different levels of sound coming out of each shot. This proved to be quite difficult to deal with initially. For example, whenever the audio/video cut to a different shot the audio gain would be way louder than previously or quite quiet than previously. In class, I learned about the audio gain mixer and audio transitions.

I learned about a lot of different audio transitions, such as cross-fades, which helped smoothen out the changes between different audio tracks. This was the same with the audio gain mixer. The mixer assisted me in shifting the gain at different points, so that audio levels remain fairly constant throughout.

Despite one or two, audio problems still persisting, I learned a lot about audio cross-fades and the audio gain mixer this week.

https://vimeo.com/81206666

Windsurfing Editing Assignment

For one of our assignments last week (9/10/2013), we had to cut together a bunch of GoPro shots and such of a windsurfer out on the water. We had to use what we had learned from class and apply it to this assignment.

First and foremost, I did not do in anyway a good job on editing this. I was more focused on putting the clips together without taking into account music. In the end, I slapped on some music which doesn't really fit the final product. At times, it does work, however, it generally doesn't.

The one thing I did learn from this though; is that cutting in motion helps create more fluid flow between shots and distracts the eye from any changes. And hopefully, learnt that videos featuring music need to be edited into beats that work well with the music that's being used.

Assignment: https://vimeo.com/77029707

A scene I like from an editing point of view.

Today in class, we were asked by our lecturers to think of a scene from any film. However, this scene had to be a scene which we liked from an editors viewpoint. We then searched the scene on Youtube and had to analyse the editing and explain why we liked it.

Despite not standing up in class and expressing my opinion on a certain scene, I chose the trumpet end scene of the Kevin Smith film "Red State". I liked this scene in particular because the way it has been edited creates a sense of tension and foreboding, maybe even creepiness. The pace is radically changed from the previous scene as the gun battle stops when the trumpet blasts occur. It highlights how the editor's able to create a hyper-paced, frenetic gun fight and then slow it down to "slow" tense atmosphere.
In the scene, Pastor Abin Cooper and his group hear the trumpet blast. They believe it's the sign of the apocalypse and come out face-to-face with the ATF force.

This is where the scene gains its momentum, it cuts to a breathtaking shot passing the battle torn church grounds to the group standing outside their church. Cooper starts to preach, and slowly walks towards the ATF team leader. This sense is only accentuated by the distant trumpet blasts. He approaches the Atf cutting back and forth with continued dialogue and reaction shots. These reverse shot reactions of the ATF are tight over the shoulder shots. These possibly describe the serious, tense nature of it. There is also a few coverage shots and a jib shot used at the end, which helps create a sense of location and the carnage that occured in the scene.

In my opinion, I believe the editing of this scene to be particularly good in creating a real atmosphere, as editing is the visual version of writing. It's where a film is really made.

LINK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItD6dQa5ncw

Introduction

Hi.

My name is Sean Sheridan and this is my post production tech module blog. Here I will write about a range of topics relating to post production. From this module, I hope to grasp the principles of editing in how to properly pace a film and compile a set of shots into a cohesive narrative.I also plan on learning how to use the different editing softwares with both confidence and competence.