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Friday, 29 April 2016

When I had all of the interview and cutaways in place and in an order that makes sense, I could begin on properly organising the titles and putting them into the film at the right time. I firstly made a bin for all of the titles so it would be easier to find a certain sub-title. The subtitles makes the characters in the archive photos even clearer, I would add a date and title to the corner of the picture generally, or I would explain how old the character was at the time, for instance a young picture of Tony would have 'Tony aged 17':
Titles organised into a bin. 
Example of titling the photo. 

For the sound of the film, I went through all of the interviews and made sure that the levels were similar. Some interviews for instance were louder than others, naturally because of the differientating volume of different individuals voices, for instance Doug spoke a lot softer and quieter, so I had to increase the levels on his interview. Once I had done this I listened back to all of the interview footage and found that all of the levels were very similar, peaking at the same number. 

Dialogue peaking

Audio Gain tool 

I then decided to work on the titles for the film, and I felt that the typewriting effect in After Effects gave for a more interesting experience than just having a still text image introduce the film. 

Still from After Effects. 
Test for titles

Overall I am quite satisfied with the titles I have produced and I feel the sound of typing works well. 
After I had assembled all of the footage onto the timeline and began importing the archive imagery, I had a tutorial with Anne and showed her to see what she thought. The feedback I got was to cut down the footage even more and cherry pick the most interesting, punchy phrases by each of them, as some of the sentences were quite long winded. This technique really helped in the long run as it not only made the film more punchy and interesting, but it also cut the run time down dramatically to around 15-20 minutes.

When cutting the clips, I found that the audio became quite jumpy when it came to cutting in between the characters. I decided to add a constant power transition to allow for a more smooth, gradual cut to the next clips audio.
Timeline with the audio transition added
Constant Power transition applied

When applying the archive I decided to add a gradual zoom to most of the pictures so that your attention can be put on the individuals in the photo, as most of the pictures are group photos from decades ago, so it can sometimes be difficult to tell who is who. To do this I added a shadow effect to highlight who the main character is in the photo by adding a circle onto the image and lowering the opacity and feather. 

Example of the shadow effect

After I had the structure of my film together and some of the archive images and titles on the timeline, I showed Anne who was positive about the film, however she advised me to nit-pick the interviews even further and also work on the structure and think about what works best in what place. When further inspecting the film I decided to put Terry first as we are introduced to Terry originally through Tony's story, so we are never introduced at the start to Terry, we are just shown him firstly in Tony's story. I felt this would make the film a little clearer and also allow the viewer to understand who he is first before he cuts in between Tony's story. After I sorted out my structure I would then begin adding music and titles and so on. 

Thursday, 28 April 2016

To begin with I organised my footage by naming the files what they were, for instance the cutaways are called 'Skull Ornament.mov' and so on. This made it easier when knowing what footage to import to what bin.
Example of naming the footage in Finder. 

I then began by making Bin's for each character and making sub-bins inside that folder for each part, for instance I have bins for each interview, archive imagery and so on so that I could easily find each clip.
Main Bin folders
 Sub-bin folders

I then imported all of the footage into the sub-folders, for instance I made part folders for the Buffalo Fish interview because of how long-winded the interview was. 

I then imported all of the interviews and began cutting the parts I had highlighted previously on my transcript. This process took quite a lot of time however I was happy with the outcome and I managed to cut the project time down by more than half. 

Timeline with all of the interviews.

I then began importing the archive footage to the timeline to support the facual information they were giving, in addition to characters that the audience will not know, for instance when Terry mentioned Dennis Wilcock I incorporate a picture of Dennis in Iron Maiden.
Archive folders for Doug
Example of Archive image of Dennis on the timeline

I then began to create a structure for the film through the clips, so I began with Tony introducing the film with a statement about how his career began and then progressing into the Iron Maiden stories. This then progresses onto Terry who jumps into the story to support what Terry is saying. Terry is then introduced as one of the main characters and discusses his time in Iron Maiden, the oprogressing onto Doug, who shares stories and final thoughts then follows from all three of them. This is the basic structure of the Iron Maiden part of the film, which then progresses onto Doug discussing what he dud outside of Iron Maiden with Airforce, progressing onto Tony who talks about the work he has done and then Terry. The film will then cut to the 'Maiden charity event, showing their ongoing passion for music through each of their performances, giving their final thoughts of being in Iron Maiden and what they see themselves doing in the future. This was the initial structure of the film, so the timeline was layed out this way through the footage imported onto the timeline. 


After all of my shoots I looked over the footage and noticed there were a few gaps regarding cutaway clips I could use, so I went to Doug's once again at the beginning of April and to Terry's at the beginning of April to get some additional pick up shots and re-film the introduction using a stabiliser I bought which would help the smooth flow of the shot. After watching tutorials and testing the product I found it helped a lot when it came to flow of the movement of the shot.

Stabiliser used with my DSLR

During Doug's re-shoot, I decided to also get a few more cutaways, for instance I found a few interesting ornaments, for instance glass skull's:
 Skull cutaway
Cutaway of 'Soundhouse Tapes'

During the re-shoot at Terry's I got some behind the scenes shots of them recording a track and songwriting, which would be beneficial when it comes to cutaways of the band. Additionally I did a short interview with their producer of their new album, however i'm not sure if I will be using the footage as it was quite long-winded. 
 Cutaway of the band recording
Closeup cutaway of the guitars 

I'm glad I organised re-shoots for both Doug and Terry because I felt I needed more footage to cutaway to, whereas with Tony I had quite a lot of archive video as well as the cutaways to his work with Soho Radio. This would help me in the long run when it comes to parts of the film that may have gaps that need to be filled or to support what each character is saying.

I decided to do an additional shoot at the beginning of April to get a few shots of Tony at his radio station that he hosts on a Saturday morning, promoting new music being his priority which links quite nicely with what he has done in his career additionally, for instance touring and helping promote Ilona, who is a new upcoming artist. I also briefly interviewed Tony to potentially use towards the end of the film where we see each of the individuals now and how their careers have changed.

Exterior of Soho Radio

Still from the interview with Tony

Still from a cutaway shot.

I felt the additional shots I got were very useful when it comes to editing the films and adding a variety of shots to the film to make it visually interesting. The issues I had during the shoot however was the setting up of the equipment due to the fact that I was shooting on my own this time rather than with assistance. This meant the setup process took a lot longer than usual which meant the interview had to be quick due to Tony beginning his shift at 10am. Overall however I was pleased with the shoot and I got a lot of shots that i'm very happy with. 
 
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