In class we learnt about the importance of editing, and how it has been used the affect cinema and media alike. Editing utilises the different camera shots and angles, and offers us a variety of different perspectives that we wouldn't be able to experience usually in everyday life. From our lesson, we were able to appreciate how well it is applied in film. In order to do good job with this aspect of our opening, we realised we needed to make sure the editing was woven in seamlessly and looked invisible to the audience.
To get ourselves started, we needed to sift through the clips and footage collected from filming. We did this to be able to collect the best quality clips, as well as finding the best matching scenes so that our opening flowed.
We began the editing with the aim of cutting down our footage to a maximum of two minutes. Using an editing software called Premier Pro, Matthew arranged the sequences to make an ordered set of shots for our opening in our film. This was an important process, because the way we edited could affect the whole tone of the opening.
Once we assembled the scenes in the correct order, we reviewed the length we wanted for each one. This was done in order to reflect the atmosphere in the scene and the general mood. The earlier scenes in our opening were generally the longer ones, due to the little action that occurred. As a result we were able to use the scenes to showcase various camera angles and shots.
All the diegetic sound we used was imported straight from our footage. The only non-diegetic sound that was implemented, was the our own self made foley sound. We were influenced to use this technique after having learnt the way foley artists add realism to film sequences.
Matthew is shown here arranging the transitions of our clips, and making sure that scenes are linked together and concise. He decided to do some of this transitioning at home on his computer, as it offered him more suitable choices on which styles followed the horror conventions best.
When we were looking at how sound was used in psycho, we saw that many sound effects were used to make the film more realistic. In the shower scene we learnt that a cabbage was sliced I order to provide the sound needed for the knife entering the victims body.
We then decided to use a melon splattering as some foley, to make the first death scenes in our opening more tangible. We simply used a brick to mash up the melons insides in this clip. This provided a squelching sound we needed to portray the gore, however it felt subdued.
In the clip here we decided to film Matthew stabbing the melon, to give it us some sound variance. We found that this gave out a swift sharp sound, in comparison to using a brick which wasn't as succinct.
This was the best sounding foley for our production because it sounded the most raw, due to the power of the hammer we trialled. For that reason it was able to produce the unadulterated effect.
For our instrumental non-diegetic sound, we used a composition from a website called 'Free Sound'. Its a site that allows people to share browse, download sounds effects from other users. In the beginning of our opening we decided to leave out any non-diegetic sound, leaving in only natural diegetic sound of the wildlife in our location. However when the first victim is isolated, we chose to layer a sound clip with three beats that was meant to mirror a heart beat. This sound is noticeable, though not to the extent of being overpowering. The climax presents itself when the victim is being attacked, and there are some wind instruments included that match the speed of the action. This composition continues the remainder of the opening.