Second Unit Material

Today we filmed our second unit. I sadly didn't get a lot of production stills, and those I got became corrupted on my camera somehow. It all seemed to go well and we finished ahead of schedule. The actor even learnt his lines which was a first for us.

Since we finished ahead of schedule, I started editing. However, on the first main wide shot, there is a mic in the way, and we only have one take of it. The lecturer said that this was a group mistake, which I think is unfair as I shouldn't have to constantly check on the camera and sound op. I was busy directing and going through the script with the actor. 

However, I came up with a few solutions to fix this; 

Option 1: cropping. The quality will not be altered but there will be bars on the side of the screen.



I will probably also need to put bars on the other clips, which seems very time consuming and will give a totally different feel to the piece. We want the second unit material to flow with the live stream. 


Option 2: cropping and scaling. This will see a quality decrease, however when I showed it to people, they could not tell the difference in quality between the two shots.



Option 3: photoshop. The lecturer showed me how to cut and fill to the surroundings, making the mic disappear, without the bars, and without loosing the quality. Then exporting the background as an image and resizing it on Avid. This is the best option.

I also looked at reversing a clip, since we only got a shot of the actor putting the book down, and not picking it up, and also the 'reverse motion' effect didn't seem to apply to the clip. I opened the motion effects menu then dragged the effect on, then rendered it.

10.11.16 - Today I finished editing the second unit material! I also made a TEAser trailer and trailer (with bits I had to cut out to make sure it's within the limits of pre-recorded material (3 minutes)). 

Digital Production #12 - 2nd Unit and Readthrough

Today we had a read through of the script. The timing of it seems to be perfect, but we have noticed that there is a lot of description. Our main script editor is working on it. We have also decided to change it from a day setting, to night time. I have alerted the writer that some additions will take place and he is happy with it, and he will also be credited as screenwriter, as it's still his script in essence. I have also pitched some additional dialogue for the narrator to incorporate the different endings. I have found an actor for the narrator role and we plan to film next Monday (the 7th).