Editing

This post is mostly just to share a couple of pictures of Jon and I in the editing room (A.K.A 'the Kitchen'). We've been doing this for the last couple of weekends to get the actual timings of the scene locked down so that Jon can make a start on the sounds.

The editing is quite laborious and time consuming. Because each scene is made from several different camera angles, there are lots of different shots to paste together.

Firstly we have to pick the best take or version of each shot - sometimes the actor gives a particularly good or bad performance or the lighting is just off or, in the case of outdoor filming, something unplanned happens in the background (this can be a good or bad thing depending on what it is) or there may have been a problem with the sound. Lots of things to take account of!

Next, despite our best efforts, each shot is often lit slightly differently either because we filmed it on different days and have different levels of daylight or because we had to move lighting out of shot or to provide the right sort of illumination. So we have to adjust the colour balance or brightness and contrast of a shot to match them all together.

One consistent problem we've had on set is with yellow lighting. Because we can't afford expensive studio lights, we've worked with B&Q halogens which have been great except for their... yellowness. Fortunately our editing software, Sony Vegas, allows us to correct the colour afterwards! Here's a before and after shot:

Soldier Boys & The Wall of Sound!

In the main filming is complete. We've been very busy since the last post completing some on set and location filming and also we're into final editing and sound production work which we expect to take July/August and a bit of September. This will mean that actual production time on the film will be a year not including the writing phase!

Below is a picture we took on location for a scene in the film (you'll have to wait and see what its about!) where I and Peter Orford (Sam) got to play soldier for the day. It was actually quite hard going but just as tough for the 'crew'



For sound editing (this is my 'speciality') I'll be using Steinberg Cubase 4 plus a whole host of other tools and tricks to create that big feature sound. Once Darren and I agree a final edit for a scene (which usually looks quite alot like Darren's rough edit to be fair!) - I get given a small version of the video and high quality dump of the sound. I fly these into Cubase and work on the sound with the video just as a reference.

All kinds of things have to be addressed from levelling sound from one take to the next to reproducing sounds that either werent captured in filming or dont sound 'right'. For an 8 minute scene it can take a couple of days to master the sound. Below is a screen image from the software based 32Bit studio.



Finally we've bought the movie domain name. www.badmanmovie.com and soon enough we'll stick the teaser trailer up there so there is something to see.

Thanks for checking in! - Jon