Editing our film and the processes - 15th Jan

Today we continued to refine our rough edit. I reviewed what had achieved last week and added different affects to our scenes. The first scene, at Helting Close, has been slowed down to 80% to add atmosphere. Other scenes which I have slowed down are when I am running through The Royal Crescent and the last half of the last scene which takes place in Southgate. I feel that these were the right moments to use the slowing down movements to create an atmosphere of longing. This affect also makes the audience pay more attention to the scenes which, I feel, are better quality. I also shaved down some of the scenes to make them flow better and begin and end at better points. To do this I just clicked on the beginning or end of each scene in the timeline sequence box and dragged it left or right to make it shorter. Overall the rough editing has gone really well and I have learned a lot about different techniques to edit film.

In and Out

The in and out process is how you select which bits of your shots you want to incorporate into your rough edit of your film. To get the beginning of the shot that you want you simply press 'i' for in and to finish the shot you simply press 'o' for out. You then drag the selected scene down into the timeline sequence box.

How to change the Speed

This is a print screen of how to change the speed of the scene. In the little box you can change the percentage of the speed higher for quicker and lower for slower.

Importing

This is a print screen of how you import files into your browser screen!

Friday 8th jan

Today we are roughly editing our Gothic film in Final cut pro. We began by importing the folder with our film in it into the program. Once we had done this we watched our shots back and decided individually what parts of the films we wanted in our own personal edits. To do this I watched through each shot and once I had decided on what part I wanted, I used the shortcuts on the keyboard (I for in and O for out) to choose the parts I felt had worked best to put in our final piece. After doing this I had a rough edit of the film in order. This is called a rough cut. We haven't done any of the editing properly yet as this is just a rough draft. Other editing we have planned to do is to make it Black and White with a vibrant Red dress for our only colour. We will also edit the speed of some of the shots and put a piece of piano music over the top.

The order of the shots are;

• Hetling Close
• Hetling close 2
  
• Railway tunnel
• Paragon steps
• Laura place
• The Circus
  
• Royal Cresent
• Suthgate
  

From Hell

This film is very relevant to the Gothic film we are trying to produce for our project. It is a very dark and sinister tale of the Gothic side of London in the 19th century. Watching the character of Mary Kelly, with her bright red hair and lustrous dress, running around the city looking for her friends and running from the horrors of Jack the Ripper are what we want to achieve with our film. Although the film is in colour there are certain aspects which are more vibrant than others, such as, the prostitutes dresses and blood of the victims. Also the scenes which are set in Buckingham Palace are very vibrant. A lot of red, purple and gold are used to show off her wealth.

From Hell - The Plot to a Gothic Film

It is 1888 in London, and the poor lead horrifying lives in the city's deadliest slum, Whitechapel. Harassed by gangs and forced to work the streets for a living, Mary Kelly and her small group of prostitutes trudge on through this daily misery, their only consolation being that things can't get any worse.
Yet things somehow do when their friend Ann is kidnapped and they are drawn into a conspiracy with links higher up than they could possibly imagine. The kidnapping is soon followed by the gruesome murder of another woman, Martha, and it becomes apparent that they are being hunted down, one by one.
Sinister even by Whitechapel standards, the murder grabs the attention of Inspector Frederick Abberline, a brilliant yet troubled man whose police work is often aided by his psychic "visions". Abberline becomes deeply involved with the case, which takes on personal meaning to him when he and Mary begin to fall in love. It is then revealed that Sir William Gull, the doctor of the Royal Family, is Jack the Ripper. He has been killing the witnesses to Prince Eddy's forbidden Catholic marriage to a prostitute who bears his legitimate daughter (Alice), who is therefore the heir to the British throne. The Freemasons, a secret society of which Gull is a member, decide to lobotomize him to protect the Royal Family from the scandal. Mary Kelly doesn't die; Jack mistakes Ada, the Belgian girl, for her and kills her instead. Mary lives happily ever after with Alice in a cottage on a cliff by the sea. Inspector Frederick Abberline dies alone of an opium overdose, knowing he can never see Mary again without endangering her.

This is taken from Wikipedia..

Edward Scissorhands Analysis

Edward Scissorhands is a film that isn't obviously gothic. Edward Scissorhands home up on the hill is typically gothic and matches his personal image. The scene in which 'Peg' the avon lady discovers him in his gothic home is so well done. It shows obvious contrast the little town down the hill. The interior and colours of the gothic castle also contrast with Pegs costume which is a happy, pastel, lavender shade. The use of pastel shades in the town is a direct contrast again with Edward Scissorhands black and white costume, pale face and jet black hair. The production crew found, in the words of the production designer, Bo Welch:

"a kind of generic, plain-wrap suburb, which we made even more characterless by painting all the houses in faded pastels, and reducing the window sizes to make it look a little more paranoid."

The atmosphere and mood of the film is different throughout. To begin with, during the credits, it is shown as a Gothic, dark and scary film because of the black and white detail, the music creates tension and mystery and the images of the castle and of Edward himself are all shown in a Gothic way. However, this is heavily contrasted with the pastel town and from then on it is sadly clear that he doesn't fit in with the suburban life.

The film itself differs from a classic horror film as it is solely focusing on the character to provide the Gothic element to the film. I personally feel that the horror actually comes from the people of the town because of the way they treat Edward. His only horrific quality is his scissors for hands and the crimes he commits with them are always innocent and by accident. The horror of the film is provided by the way he is treated and also the atmosphere of his home. Edward Scissorhands also falls in the romantic genre as it is primarily about him falling in love with the daughter 'Kim'. This aspect of the film can be compare to Beauty and The Beast as he is unable to consummate is love for 'Kim' because of his appearance. Other themes Burton acknowledged are that of self-discovery and isolation.

The music in the film also represents a lot about Edward Scissorhands as a character. The credits in the beginning are alongside a very Gothic, eerie and scary piece of music. This is used to create tension and evoke feelings of the unknown. The music throughout the film is very atmospheric and is clever conducted allowing for extremely tight parameters that help the score for the film tell the story by itself. The film also features three of Tom Jones’ songs (‘It’s not unusual’, ‘Delilah’ and ‘With these hands’) which have been highly criticised claiming that; “The Tom Jones songs are an unfortunate downside to the score; his voice and the style of the song may have been an attempt to mimic the 50's atmosphere of the film, but its tinny recording sound is quite irritating. Burton and Elfman would have been better served by having a sensitive vocalist provide a song version of Elfman's love theme.”

In my opinion the ending of Edward Scissorhands is sad but it adds to the affect of the film. If it had been a happy ending it would have been a typical fairytale essentially with the "beast winning the love of the beauty". The ending is still riddled with hope as they both live happily ever after just without each other.

A summary Edward Scissorhands

Edward is an unfinished creation of his inventor/father who dies before he can complete the job. He is removed from his lonely existence in a hilltop castle by Avon lady Peg Boggs and finds himself living with her family in a pastel-colored version of suburbia. He becomes the source of fantasy, gossip, resentment, adoration and lust for the neighbors, whom he wins over with his outlandish haircuts and elaborate sculptures. Burton explained that his depiction of suburbia is "not a bad place. It's a weird place. I tried to walk the fine line of making it funny and strange without it being judgmental. It's a place where there's a lot of integrity." Kim leaves her jock boyfriend (Jim) to be with Edward, an event that many have postulated as Burton's revenge against jocks he encountered as a teenager. Jim is subsequently killed; a scene that shocked a number of observers who felt the whole tone of the film had been radically altered. Burton referred to this scene as a "high school fantasy".

This is taken from Wikipedia.

11th dec - last lesson before christmas

This was our last film lesson before we broke up for the christmas holidays and for the first half we uploaded our films onto the computers and split them into manageable chunks to edit. Unfortunately I was late due to my car not starting so I missed the instruction on how to do this on the macs. For the second part of the lesson we watched Edward Scissorhands in preparation for the christmas homework we were given to be completed by Friday 8th January and written up on our blogs.