All the New York footage!

I have just finished editing together the footage from New York and fitting it in with my film sequence. I have also added the music for my film footage which is now over the two different sections. The beginning song is blue and green by Miles Davis and the second song is Hitchcock Starlet by The Horrorpops. I have used the same editing technique on the New York footage that I did on the opening which meant that certain colours could be picked out such as the red of a sign and the yellow of a cab. I also created an opening title screen with the film title on it. This is in a deep red colour as well with lace overlay which I thought was appropriate after the first scene and with the main storyline of the sequence. I am now working on the voice overs to go over the footage which is another convention of the film noir genre and will help the non-linear storyline make sense. I have scripted the first voice over for the opening which explains about the main characters death. The second one explaining where she is going still needs scripting. The voice over is the main characters narration of the story even though she is technically dead throughout the movie. I used this after seeing 'Sunset Boulevard' by Billy Wilder in which the main character is dead at the beginning and narrates his story from beyond the grave. I have also been looking at the Woody Allen film 'Manhattan' for ideas on how to narrate my New York travel scene by bringing in what's happening in the scene with what is being said. I am using a book of film noir information to try and recreate some more hard boiled dialogue and use the correct terms and phrases that are popular of that genre.

New York Shoot!

I have shot the footage from New York, I got traveling past Queens and into the main city as well. I hope to montage this together in the same black and white effect with 'Hitchcock Starlet' song in the background and include the 'credits' in the sequence. I haven't looked at the footage yet but I will be putting it onto the editing suite when I get back to college and seeing what footage is salvageable to be put into the montage sequence. The length of time that the scene will last will depend on how much usable footage there is and how effective it looks.

After a suggestion by my film teacher I think that I'm going to try and get some setting shots and traveling shots of New York on an upcoming trip. This will tie nicely into the conventions of my chose genre as Film Noir is often set in New York. Hopefully I will get some good shots that can be edited into my title sequence.

Editing and further filming

I have edited together my first section of footage and I am happy with it so far, all that needs adding is the background music. I also still need to record the voiceover and then add that to the piece as well.

Hopefully I can continue with some more filming soon, the only problem I am experiencing is the distinct lack of natural lighting for my title sequence. Hopefullu though I will soon be able to get that completed and add it to the sequence. Also my scene after the title sequence is being hindered by the same problem so I may have to change the idea around slightly to allow for the situation I am in.

While I was editing the piece I ran into a problem with getting my desired effect on a few of the shots (the photographs of the body) Unfortunately the red was not vivid enough so didn't have the smae effect as the rest of the sequence so I had to still image the video clip and then photoshop the images in order to get the desired effect. At first I was not too happy with the photoshoped effect either as it seemed to gaudy and bright but then I realised that for the editing technique I am going for that would work and as they are supposed to be photographs it doesn't look riddiculous but mearly adds to the comic book effect that I was aiming for with the edditing.

Today I managed to get my opening scene mostly edited and even started to add effects. I am very happy with the scene and plan to finish off the editing as soon as possible so I can have a solid opening. I need to creat the title sequence then film the other two scenes. The last scene will now be shot at college as I can use the light during the day so I will have to change the story to her going into work instead of coming home. That is simple enough as it will not change mucha nd the sequence will still make sense.

I can hopefully start shooting the other parts soon.

Progress!

I have found the technique that I need to use for my piece and have tested it on my old footage. It didn't work too well because of the lighting so I am hoping now that I have the new footage it will work better.

I re-filmed my opening scene and I am in the process of editing it together. Hopefully my other scene will be filmed soon as well so I can begin the proper editing and adding effects.

I am very happy with the new footage, it is well lit in a stylised way and the new camera angle I tried after a suggestion from my teacher makes the shots look a lot more professional and standoffish.

Tomorrow I will bring in my storyboard to follow so I can begin laying out my inital sequence as it will be shown, I will then have an idea of how much footage I have and how much time I still need to make up in the other scenes. It is a bit difficult to shoot the outdoor scenes because winter has taken all the natural light away when I leave college to do the location shoot. This is posing a problem so I may have to restructure my second scene after the credits to make the filming more convinient as I cannot have dim lighting again!

Tomorrow I'm going to discuss changes with my teacher and get his opinion and then continue my editing. All seems to be going well and filming should be complete before Christmas.

Mistakes.

Unfortunately the footage that I filmed a week or so again was too darkly light to be used so needs to be done again using more lights for the black and white to be effective. I have been shown how I can make the sequence look darker without having it be grainy and under contrased so hard to make out. I have also been able to borrow a tripod off of a friend so that I can film without hand held as the hand shake was very annoying on the camera and ruined the footage making it look less professional more home movie. I plan to film some more some time in the next two weeks so that I can start editing it. Hopefully second time will work better and I have learnt from the mistakes made on the first time filming of the footage.