Oblivious- AS Media Coursework- Final Cut

It's finally here! This is our last and final cut of our AS Media coursework, Oblivious.



I can say for sure that I'm really proud of our group. We have bought our initial ideas to life, and have stayed true to our initial desired tone and look of the video. I am also very happy with every new draft we made, there were some improvements to the video such as the editing or camera work. I feel that this means we knew what we were doing wrong and what we needed to do to make it look better, such as incorrectly framing shots or taking the wrong type of shots for certain scenes. Therefore, I am very happy with the footage we have re-shot various times and believe it has all definitely been worth it. We wanted to make our piece the best looking it can be, even if this meant re-doing the smaller details, but in the overall it is worth the extra time and work. Congratulations to the group on making Oblivious!

The 4th Editing session- Benoit's post reflected upon

The following is taken from Benoit's blog, who is our director. 

  As our project is close to complete, it's to to add the final touches to the sequence. Within this session,  I wanted to have a rough look at what the credits would look in there places within the clip; another aspect of the project I had to address was how to cut out the shot of our actor walking to the class door. In order to make up for the seven seconds spared after removing that shot, we have decided to include the production name just before the title appears. This then takes off a few seconds, in order to entirely utilise the remaining couple of seconds, we just prolonged a few shots within the school scene. Fortunately the decision to extend the duration of a few shots allows the audience to view those shots without it either cutting too short or over staying it's welcome.

Another Noticeable difference to the sequence is the finalised edit of the threat message at the start of the clip. Not only by including the 'streaming' icon in the corner of the frame ; but also altering the aspect ratio of the shot. This helps not only indicate the home-made quality of the threat video intending to be off a camcorder; but also to focus the audience's attention on the subject as he is entered and there is minimal view of the room behind him. The reason for this decision what made was due to the frequent comment made by audiences stating the temptation to glare at the space behind the actor instead of the actor himself.

As apart of this edit we have also included the credits of the various crew members. This draft was meant to show how in which they will appear. But soon will finalise the placements of the credits and also the need to possibly add or remove some if need be.

 Updated edit of the shot

Previous edit of the shot

My thoughts: 

I definitely like the new aspect ratio for the opening threat video. Benoit was right to do so, as when I watch this again now I do concentrate more on Aayush's character; as the aspect ratio has changed and the viewer feels more compelled to focus on the subject in the middle. I also really like the 'Streaming' part in the top right, it gives the viewing a more realistic experience, given that the video is supposed to be filmed from Joseph's camera and ready to go on the internet. The audience as a result, should take the threat video more seriously due to these changes.

I also do like the new credits and font. I have talked about this in my previous 3rd editing session blog, but nevertheless I like the credits and think the font is a suitable, more of a thrilling esq type of font. This is because the particular design of the font I feel is suitable for a thriller film like our, the font seems explicit and tense.. 

3rd editing session- Benoit's post- Alterations to shots

3rd Editing Session

Within this session, my goal was to approach the sequence with the teacher's feedbacks as a main target to meet with the new draft of 'Oblivious'; by focusing my full attention towards the last portion of the sequence that is taken within a school.

My main issue was figuring out how I can trim the shot of our actor walking toward the door without much impact on the timing of the project.This was because during the screening,our teachers had a huge complaint with the lighting within the frame but also with the overall necessity to include it; asking us does it add anything? What is the reason for this shot? Our group then collectively realised that there was no real reason to include it.

'Shot of the actor approaching the class door'

Later on I have decided to keep it in the sequence for the sake of this new draft, as our group have not entirely agreed on how we'll make up for the 7 seconds spared if the shot is removed. I then simply focused on replacing the classroom footage with the updated shots. The updated shots consist of a wide view of the class instead of the camera pushing away; as seen in the first and second draft.

This decision was made because the wide shot is far more simple and has the more view within it's frame allowing the action of Joseph walking to his desk and sitting down a lot cleaner and smoother.

Another new alteration made to the edit is changing a shot during the bomb assembly sequence; this close-up shot was of our actor's mouth saying a line of dialogue but due to the poor framing made it difficult for audiences to see what is in the frame, therefore effecting the viewing experience and taking the audience out of the experience.

'Original shot used in the previous drafts'

In this original shot, the subject moved too much and then lead to his mouth appearing out of frame where the audience can't see. This made the clarity of the scene ineffective and drawing the attention of the audience away from the scene.

'Replacement shot of the actor'

During the various shooting sections of the 'bomb assembly' sequence, we had taken many takes of the same shot which in this case was a huge benefactor as we had a range of replacement shots to choose from. Eventually we had chosen to use this shot as the subject's mouth is placed where we wanted it to be; whilst the lighting is still partially lit but just enough for audiences to see without it being a distraction. 

My thoughts:

I agree that we needed to get rid of the pan shot of Aayush walking to his classroom, I realise now it wasn't really needed. It is much more effective to just cut straight to Aayush opening the door handle, because the previous shot was him picking up the bomb. This makes the audience feel more implicit as it suggests the main reason he made the bomb was to do something related to his school, making our video more thrilling and tense. 

Also I really like the new shot, of Aayush delivering his lines when assembling the bomb. Last time the framing was done in a way that when he said his lines, half of his face was off the screen to the delivery of the lines looked poor. Now we re-shot this particular bit, it looks a lot better as you can see his mouth saying the lines; but not his whole face, to keep the tone of the video more mysterious and bleek.

I am happy with the new changes to the editing and camerawork, it is more suitable and the fact that we took out the pan shot of Aayush walking to the classroom, saved us 7 seconds to extend other shots that were more significant, such as the shot of me and Aayush talking. This made the last bit of the video much more eerie, as the stare Aayush does to me gets extended and makes his character seem even more unsettling because the way he acts in school is very unusual. 

A quick update

Here is a quick update of what's happening: 

- We have now got a final cut. Our 4th cut has now got some final changes, one main change being the soundtrack over Aayush's bomb assembling scene. We are also thinking to completely cut out the ending shot of the bag, due to our teacher saying it force feeds information to the audience too much. He also said, to our new music, he didn't realise it as much because it was more ambient, and atmospheric. This is a good thing as it suggests you focus more on our footage rather than the soundtrack; drawing in the audience more to what is on screen.

- I will have the final cut on my blog very soon, assed, evaluated and commented on. 

Oblivious 4th Draft

Here is our 4th cut of Oblivious, which we are fairly confident that this draft is nearly ready to be our final piece. The threat video and the assembling of the bomb is final, however the scene in school isn't final as of yet. This is because most things that need to be improved on have been, such as some camera work and framing. The 3rd draft isn't on my blog yet unfortunately, but it will be up soon.



The main differences between the 3rd draft and our final 4th cut is that the credits for our group members has now been edited it within the video. As you can see, credits are now inserted at the 26 second mark, 47 second mark, 51 seconds, 58 seconds, 1min 04 seconds, 1min 13 seconds, and lastly 1min 49 seconds. We have used the same font throughout this credit process to try and ensure a consistent, regular pattern. The credits are simple and just say who has performed each role of the making of the film.



Another main difference in this final draft is that we have altered the school scene a bit. After some questioning as to why the pan shot of Joseph walking to his classroom door was there, and that his head got cut out of the frame, we took this shot out. Instead we cut straight to Joseph opening the class door, with the shot before this picking up the bomb. We felt these two shots being right next to each other was more effective; as it shows one side of his life dealing with explosives and terror, and then the other side of his life in school and pretending to be someone he's not, as the shots are right next to each other.



Also, in the school part of the scene we have added some ambient, atmospheric horror related music. The idea of this was to add a sense of dread whilst in the school scene, as the scene is building up to what would be a very significant scene it the video was continued.

Oblivious 2nd Draft- (Re-shot)

This is our 2nd draft of Oblivious. Most of the footage in this video has been re-shot, such as all the footage in the classroom, and in the first part of the video in the dark room. We re-shot all of this because we were told that there were some mistakes and irregularities with the camera work and framing, such as cutting heads out of shots. So we re-shot this footage and edited it into our 2nd draft. The only thing we have kept in this draft that was in the 1st one is the shot of Aayush, or his character Joseph, staring at the bomb he made. We feel this shot looked good and fine so we didn't re-shoot it.



As of the video project now, it's on the verge of completion. Some final things we need to do is to edit in and finalize the opening credits, and some final colour corrections and adjustments. Benoit and Jamie will do this in the last stages of the editing process. We have also got a final font for our title, which is called Alien League and we got it from www.DaFont.com. We feel this font is suitable for the theme of the video and looks good on screen.

The editing process- Benoit's post

The following is taken from our main editor, Benoit Ganesan, as well as director. Although I didn't take part in the editing process, I still need to understand the editing and what we needed to do differently during the drafts as we go along.

1st Editing Session

'Preview screen from the editing session'

For the first editing session my aim was to at least have a complete draft of our entire sequence that only included the footage itself without the credits or any other visuals added within post-production.

As the director of this project I wanted to approach this editing session with the intentions of taking the footage we had captured throughout the entire course of filming and then edit the sequence to match frame by frame with the animatic. 

'Editing timeline from the rough-cut'

I approached this idea by overlapping the edit I had made for the animatic with the footage for the sequence to ensure that the shots played for the exact amount of time it was intended to last instead of possibly changing the way we planned the sequence to be.

Once the sequence had been assembled, co-editor 'Jamie Gerrish' and I spent a large amount of time playing the sequence repeatedly and analysing our project in order to then see what's the most logical way to handle our project throughout the rest of post-production.

After Jamie and I spent while screening the sequence, we had compiled a list on what needs to be altered within the edit of our sequence; we then came to a conclusion that we must re-shooting the entire sequence. This decision was made after looking at the footage we had already taken and realising what worked and what didn't; then caused us to learn from our first attempt and execute it better in the re-shoots.

Once we all had got together as a group, we all had watched the sequence then Jamie and I explained our thoughts on what we need to change in terms of the editing of the sequence but also explaining why we should re-shoot the entire project. Once the rest of our group had understood our judgement and came to terms with this idea we all collectively agreed on the decision.

As you can see from the post, Benoit talks about how we needed to re-shoot the whole video. This is a good thing, and will only make our introduction a higher quality. The editing will change as well slightly too; such as change the duration of some shots that either take up too much time or too little time.  Not to discredit the fact that the first edit draft we all thought was great and looked good for a first draft; it had fit our expectations. 

The final title- 'Oblivious'

The group has now agreed on a final title, after lots of debating and questioning as to what we should call it, we have arrived on 'Oblivious'. This is because oblivious means to be very much unaware of something that is happening around you, and this is a main theme in our thriller introduction; nobody knows the true side to Joseph's character and his motives, making the title 'Oblivious' a perfectly fitting title.

Some other previous ideas we had for a title were 'Joseph', 'Interloper'. Joseph is the name of our main character, and so we thought perhaps play it simple and call the piece 'Joseph'; a tribute to the character and his unforgettable intentions. This title would also keep the piece ambiguous and would leave interpretations directly up to the audience, which sounds like a good idea. However we decided not to do 'Joseph' as we felt like we could get a title to be more instantly effective and ultimately more suitable.

Interloper was another idea that we were once considering, which is a word to describe a person who gets associated with a place or situation where they are not wanted or should not be, but then some more considerations at this title and we decided not to. This was mainly due to the fact that Interloper doesn't really sound suitable for our introduction, and sounds more like a Sci-Fi title.

So we thought 'Oblivious' would be the best title to do, and we are all happy and content with this title for our thriller introduction.

Re shooting- First day (School footage)

The first day of re shooting took place in school, where we re shot all of the footage that takes place in school. This was due to the fact that we recognized and understood that we needed to make the footage look smoother and cleaner, in terms of camera movement and speed as such. We also changed some camera shots and angles that we felt were more suitable, such as the dialogue between Joseph and the classmate, we changed angles so that we had a closer shot of Joseph's face, so you can see him making eye contact when he says his lines, making it seem more personal and sinister given the subject of the video. In the previous shoot, we didn't really capture this tone when Joseph first comes into the classroom, then sits down next to the classmate, and now we feel that our re shoot has definitely improved this particular scene, and has also given us a slightly longer run time for the school scene. 

This interaction that wasn't in the other cut has replaced 8 seconds of another set of shots of Joseph walking down some corridors, We feel this change is for the better, as it gives more meaning to the story, and a dialogue scene is better than the character moving through some corridors, we felt. To conclude, the first day of re shooting in school turned out great and we are all pleased with the resulting footage and alternations. 

The editing list

Here is our editing list for our Thriller opening. This list's purpose is to give us extra information on what needs to be in the edit, and what we shouldn't be doing. For example in our first draft, there was some handheld footage whilst shooting the scene in school. However after evaluating and thinking about this, we realized it didn't fit in with our other type of shots, which were all on a tripod and were clean and smooth. So now we will re-shoot this scene to only use a tripod whilst shooting in order to gain the same characteristics of the video, 

This list will definitely help us in order to fix up our edit and improve on the cinematography and the smaller details that matter in the footage. Furthermore the list will definitely aid us when it comes to re-shooting, very soon, as we will have a clearer image on what we need to improve on and what we definitely need to change.