OTS Review & Revision

After filming as complete group on Sunday evening, James transferred the footage to his computer and set to work editing in Sony Vegas. The result was a basic workprint which we could review and criticise in order to revise; to make improvements.

Although a workprint version is simply intended as a rough 'test-copy' to convey a film's basic structure, theme and chronology, the first edit surpassed expectations, and I was incredibly happy with the way our footage had been composed into a high-quality piece of film. Although there were still problems we needed to address, I am sure that the initial high-quality of the piece will save us time when we come to perfecting it, as the changes we make will only need to be very small.

In order to clarify our next steps for the production, we all gathered for a group reviewing session, in which we discussed our respective views and opinions of the film, and how we thought it could be improved. The first problem we noticed was that of the film's duration. It lasted around 3:00 minutes, whereas ideally it should be 2:00, but could go up to 2:30 maximum. To get feedback from the perspective of newcomers to the film, we asked various people from our media class to watch our film and tell us what they thought. One problem that arose was that of a white van that crossed the shot about half-way through the piece. Some people said that it detracted from the tense atmosphere; one moment you are watching a man fearing for his life, yet trying to remain inconspicuous by walking at normal pace, and the next you are watching an everyday van rattle along the street. The tone was not maintained. During the reviewing session, we took note of these and other, less noticeable problems so that James could go and implement the changes.



The video above is the first revised version of our OTS, with the main changes being the exclusion of the white van and other pieces of redundant footage to reduce the length of the peice. We will recently held another small review session, and the main criticism was that the Femme Fatale's voice didn't fit the character; it was not stern enough, and so her role as leader of a crime syndicate did not seem legible.

To solve this problem, Tom and I have been sampling different female voices by recording them saying some of the Femme Fatale's lines. I have produced some mock-ups of the OTS with the new Femme Fatale voice overlayed using Sony Vegas, and we have determined a suitable actress. Now, all we need to do is to record the new actress saying the lines, extract the audio, and James will overlay this as best as he can with the existing footage of the original Femme Fatale. Syncing the speech shouldn't be such a problem, because most of the time you cannot actually see the Femme Fatale's mouth moving prominently. Aside from helping with recording, Tom is in the process of writing a questionnaire which we can use to get feedback from a wider range of age-groups and audience types.