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Week Ten
In Week 10, I entered and finished the post-production side to my Final Major Project. This consisted of putting the film together in the more advanced program DaVinci Resolve, which I am using to make this project complex and achieve a more professional grade. I had already begun to grade a few sections beforehand, this was to see if the White Balance was fine in-camera as I was waiting for my Colour Checker to arrive in the post. The majority of this week was focused mainly on the Grade, as this was something I have been specialising in throughout the year.
Action Plan Follow-Up
I firstly set myself the target of re-writing the Therapist part as it lacked in the emotional impact. However, I decided that it would be best to cut this bit completely as I couldn’t find the right actors to solve this. Next, I set myself the targets of ensuring my files are neat and that I follow all the information that I had Researched and techniques I experimented with to ensure I edit my Short Film in the most effective way possible.
I have completed both these targets to a high standard. I am going to explain specifically in my Evaluation how I used the grading software Magic Bullet Looks to achieve the film look I was going for as in my Research, I found out that this particular software was great at emulating film.
Feelings
I was excited going into the Post-Production as I was so proud of what I had created in Production. The RAW footage I had created was really high quality so it made me confident going into the post, that I could achieve a nice grade. However, whilst I enjoyed putting together my film a lot of the footage and especially the audio, became an issue which stressed me out heavily. But I resolved this by finding ways to solve these issues which I showcase throughout the Problem Solving. After I had fixed all these issues, I was confident with the Final Outcome.
Evaluation
What went well when it came to my post-production week was how well I dealt with all the audio issues that I faced throughout this Week. They initially stressed me out, but after researching tutorials on how to fix buzzing sounds in audio, I found a tutorial that guided me through the process and after implementing it into my audio from the Church Scene, I was happy with the finalised results and the audio sounded great!
I began with editing all the clips on the timeline, chopping them together and doing basic adjustments such as keyframing the zoom, as I found in previous projects this method to be the most time beneficial. I had already slightly corrected and graded a few clips beforehand only to see if they needed re-shooting on the days of Production. I was shocked at how efficient my workflow was in DaVinci Resolve. I managed to get rough cut together in a few hours which would have been impressive for me to do on the program I have years of experience with, Adobe Premiere Pro.
When it came to working on the sound, I knew Music was going to be a key element of creating that emotional impact in my film as I stated previously in my Pitch “Many emotional plots will occur throughout my film, so I will require music to play over these to give the audience a better understanding of what is happening and overall enhance the emotional tension for them.” This is why I spent a whole day focusing on the music as I knew the effect music can have on building that emotional impact would be worth it. I also stated within my Pitch that the song The Shape of Birds would be the perfect opener and closer of my film and after implementing this within my editing process, I was so happy with the emotional tension this song provided for the film. This song alone, especially towards the end, always gives me goosebumps.
I found Colour Grading in DaVinci to have gone really well, this was because of the Experimentation I had with this beforehand. It got me familiar working with a different workflow and from this, I successfully produced a professional grade in my Short Film.
What could have gone better when it came to Colour Grading my film was how the method I used grade each individual clip. By this I mean for example, when it came to the conversation scene in the Hospital, there were many cuts back and forth between my two main characters meaning many individual clips.
I had to copy the grade over onto each individual clip even when it was the same shot, I couldn’t find out how to group certain clips whilst still being able to mantain full control of adjusting each clip length in the same timeline. This wasted a lot of my time when it came to Grading as every time I made a slight adjustment to one clip, I had to ensure that this was copied over to the rest of them. This is something that going forward with DaVinci Resolve I need to look into, finding a more effective way at group grading clips to ensure I can maximise my efficiency in post.
Using Magic Bullet Looks, particularly when using the Optical Diffusion effect, was a nightmare it worked perfectly fine but due to my computer not being as powerful as needed I had to run the preview in ¼ quality which made it so difficult to see how the footage was looking.
When I added Optical Diffusion, I had to either render that section out which in itself took very long, or trust my instinct that the clip looked good. However, this wasn’t something that came as a shock to me as within the Theories and Techniques section of my Contextual Research Report, I learnt that “Magic Bullet Looks causes AE to become very slow with rendering each frame and export” from a source that was stated on Reddit.
Thankfully, I didn’t use Optical Diffusion very often only in the flashback sequence as I was trying to replicate the Film Look within this. “Using Magic Bullet Looks is a great way to experiment and explore with the Film Look.” This was something I found out within my Theories and techniques stage of my Contextual Research Report from a book called DSLR Cinema, I learnt Magic Bullet Looks could provide me with accurate film emulation and I am glad that I chose to listen to my research when it came to Post-Production, as I am so happy with results Magic Bullet Looks has provided me with.
One shot in particular that caused me trouble as I couldn’t decide what colour pallete to follow when grading it, was when my protagonist was in the shower. This put me in controversy as I initially loved the light orange grade with warm halation, as this to me looked most visually appealing. However, when playing this with the surrounding graded footage it looked off and didn’t fit the dark atmosphere. In the end, I decided to stick with my main colour palette being mainly greens, browns and overall a desaturated look as this felt most natural and not out of place when you play the whole sequence.
Conclusion
To conclude the Post-Production stage, I was really proud with the nearly finished product of Acceptance. The grade I had managed to achieve from using this newly complex program was something I could not be more happy with and moving forward, I will certainly be making the permanent switch to DaVinci Resolve. There has been a lot of issues throughout this period but I stayed calm and confident in my ability to solve these beforehand, which is why all the issues I faced were resolved well. Throughout my time on Film and TV, I have noticed a clear change in my skill when it comes to Grading and I am thoroughly proud of where I stand now with my skillsets.
Action Plan
Moving into the final week, when it comes to Peer Feedback I want to ensure I gather a lot of opinions on the Grade itself and make my adjustments accordingly. I want to create feedback that allows for a critical response, instead of a simple yes or no.
Problem Solving
An issue I had whilst editing my film was all the renders were exporting different colours to the preview I had of the footage whilst grading. I experimented a lot with the footage, changing the highlights, shadows and realised that the render was just a slightly higher gamma than in the preview.
Wrong Colours from Export
The Colours it was supposed to be
This was because I had the wrong colour-space set for my monitor and for Apple products in general, in the DaVinci Colour Panel.
So to overcome this issue without grading the whole project again, I compounded the whole film together in a timeline and adjusted the gamma by 0.4. This looked strange on the preview, but when uploaded to YouTube or played VLC it looked how it should have in the first place.
To ensure this does not happen again, I will set all my future project colour-space’s to Rec-709A instead of Rec709 Gamma 2.4.
Audio is a detrimental part of a Film, especially dialogue. The recorder I had to capture audio on set was fairly faulty, and listening back to the audio in post there was a harsh buzzing noise. On low volume this was not very noticeable so on set whilst listening back it did not occur to me that it was here, but the moment I got home and put my high quality headphones on I noticed it straight away.
This sounded awful in the film, especially when it came to the church scene it took away the emotion from the film as you're being distracted by a buzz. To overcome this issue, I first tried using DaVinci’s Voice Isolator plugin which ended up removing all reverb and low-end frequencies which sounded like a really terrible attempt at a voiceover with no reverb or bass in this dialogue. Not to mention, the buzzing could still slightly be heard.
Next, I tried to use EQ as my friend who studies Level 3 Music at Colchester Institute suggested this could work however, as the buzzing noise wasn’t just one frequency this was impossible to remove without completely destroying the vocals just like DaVinci’s Voice Isolator did. Lastly, I resulted in seeking YouTube’s help.
This tutorial above was what ultimately revived my audio and overcome this issue. I had never used or thought about using Adobe Audition before so this was completely new to me, however, it worked magic. I used the ‘Sound Remover’ plugin to select that specific buzzing noise and remove it from the audio, and with a few attempts at tweaking the strength and different dials, I had successfully isolated that harsh buzzing noise my audio had.
To ensure this issue does not happen again, Bill Saunders (My Tutor) stated it might not have just been the recorder, it could have also been dodgy XLR cables as these are very easy to damage. For next time before going onto set, I should look to experiment with audio, different recorders and cables, just to ensure the equipment I have is not faulty and sounds clean.
Towards the end of the film, there is a lowkey shot of my two main characters arguing. I shot this outside pointing towards them being inside the kitchen, the shot was very dark and the monitor I have on my camera is only around 3 inches making it hard to see very clearly individual details that can easily be missed.
When looking back at the footage in post, I noticed the microphone my sound operator is holding made an appearance in the corner of the shot. This frustrated me but I quite quickly found a fix.
On DaVinci’s Transform tab, you have the ability to crop the shot left and right, and as I shot through a window this did not make the shot look strange, it just made the windows look skinnier which in my opinion, made the shot look more tense.
To ensure this does not happen again, the college owns a much bigger, around 8-inch monitor. So by connecting this to my camera, it will give me the opportunity to overlook the smaller details I would not have noticed on my tiny LUMIX monitor.
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