Final Edit

After we had finished editing we had a short tutorial with Anne so she could look over our work and tell us how to improve. She told us that she was not sure about the questions on-screen over the blurred images and she was worried that having myself and TJ both as characters searching for the cat could be confusing and unnecessary. She felt that the interviews were too long and seemed like a big block in the documentary, which we all agreed, and that there was not enough presence of the cat. As our tutorial was on Friday and hand in was on Monday I started to feel quite pressured for time and knew we had to think of a new structure to the film as quickly as possible. I quickly thought up a new structure to the film so that the scenes would make more sense blending into each other and their could be more presence of the cat. Firstly I completely deleted the questions from the vox pops and removed the question 'Have you heard of the campus cat. I deleted the typography because I agreed that the questions over the blurred background looked unpolished and I realised that they were not necessary, and I deleted the question because the answers alone made no sense. I also reorganised the order the answers were in so that the names people had for the cat were said at the end of this scene. When people start saying 'campus cat' I thought it brought all the answers together and made it obvious what they were talking about. I kept the screen crackling at the end of the vox pops and the intermission but I realised that the picture that was chosen was a loading screen from the game Fallout 4 and we probably couldn't use that due to copyright so I found a typical intermission screen instead.

New intermission screen

I also removed all footage of my presenting character from the documentary and rewrote the script so a voice over of Callaghan could introduce the film instead in the lead up to the title screen. 

'My name is Jay Callaghan. I've come to the University for the Creative Arts in search of the illusive campus cat. So far all i've gathered is snippets of information from the students like its appearance, but there has to be more to it. i guess i'll start with some interviews then... wonderful.'

I edited the voice over onto shots of the campus to establish the scene and over some shots of Callaghan up against the wall. As he says wonderful the title appears, I thought this made a more interesting introduction to the first edit. After the fade to black the interviews start. I decided to split up the interviews so that they added to and introduced parts of the story, I also cut lots of the interview out as I believed there was too much irrelevant information that didn't help towards the point of the documentary. I started the interviews with Callaghan introducing himself and asking the interviewees if they knew why they were being interviewed, like the original sequence. However I then cut to 'What do you call the cat?' and then talking about the murder to get straight to the point. After talking about the murder I added the scenes where Callaghan is searching online for clues and locating the scene of the crime, I wanted this to come after this part of the interview because the two scenes connected and it was a way to split the interview in half. During the montage scene I added Callaghan's second voice over that was previously on the 360 pan in the first edit. I thought it made the montage more interesting.

Still from the montage scene

I used the second half of the interview, after the montage, to talk about the interviewees connections to the cat, so i could end the film with more presence of the animal rather than focusing on the narrative. The girls say how the cat is a friend and they would like to keep him, which I felt gave more personality to the cat and showed how the cat had obviously became a part of their lives. After the interviews I wanted to talk about how cat people are more open minded and that why they don't mind looking after this cat, and that the cat helped them integrate into their new uni lives. Now that the scene involving me and Callaghan talking about his research was gone I had to write another new voice over for Callaghan.

'From my research I have found that cat people are 11% more open minded than dog people. This understanding helps them to see past the cats greed and wrong doings. the students seem to be using the cat as a way to adjust to the responsibilities of student life and try to keep him around with the bribe of food like a pet. The presence of a pet helps to make the experience much less threatening.'

I added the new voice over with visuals of Callaghan leaning against the wall like in the intro and a video of the cat that Maisie Mok (one of our interviewees) allowed us to use. I did this to show how Callaghan is dedicated to his search and has been thinking of the cat from the start. For the conclusion of the film TJ had the idea to add in people from the vox pops talking about their stories and experiences with the cat. I liked this idea because it rounded off the story talking about the cats personality and its interactions with the students. First we had videos of the students talking with a beeping sound in-between each, like the one from the beginning, quickly cutting between each story. I had the idea to add photos of the cat fading in and out over the top of the students talking so the audience could finally see this cat (Photos also from Maisie Mok) up until the credits which I kept on the briefcase, as I felt the briefcase started the story so it should finish it. I kept the effect of the credits the same with the dissolve peel transition but decided to use the typewriter font as I thought it looked more professional and kept to the film noir theme. during the credits we still had the students talking about their stories. i also added the title at the end of the credits, the visual fades out to leave the title on a black background.

New end credits aesthetic

'The Hunt for the Campus Cat' with background fading 

After the sequence was complete Billie and I decided to colour correct the film to make it more like a film noir. We first went through the clips and darkened them using the brightness tool, we found however that the shadows and colours faded away so we raised the contrast which brought them back. I then went through the video and added a blue tone to each of the shots to give it a cooler tone and to make the shadows slightly darker. I used the colour wheel effect to colour correct as I find it the most useful. I also found a short soundtrack online that we could use for the voice overs to give the documentary that noir film feel. I looked on YouTube and found someone who specifically made a noir film, blues soundtrack which I thought worked perfectly. The music was non-copyright and there was no requirements to use the soundtrack, however I still added the creator's social media in the description of my video when I uploaded it to YouTube. Billie then helped Ade add to the video.

Using the colour wheel to add blue tones

Before and after colour correction

Before and after editing brightness and contrast

Like from Image Factory music video, I made a thumbnail for the film when I upload it onto YouTube. I used a still from the introduction/ title sequence and overplayed the title of the film in the same font I usually use for my YouTube thumbnails.