Connor Albinson DFSA: Putting the Film Together

As I had the footage on my hard drive, I decided to edit the main footage myself, as we had picked out the shots we liked most and wanted to use. I decided to edit as if the film was in four parts: when the characters is watching the TV, the montages symbolising what she had watched, the effects of the subliminal messages and the aftermath. As we had not yet edited the montages I decided to leave a gap where they would go so I could edit around them. I started with the long shot panning between Yasmin and the television to set the mood and theme of the film, followed by the shots of her watching the TV. Then I left 5 small gaps where the montages would go and around them I put the reaction shots of Yasmin watching the television, which I cut very short so they would blend with the montages. After the montages I added the shots representing the affects of subliminal imagery. I didn't have much of a plan in terms of arrangement but I thought it made sense to start off with the less 'extreme' shots and build up the crazy throughout the film, ending with the mess the character made.

Next we edited the montages as a group. Together we spent some time looking for archive footage that would be suitable for each of the five themes and we started editing the first montage together. However this process was taking longer than expected so we edited the montages individually, I edited sex and fear, Nicole edited drugs and violence, and Rufaro edited food. To create the montages we used found footage, this was because the footage was meant to symbolise what people watch everyday. We cut the footage up really short as if they were like a bombardment of flashing imagery representing subliminal messages. After we made each of them they were added into the main film.

When it came to colour grading, I used the colour wheel to change the tones in the footage. I added more blue and purple into each of the clips to cancel out the orangey colour and make the walls look whiter. I also turned up the contrast on all of the clips to make the shadows stand out more and enhance the colours. I think this improved the look of film especially the makeup scenes as the black and red makeup now stood out stronger.

After watching the film, we thought that the montages blended into the film to much and it wasn't obvious enough that the montages were what she has seen, or a representation of what she'd seen. So I decided to make them look like they are being watched on an older television, like the one we actually used in the film. To give them a VHS look, I first added lines overplayed on the footage and then added TV grain. The grain was very subtle but adds to the effect.

Original

With lines added

With grain added

Finally I added typography to the film starting with the title and credits. I decided to add the credits to the opening of the film as I felt it worked aesthetically with the longer shots. I think the font I chose worked well with the film as its futuristic look coheres to the theme of watching television and the media. We also added quick flashing text to the montages to recreate the old techniques of subliminal messages. For each of the themes we chose certain words to flash such as: heroin, overdose, drugs are cool, for drugs etc. and we put around ten words in each of the montages. To recreate the classic technique we use Arial Black, a large bold font, in white for each of the words. The idea was very inspired by the artist Barbara Kruger. For the rest of the film we decided to use more of this idea but make it even less noticeable by adding the typography but using the overlay effect so it blends into the film. Lastly I decided to add all the words to the last shot before the aftermath, flashing one after the other.