Editing: Formatting

We used Final Cut Pro X to edit. At the very start of the editing process, we took all of our original footage and pieced it together to make a working and continuous story. Then we used the 'blade' tool (shortcut CMD, SHIFT KEY, B) to fine-tune each individual piece of footage so it connected. We removed all the audio and put it to 0 DB in preparation for the voiceover and atmosphere tracks which would be taken from foley, free sound.org and also, from imovie effects.

Then after some research, we used the letterbox tool to format the movie into the standard film ratio 2:35. To do this we selected one clip and put the effect on the film, then we went to the side bar where 'LETTERBOX' had shown up and chose the preferred ratio for the film. Following this, we used copy and selected all of the tracks and hit paste effects. This was a simple way of ensuring that all of the clips had the same continuous ratio. As the clips original frame width was being squashed down, we had to use keyframes to ensure that the movement was flowing up and down from the central object of that particular frame. E.G. When using the props, the central object was the book etc and hence, that was the thing that had to be the most central.

Following this, came the stabilisation, rolling shutter motion and rendering. Below are the definitions of all of these things:

 Last year, we were unaware of all these methods of formatting. We used stabilisation but were unaware of the correct ratio for the film. Therefore, when we went to stabilise the shots in the new ratio, they would distort and slant. This meant that we couldn't simply copy and paste these attributes and instead had to stabilise each individual video. A lot of the film was shot handheld, my one issue was the lack of tripod use throughout, therefore stabilising on these particular clips wasn't possible.

Finally, when we were ready to upload the film unto Vimeo/Youtube, we had to ensure that every single clip was rendered in full. For this we went to FORMAT > RENDER ALL and waited until each clip reached 100% rendered.