Production Blog: Final Touches

 Hello, hello, hello! As you are reading here with me today, the group has officially completed the editing of the final project! Today was the day for all touch-ups and small finishing details. My wonderful editor Jordyn was able to take into account all of the critiques received yesterday and fix them or work them into the film. To begin, the group started with the audio aspects. The first critique encountered was the suggestion that the police voice should be muffled. In order to do this, Jordyn quotes that she had to "alter the equalization and as such alter how muffled an inputted audio sounds." Simply put, she says that she had to lower the frequency of the audio in order to make it sound more distant and create that "muffled" sound effect. The next sound aspect of the film was the music, correlating with the suggestion that the volume of the music should be lower. Instead of simply decreasing the volume level, Jordyn suggested splitting the clip into three sections (before, during, and after the police audio) and adjusting each clip's volume according to the level of surrounding sound. In this case, she made the volume of the audio that plays during the police recording much quieter and the surrounding clips a bit louder. The next issue encountered was the gap in ambient sound when Ashley starts speaking on the couch. The group noticed when reviewing the film that during the pause to show Ashley for her speaking part, the audio from the news clip was stopped, creating an awkward pause and unwanted silence. To fix this, the group recorded a mock speaking part to fill the gap. I suggested that Jordyn held the voice recorder as far away from her as possible, and Ashley suggested that she speak into her sleeve to again create a muffled effect so that the viewer can still hear Ashley's line. This method also made it sound a bit more like it was coming from the TV speakers than if she had spoken clearly into the voice recorder. The next suggestion to tackle was the note that the transition between the bathroom and office scenes was a bit choppy. Since this was an action match cut, all that had to be done was pinch the clip and adjust it to make Ashley's hands line up better. After seeing the finished transition, I agreed that this fix was necessary, and the cut was much cleaner. The final suggestion was the hues of the film. The group still agreed that red was the best tint for this film to give a "vintage" look and also to flush out the alcoholic main character, Jordyn also mentioned that this adds a sense of ominousness to the thriller genre. With all of these final touches complete, I am overjoyed and so incredibly amazed with the film my group has created. I wanted to again thank you so much for joining me during my production journey as it comes to an end, but fear not, I will see you again very soon!