HELK Productions

ASPECTS OF POST PRODUCTION

WHAT IS POST PRODUCTION?Post-Production is a part filmmaking, video production and photograph which occurs in the process predominantly after the filming but can be done in the process of while filming. It normally occurs onsite for photo-shoots as they colour correct to make certain aspects of the object or person to pop out and to make sure that only the object/person is where your eyes land first, and it’s easier to make these changes when the object/person is there so that they can be adjusted.

Post production can consist of:

1. Colour Correction

2. Sound Balancing

3. Titling

4. Effects

5. Sound Editing

COLOUR CORRECTIONColour correction is a step which has a huge effect on the visual side of any production because it can make completely change the atmosphere of a photo or clip, or even improve the quality of it.

We’ve looked around and seen what software we could use to colour correct our film. We’ve looked into the big players such as Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects and even Photoshop for our posters and titles.

We’ve decided to go with Edius 7 Pro because of the interface of the software, it looks simple and is perfect for us as we haven’t colour corrected a video before . We have decided to colour correct on some test scenes to learn how to use the software and make sure we are comfortable using it. It’s essential that we understand how to use this software as we will be using it to make sure our film looks as though its set in the dark, even though we won’t be filming in the dark because that would create problems with filming techniques.

SOUND BALANCING Sound Balancing is a process of creating a soundtrack for a video, in silent films it’s essential as it tells the story of what’s happening, it puts some emotion into the film. For films in general it means balancing sound to make everything fit in with the scene. E.g. two characters are talking, it’s being filmed from inside of the car, and a car goes past, to make it more natural we would get sound of a car passing and add that in and turn down the levels to make it sound natural. Sound Balancing helps enhance the video and create sound effects and make it fit into the video and make it seem natural.

We’ve looked at Sound Balancing software's such as Audacity which is only able to edit sound and BlackMagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve which has the capabilities of editing sound and video and Edius 7 Pro which we decided to go with because we won’t need to make sure that files are compatible with each other as the sound and video editing will be done in-house on one software and again the interface makes it easier to control and edit with.

EFFECTS• Audio – Sound editing is a key aspect of the film as it adds an additional feel to the film –

it adds to the Mis-en-scene of the film. Short films tend to use a lot of sound editing to help to create stereotypes and introduce things quickly. Stereotypes and quick introductions are essential in short films because there’s less time to establish certain aspects of the film to the audience, but they still need to have an understanding of these aspects.

• Visual editing – As I’ve stated above short films generally don’t have many visual effects besides colour grading because they are usually of a lower budget, but it depends on the type of film, e.g. if the short film is about a guy who has powers, it’s likely the editors will put in laser eyes etc.

DIEGETIC SOUND

• Diegetic Sound – Diegetic sound is primarily generated by the objects and mainly anything we see in the frame/Image, the sounds come from within the world of the narrative. Diegetic sound tends to come from the sound in the location (Where it’s being filmed), A characters ringtone will be classed as diegetic sound as the phone comes in to the frame.

• Non-Diegetic Sound- Non Diegetic sound is sound which is generated outside of the frame e.g. voice over or music

Most short films will stick to Diegetic sound and maybe add in music to the end when the credit is rolling because they are often realistic in order to be gritty and hard-hitting, meaning that non-diegetic sound would make the film less realistic and ruin the ambiance. For our film we will need music, as the opening scene consists of one the characters singing along to a song on the radio. We have sought out a song without any copyright laws that prevent us from using it.