Progress Report –Editing Trailer

After capturing all of the footage which we needed over a number of filming days it was time to begin the editing of the trailer. It was at this stage that we noticed a problem with some of our footage. Half of it was filmed in wide screen and half was not. This had created a letterbox effect on the footage which was not filmed in widescreen when we joined the footage together. This problem could have been avoided if we had checked that the settings had not been adjusted before we started. This was an unintentional error on our behalf which could have been avoided. At first we thought that our only option was to re film. This was a huge disappointment to the group as much of the footage we had obtained was of high quality and would have been a shame to have had to disregard it. Another problem with relfilming was time because the deadline was vastly approaching. To refilm would have been a hugely time costly process.
With much relief to the group we didn’t need to refilm as using the software Photoshop allowed us to create a similar letterbox affect on all of the widescreen footage. There was the danger of cutting the tops of people’s heads off however luckily this did not end up to be a problem because we had followed the rule of thirds guide well throughout our footage. Although evidently a problem I feel the group handled this well as everyone was willing to reschedule a filming day and cooperation was never a problem.
It was also during the editing process that we decided that our trailer did not follow the horror convention of pace. As a result of this we referred back to our story boards in an attempt to fix this. However on paper as a group we were finding it hard to re order because essentially we liked our old order but it just didn’t work. As a group the way we found most effective in the process of re ordering shots was to use sticky labels with shot descriptions on them and to order them manually using a wall. Once this process was complete we had achieved our objective to quicken the end pace of our trailer in an appropriate way.
During the editing process we did have some successes. For instance the music and voiceovers were incorporated onto the trailer with no problems and through the use of fades and other effects we have been able to produce a trailer which is representative of the group’s hard work. The genre horror has many codes and conventions with regards to its style of editing and essentially we have been able to recreate many of these which all add to the tension building and enigma.