NEW FOOTAGE

After watching my new footage, I was very relieved to see that it all looked good besides various shots that were slightly overexposed but still usable. Just like with the previous footage, I threw together a rough cut just to get an idea of how well it worked and then when I was happy with the order of shots, I began looking closer and holding and cutting where I felt it was necessary. Something that I constantly kept in mind during this process was the phrase 'Kill Your Darlings' which reminded me to completely forget about how difficult or time consuming a shot was to achieve and instead focus on how much it benefitted the overall film.

Because of how much time I spent planning this short film when it came to editing, I was able to piece it together and select the soundtrack very quickly. Each piece of music I used was planned from a very long time ago which essentially allowed me to film with the music in mind. For example, the angelic choir music that fades in as he realises what has occurred was planned before I filmed and so I decided to film each clip for that section in 30fps which allowed me to slow it down fractionally without it looking choppy whilst giving it a slightly dreamy effect.

As for the opera piece from Giuseppe Verdi, that was something that I decided upon a long time ago however, I was originally going to use Bizet's Habanera which I eventually decided against as it is used quite frequently and its dramatic tone didn't suit my plans. I decided to go with La Traviata because I wanted the sequence of him hanging himself to appear almost as a balletic dance which, along with the slow-motion, helped to achieve the darkly comedic tone I was aiming for.

















To achieve the slow-motion during the hanging sequence, I filmed it at 60 frames-per-second which then allowed me to slow down the clip to 40% of its original speed giving me the smooth slow-motion. Luckily, as I was given the URSA 4.6k instead of the other URSA I asked for, I was able to film in 60fps instead of 50fps which was the maximum that the other one could achieve whilst maintaining the quality. In the hopes of understanding the camera better before using it, I had a look at a video on YouTube that talked about the camera's ability with slow-motion which helped me with my planning before filming began and also during the editing process.













AUDIO EDITING

After I completed the first cut of the film, I then turned my focus to the audio. I had decided upon what music I was using but I still needed to find the perfect sound effects as I knew from the beginning that they were going to be the most vital part of the film. Something that I was nervous about from the beginning of the editing process was balancing the audio levels as I didn't know very much at all and I needed to balance the numerous audio clips that I had. This is why I requested quite a lot of help from Callum who was more than willing to show me how to get what I wanted.

Another thing I struggled with was finding suitable sound effects to use for the film. I had been searching for a long time and I could never find good sound effects that didn't need a subscription in order to use. The one sound effect I found that I liked was actually intended to be that of a rope snapping but I realised that it actually sounded more like a branch snapping and so I used it for that instead. When I mentioned to Callum the difficulty I was having with finding suitable sound effects he brought in his laptop and played some that he had. After a while of surfing through them, we found the perfect sound effects and added them. Callum also helped me adjust the audio levels of the sound effects so that they were all equal and didn't sound out of place. This was vital for the final product.


COLOUR-GRADING PROCESS

I made sure to leave the colour-grading process until after I had finished a final cut of the film so that I didn't get distracted beforehand and so that I didn't end up colour-grading clips I wasn't going to use. Because I began planning the visual style during pre-production and I decided from very early on that I wanted to use black and white, I made sure that the clips were in black and white before I began editing so that it gave me a better idea of how the film would look. However, I didn't adjust it and so it was a very basic style of black and white.















The process of colour-grading was something I really enjoyed because of how much freedom it grants and how much I could alter the mood of each shot simply by using a certain slider. However, because of how little time I had left, I was forced to rush the process which resulted in there being various inconsistencies between certain shots which were frustrating. As I began, I made sure to refer to a mood board I made that included images from various films that used a similar visual style to the one I was hoping to achieve.













In order to achieve a similar style to the films I was using as a reference, I mainly focused on adjusting the contrast, blacks, whites, and exposure sliders. I also made sure to adjust the sharpness to help separate certain elements in the frame.

Whilst colour-grading each shot, I would sometimes refer to the comparison tool which allowed me to see the difference I was making compared to the original shot and also to compare shots that I had already colour-graded.





























DECIDING ON A TITLE

From the moment I began planning for this project, I have struggled with finding a suitable title. The first title I used for it was 'HUBRIS' which was a reference to Greek Tragedy as I wanted to make something similar to Yorgos Lantimos for example, 'The Killing of a Sacred Deer' which is inspired by and references Greek Tragedy. However, as my planning progressed and my plans developed, this title became unsuitable for what I planned to make.

I also used the title 'The Collar' for a while as a working title as a reference to the poem by George Herbert as I liked the idea of the collar, referring to the clerical collar, being contrasted with the 'collar' of the noose but I came to realise how far I was reaching and reminded myself not to be pretentious.

Whilst trying to decide upon the best title, I made a word document with each of the titles on it in suitable fonts to try and help me decide.





















The title I decided to use during pre-production was Is God Dead? as a reference to Friedrich Nietzsche. The famous quote that I was referencing is as follows:

“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?”

Explanation of quote from Goodreads:

After the Enlightenment, the idea of a universe that was governed by physical laws and not by divine providence was now reality. Philosophy had shown that governments no longer needed to be organized around the idea of divine right to be legitimate, but rather by the consent or rationality of the governed — that large and consistent moral theories could exist without reference to God. This was a tremendous event. Europe no longer needed God as the source for all morality, value, or order in the universe; philosophy and science were capable of doing that for us. This increasing secularization of thought in the West led the philosopher to realize that not only was God dead but that human beings had killed him with their scientific revolution, their desire to better understand the world.


The reason I ended up going with this title was because I reached a stage where I really needed to just pick one and stick with it. I knew I would never be completely happy with what I chose and it was taking up a lot of time that should have been focused elsewhere. Although I did like this title, those that won't notice what it is referencing will probably think it sounds a lot more dramatic and 'deep' than I intended. Another reason why I'm not completely happy with it is because, in order for it to work in the way I wanted it to, the title would have to be said as - Is God Dead? with emphasis on the Is so that it becomes a challenge to the original quote instead of a simple question. I was also a little worried about people assuming that the title was showing a negative view toward the concept of God which was not at all what  I wanted to do. Looking back now, I think I should've gone with 'The Great Calm' as I think it suits the content of the film better than the one I went with.



CREATING TITLE SEQUENCE












Creating the title sequence was the last thing I did with my project and I was still deliberating over whether I should stick with the title I had. After finally deciding to stick with the title, I then began trying to find a font that I liked, this process was a very long one as I was very indecisive. My plan from the beginning of the project was to use a thick and bold font as I thought it would suit the comical aspect of the film but when I tested it out, it didn't suit the film as well as I had hoped.

The font I eventually decided to go with is called 'Trattatello' because of its elegance. yet despite this elegance, it was still rough and looked like it belonged in some form of scripture which I thought was very suitable considering the content of the film.













Now that  I had finished the final part of the editing process and was happy with the outcome of my final cut, I exported the video and transferred it using Google Drive so that I could upload it to YouTube. Considering I only had two days to edit the entirety of the project because of my decision to reshoot the film, I was fairly happy with the outcome. In terms of the editing, there are only a few little moments that I would like to change which are mostly related to the timing of the cut.