As of today, I have finished the process of cutting the raw footage for my film. All the ten scenes are laid out from beginning to end in Final Cut Pro X, and I was pleased to find that the total running time came to 4 minutes and 45 seconds. Once I add the title and credits, my short film will come to exactly 5 minutes long. This process of cutting the audio and video took a lot of time and patience, but the last two scenes in particular proved to be particularly tricky as they had the most intricate and complex editing sequences and techniques.
Scene 9:
In this scene, the film reaches its climax. Particularly towards the end of the scene, I used a lot of audio and video overlap in order to create rough, chaotic look that illustrates the confusion in Anamika’s mind. I had three separate audio tracks (cut up into smaller chunks for the sake of volume adjustments) running over each other, with each one becoming louder and softer at different intervals to show which voice was dominating in Anamika’s head.
I overlapped the 360 degree shot I took on top of the still shots of the individual personalities. I significantly increased the speed of the shot to 195% and then reduced the exposure so that it would be a faded, hazy video spinning in the background of everything else, adding to the sense of confusion. I also made use of the cross dissolve transition at the ends of the different video layers to ensure that they would blend into each other without creating a jarring effect. Correctly overlapping these different audio and video layers, was not an easy task, but I was finally able to achieve the look I intended.
Additionally, this was the scene with the slap. Getting the slap to look realistic and syncing it with the audio just right was another interesting exercise in editing. Having finally completed this sequence, I am happy with the final result.
Scene 10:
When editing this scene, I got to make use of two techniques that I had already practiced before and the practice certainly came in handy. One technique was “match-on-action” in the running up the stairs sequence. Anticipating the editing, I had already filmed the scene from all the necessary angles and was able to weave it together seamlessly and without too much difficulty.
The second technique was the disappearing effect. Again, I was able to do this without any trouble as I had practiced it a couple of times already and was comfortable with the method. I am very pleased with the way this technique looks in my final film and I think it will make the ending seem striking and memorable.
A2 Media - Short Film 