504 - Editing and Final Film

And here is the final film (sound quality is better through headphones):

Once I had composited all the scenes, I exported them into Premiere to put everything together. I used Ducky's animatic as guide for the timings as the shots had to fit with the music and be on the beat, not allowing for any change. In addition to this, I added the transitions between a few scenes and made sure everything fit together. Finally, I added the beginning and end logo (created and animated by Olivia) and also created the credits.

From this point the visuals of the film were done, however Ducky wanted to tweak some of the timings and then do the sound editing and music, so I consolidated the file and sent it to her.

Overall, the editing for me was very straightforward and I just put everything together according to the animatic. This is the first animation I've done that had to be strictly to the beat, and I've learnt that most of the editing for this type of film has to be done in pre-production as you don't really have wiggle room to change things up in post too much.

One thing that I did have control over was the length to hold the flashcards. There was a fair bit of info on the cards so it had to be held for a while, but I didn't want it to seem too long. I ended up holding each one for 6-7 seconds, which I think is a little too short to read the flashcards slowly, but any longer and it would have been boring and also would have pushed the film over the time limit further.

I think the long flashcards are the main reason why the film is over 90 seconds, however I don't think we could really cut it down to that time without the film seeming rushed, and I'd prefer it to be a little bit over the time but well paced than to be too quick (this is mainly for the beginning and end shots, as the scenes with music can't really be changed).

I was also worried about how this film isn't a stereotypical documentary with a narration and lots of information, but I think that because it is created from research it is still classified as one, as well as the fact that we were aiming for a more poetic/observational documentary than an expository one, which I feel the film does achieve. I also think the flashcards do fit in with the film really well, and helps introduce the lighter tone to it.

Overall, despite burn out (again), I'm really proud we got this film finished and although it is not completely polished, I think the level of production quality is okay for my current skillset.