Editing | Development

To start the editing process, I separated my footage and put them into bins to make it easier for me to find the clips that I need. I made sure to have a bin for my audio files, and bins for each location.

I then made sure that everything I needed in terms of footage was where it needed to be, and the settings were correct.

Firstly, I looked at my script and started to add the footage onto the timeline, in the order that they are in within the script. I also then took the audio of Micaiah speaking the poem, and split it up so each line could be adjusted in position and duration if necessary. From some of the clips, I found there was some ambience audio in the background, so I copied the audio and pasted it all throughout the length of the video.

For the quick changes of shots I layered the two different clips on top of each other and used the cut tool to cut the end of the clips into 6 different sections. I then deleted three from one clip and then the opposite three on the other clip. This then created a quick flash effect and with a sound effect added it would add to the impact of the tone I want to create with this transition. I did this transition a few times within the video as I thought it would move the video along at a quick pace and it kept the audience engaged in what is being shown in the video.

Since the video is very audio heavy, and the main importance of it is the sound design, I started to add some sounds to bring my footage to life.
I took the audio of Micaiah saying the extra dialogue I added into the scenes, and split them up so they were individual shots. I then moved them around and overlapped them so instead of it sounding like a conversation, it sounded more like words in the characters head. I then added an echo effect by adding the 'studio reverb' effect onto the audio. I changed the preset to 'vocal reverb (large)' and this created a really nice effect which created the sense of inner thoughts which was the aim.

To make some shots more real, I added sound effects, alongside the actual audio from the clip, to make it more obvious in a subtle way. For example; I added a raindrop sound effect to the clip of raindrops on the window. I also added a crackling candle effect to the shots with the candles in it to just to add more of an impact to the video. I did the same thing with the covers tossing and turning, and the water dripping out of the tap.
To create the sense of emotion and pain, I added a variety of female crying sound effects and again added the 'studio reverb' to make them sound like an inner thought. And to add to this I added a breathless sound effect in order to create a sense of panic with links in with the actual mental illness that is being presented.

To add to the fast cut transition, I found a sound effect that sounds like a flash. The actual noise of a camera shutter, but I thought this sound was subtle and worked nicely with the transition. There's a high pitched type of sound at the beginning of the sound effect that adds nicely to the video as it makes the audio quite distorted and interesting.
I used a lot of layers for this sound effect as I wanted it to be consistent within those certain transitions in the video.

Also, in the bathroom footage, there was originally a dull noise, and I decided to use that audio throughout the whole video. This helped with the distorted effect running throughout the whole video.

Since all of the visuals and the audio files were in the right places, I moved onto creating the rewind at the end of the video. To do this I created a new sequence and copied the visuals from the main sequence into the new one. I then worked from the end of the video and reversed each clip one by one. This was quite tricky as I had to adjust the position of the clips in order to make it play backwards. Once I had completed that, I exported it and added it to the blank space it was meant to go in. It was sped up to fit the gap, and now it looks like the video is playing backwards which is what I wanted. Instead of using a rewind sound, I used a dull static sound so it wasn't silent and it created an increase in the sound design, which would then create a panic sort of impact.

Once the audio had been completed, and the sound effects had been layered upon each other and had an echo type of effect, I moved onto the colour of the video. I added an adjustment layer and used the 'three-way colour correcter' wheel to create the desaturated effect I wanted for my visuals. I adjusted the input and the output levels, to make the shot look slightly darker while keeping Micaiah's face apparent.

Before the rough cut viewing, I had all of the clips and the audio in place, however the colour correcting hadn't been completed all the way through. For some of the 'dream' sequences I made sure to used a tested version of the colour correcting so Helen and Sam knew what I wanted the shot to look like in the end.