Reshoot Plans | Development

After discussing doing a reshoot as a group, the producer has eventually scheduled to do a one day shoot with Greg, Christine, Liz & David. In order to prepare for this reshoot, we need to make sure we have a list of props to remember and a list of shots that have been prepared and blocked.

Blocking & New Shots

I came together with the DOP and we discussed what new shots we wanted to shoot for both scene 11 & 17. Scene 17 was quite simple, as we knew we needed a shot of Jordan from inside the house, and a shot that acted as Annie's iPad view. We also want a shot of Marie walking out of the car and up the driveway so we can make it more obvious that Marie has arrive at Annie & Dean's house. Going on from this, I want to record a sound effect of a car arriving at the house and leaving, so we can make Marie's arrival and departure more obvious.
For scene 11 we needed a shot of Annie's face and we want to try and go through the window. We tried this in preparation and we both decided the shot was really nice. We even decided to go through the other window to get Dean's face when he's mixing the ingredients as we really liked the way the shot looked. We also need more CU of the baking ingredients, and we need to be able to see Dean's recipe. We need to find a place to put The Last Dish logo recipe so it's in shot, but we can make that decision on the day of the shoot.
Nisserin also mentioned, while we had Christine, that we should get a shot of her saying "how did you get in the house" and a few reaction shots. This is a good idea as we might as well use the actors to our advantage while we have them.
We also need to get shots of the iPad screen, so for scene 9 we will get a shot of Annie setting up Instagram, and another in scene 11 where we see her take a picture on her iPad. These shots will give us extra coverage to work from, whilst also bringing the them of the characters being new to these technologies.
Before the reshoot, I fell ill so I wasn't able to work with the DOP in making the blocking and a new shot list. Thankfully, the DOP was very helpful and made the changes for me, and if I thought they needed to be a bit different I would change them - but they didn't need to be changed.

We both decided that there wasn't any point in making a shoot pack for this day as the only crew we were going to have was just us three, and we knew what we needed to get.

Props

We watched through the scenes several times and made a list of the props we needed to have for each scene, especially scene 11 as this is the one where you'll see more of the set. Nisserin very helpfully created a tick list for the props and we will follow this when getting the props together for the reshoot.

Quite a lot of the props are already in the location we will be filming in, but I do own a few of them so I need to make sure I have those prepared for this reshoot.

For The Last Dish recipe book, I decided to create this as I came up with the idea and I had a good idea as to how it could look. I did some research on some of the cook books I own, but also some general cook books, to see what design plan I should get some influence from.

I like the square shaped pictures that are present in two of the recipe books, so I'm going to find some pictures of meals (both breakfast, dinner, dessert & drink) and make them a sharp square shape in order to resemble these recipe book designs. In the Bake Off recipe book, I really like the way the title is in front of a filled in shape which is in front of the background. I want to try and add this into the recipe book as well as it makes the text a lot easier to read, and this is quite important in the audience noticing it in the shot, along with everything else going on in the shot we will be reshooting.

I started off by getting a bunch of different photos of different meals, and I made a grid on photoshop. I put all of the photos in the grid spaces and changed the opacity of the pictures so they were ever so slightly faint. Due to the images being faint, I had to erase the parts of the pictures that weren't in their own grid, which took some time, but it was worth it.

I added the logo of the cooking show, and an extra layer of text that said 'Recipe'. I made the background shape of the text in the same way as I made the background on the logo - which is having three different layers that are three different shades to add some depth. I also added another layer of text that says "Made By Jordan Hamsay" just so it's clear that this show is linked with the character of Jordan Hamsay.

At that is the final design of the recipe book. I then printed it out and stuck it to another recipe book to make it look realistic, and that is the prop we will be using for our reshoot.

I'm really happy with the outcome of this prop, and I think it will look really good in the shot. I also think it will add a bit more foreshadowing for scene 17 during the show, and it will be really effective.
I think we are as prepared as we can be for our reshoot, and as long as we have all of the props and get all the shots done that are on the shot list, we will have a good, relaxing and productive time. 

Poster UPDATE | Development

Previously, I had mentioned that I would be trying out different poster designs, and then as a group we would decide which one we liked the most. However, due to the sound editing work I've been doing, and the preparation for the reshoot, I found there wasn't any time to make any more edits from scratch. I have made the decision to stick with our first poster design, and upon talking to the others about this, they are ok with this decision.

There were a few extra things I needed to add to the poster in order to make it look like a real poster. I started with adding poster credits, which had been previously made by Nisserin (who had also made the credits for the video). I had found the font that real movie posters use, but due to this being a TV poster and it's quite different, I thought having a different type of font would work well. The font we have used is quite quirky but it goes with the font of our main title, which gives the poster a comedic vibe, which is perfect for our sitcom. Also, I decided to have the font in a white colour, as it stand out better against the background, and it makes it easier to read.

One of the problems I had with the positioning of these credits, is the Big Laughs Network logo was in the way of some of the text. At first I tried changing the size of both layers, but neither worked as well as I would've hoped. Instead, I decided to change the Big Laughs Network logo, so rather than it being in one line, it is now in three lines. I prefer the look of this logo for the poster, and it fits nicely in the right hand corner. It's big enough to see, whilst also not being overly distracting which is exactly what we want.

I then added the UCA logo, but originally it was black. I showed this to Nisserin and we both decided that it would look better white. The black made the poster look a bit weird due to the other layers of white text. I also think the colour white brightens the poster, which in turn makes the audience think the sitcom is lighthearted, funny and an easy watch, which is the desire.

I had to make a few last minute adjustments to the characters images, as I felt there was still quite a lot of green from the green screen. I used the colour replacement tool and edited each character to ensure that the green was completely gone. By doing this, it makes the poster look a lot better and it makes it look final, which is exactly what I wanted.

Overall, I'm really happy with the end result of our poster. I think the research done previously has helped majorly in terms of how the characters should be composed in the image, and to keep it quite simple. The other two like the poster as well, and upon showing Simon he is very happy with it. All we need to do now is to get it printed and hope that the quality will come across on paper.

Rough Cut Viewing w/ Simon & Andrea #4 | Development

With the music now into the sequence, and some of the previous changes having been made, we had another rough cut viewing, but this time it was with Andrea and Simon.

They both watched the show separately but here is their feedback:

Quite a lot of the suggestions made from both Andrea and Simon were good and useful to us when making the video the best it could be. Andrea mentioned she wanted to see more of The Last Dish element before scene 17, and we discussed either having a poster of Jordan Hamsay in their kitchen during scene 11, or a recipe book. We will discuss this further and see what will work better, but I do think it's a good idea.
One idea I had, to add a bit more of a pause between the iPad going off, was to shoot a car (which will supposedly be Marie's) driving off into the distance that we can cut to.
Simon wanted to add a sting in between scene 8 and scene 9. I'm not too keen on this idea as I don't think it'll work as well as the normal links do, but we're going to try it and see what it does to the video. Another idea I didn't like the sound of was getting a sound effect of Jordan Hamsay throwing up. I have made the decision not to do this as I don't want it to make audience's cringe and I also think it won't really add to the humour of the situation.
Other than that, I really liked the feedback given and I think, for this stage in the editing process, it was a very good tutorial.

Adding Music into Scenes | Development

We recently got sent our new composed music by our composer - who was found by me through close sources - and I straight away edited the music into our sequence. I then raised the volume of the music in scene 1, and edited music in throughout the different scenes that Simon had asked for.

The music that was added into scene 2 & 3 is quite upbeat but it also has a negative tone, in the sense that it adds a little bit of tension to the scene. The range of notes in the music track keeps the scene entertaining, and almost quickens the pace of it, which is something Simon told us was needed. I adjusted the volume of this track so the music wasn't too over powering over the actors dialogue. The only problem I had with this music track was it had a very abrupt ending, meaning it would end in the scene and it would feel like something in the video had gone wrong technically. I faded it out a little so the ending wasn't so harsh, and I made the title sequence start quick soon after that had finished, so there isn't too much of an empty gap.

The new title sequence is really upbeat and just what we wanted. The old one had grown on me throughout the editing process as I was used to it, but the new one definitely feels and sounds a lot better for the show. It has a 70's style to it, whilst also not being overly vintage, and it's fun to listen to. It will attract viewers of all ages, and it's very distinctive meaning, when someone hears this music they should recognise it as the Young & Famous theme tune. I adjusted the volume of this as it was quite loud, but I made sure to keep an eye on the audio level. The duration of it is long enough for the title sequence and hopefully it'll be long enough for the credits, if it's not we can adjust it easily.

I added a little bit of music during the seaside shots to quicken the pace of the shots, and to bring us to scene 6 a little bit faster. I didn't think scene 6, 7 or 8 needed music as they are quite quick scenes and the editing of it is quick and clean. However, scene 9 & 10 definitely needed music to quicken the pace of the two scenes. The music the composer made didn't necessarily fit for this scene, so I found a royalty free track on line that is fun and uptempo. Once I had added it onto this scene, I thought it worked really well - it quickened the pace of the scene and added more humour to it. I really liked this change, and I thought it definitely made this scene stand out against the others.

I then changed the stings to be the composer stings, and they fitted in really well. They were a good length and there was a lot of variation to choose from. However, one of the sad stings didn't really work with the tone of the show, so I found another royalty free one that worked instead.

Music was added into scene 11, and I definitely think it made the scene quicker and more intriguing. It's easy listening music and it adds a sense of casualness to the scene which works really well in terms of the story line. Along with this, scene 12 had music added to it, which had a fast tempo but dipped in out of a seriousness tone and a fun tone. This was perfect as the dialogue Annie & Dean have together starts off quite silly and then turns fairly serious, and then back to silly. I decided to end the music as we cut into scene 13 as I didn't think that scene needed a music bed underneath it. It's already quite an interesting scene with the tv screen being used, and I didn't want to distract the audience away from Marie rejecting Annie & Dean again.
Similarly, in scene 15, I decided not to have any music as I didn't want to steer away from the sad tone of this scene. If music was added, it would've bought the energy up and I wanted this scene to noticeably be the sad scene where the characters feel defeated. This gives a good difference in all the scenes as you can clearly feel the emotions of the characters change which then shifts again during scene 16.
At first, I wasn't sure what music bed to put behind scene 17, however myself and Nisserin discussed this and the idea of using The Last Dish advert's music was worth trying. I added the music in and kept it playing until Jordan Hamsay leaves the scene, which helps create fun and joy at the beginning of the scene, and then sadness and a feeling of being rejected at the end. I think overlapped the credit music in scene 17 to the credits, and it starts after the characters stop talking. This works as it gives the audience something to listen to and keeps their attention on the scene before the credits appear.

Overall, I think by adding this music it has definitely made the show feel a lot more like a sitcom, and it feels quicker. The pace of the scenes are good, and the music definitely helps carry them from one scene to the other. Now the show feels a lot better and more complete, and I'm really happy with the outcome of this change that has been made.

Rough Cut Viewing #3 | Development

After our last tutorial, we made some of the improvements suggested but we also decided against some of them. We made the change that Simon asked, but if we decided that it didn't work for the production, we kept it the same. Or if we decided it did work and looked a lot better than we made the change.

After editing the sound and making those changes, we had another tutorial with Simon, here was his feedback from the session:

The main change Simon wanted to be made was to add more music into the scenes. This will lift the video and will make it seem more like a sitcom than a drama, which is what it feels like in this current moment. We have a composer editing music together for us, so when we get those files I can add them to the sequence. However, if we find we need more music to add to the scenes we'll find royalty free music, as I'm not sure they will be enough time for him to make new music tracks for us.
He wants to see a lot more of the iPad screen, so when we do the reshoot we can arrange to shoot those clips, and add them in afterwards. We still need to do a reshoot for scene 11 & 17, so the producer needs to start planning and scheduling this with the actors.
These changes suggested are all good ones, so we will make these changes and so how this effects the show. One of the changes I don't think will work is cutting out Dean's line "he wouldn't do such a thing". I understand why this would make the scene quicker and why it needs to be quicker, but the dialogue won't make any sense, and there isn't any other way around this.

Editing the Sound | Development

Over the Easter holiday, myself and Nisserin transferred all of the files onto my hard drive so I could edit the sound throughout the two weeks. By having the zoom sound in every scene,  cleaning up the dialogue, and having all of the sound effects needed, it will help bring the whole video to life. It'll also be easier to add clips into the sequence and adjust certain things in the edit, and the rough cut viewings will be more effective by having clean audio.

I started with editing the audio of scene 1. The zoom audio for this wasn't too complicated to edit together due to us shooting it in a multi-cam set up. We used the same take for every shot, so it meant the zoom had all three characters dialogue and you could hear everyone clearly. When this was edited together it made the shot reverse shot between Marie and Annie & Dean really smooth and clean, which in turn made the whole scene feel a lot more professional and interesting. There were some shots that had it's own audio, so I had to the constant power transition a few times, and adjust the audio to make the sound seem like one piece of audio.
There weren't too many problems that occurred during this scene in terms of audio, I just had to adjust the volume of all the audio tracks to make it sound smooth. When adjusting the volume I made sure to keep the peak level under -6, and the dialogue around -12, however some tracks where less then that due to the dialogue being quiet. I did raise the volume as much as I could without it sounding too edited. I struggled with finding a good balance of the dialogue and the music track underneath. You need to be able to hear the dialogue clearly over the music and atmos, but you also need to hear the music otherwise there isn't any point in having it. I had the volume to a point that I thought worked well, but when the other two watch it they can give me opinions on whether the music should be louder.

Once I was happy with this scene, I moved onto scenes 2 & 3. Much like the shot reverse shot in scene 1, scene 2 stayed on the same shot. This meant the dialogue was easy to work with, however there were moments were Dean moves around in the car a bit too much and it had picked up on the zoom. I have tried to edit the volume of these bits so they aren't quite as loud, but I don't think they will be too distracting. When in the location, we recorded some atmos of the outside so I used a fair amount in order to keep the scene running smoothly, and hiding any moments where the audio sounds separate.
When I started editing the sound of scene 3, I realised we needed a sound effect of Marie shutting her door, as the audio we have for this shot is really quiet due to the positioning of the zoom. This isn't too much of a problem as we can record this sound effect separately, we just need to remember to do it. Another thing I noticed was, in the shot of Annie & Dean after Marie walks away, you can't hear Marie's footsteps. Instead of recording that later, I cut and pasted the previous audio of her walking over to her parents, and adjusted the volume so it fades away. This works really well, and it brings the scene to life. It's such a simple addition but it does make a big difference to the realism of the scene.
Again I adjusted the volume of the audio tracks in this scene, keeping an eye on the audio meters. I found that the audio from this scene wasn't too problematic and it all flows smoothly together.

After this scene, I went on to adjust some of the sound of scene 6, 7 & 8. For the shots where we see Dean pacing but can hear Annie in the living room, I wanted to add an effect on her audio to make it sound like she is in a different room. I struggled quite a lot with this as you had to be able to hear it, but also it shouldn't sound the same as when she is in her living room. I thought adding an echo type sound effect would be effective, so I added the studio reverb effect. I changed the impulse to small room to keep the echo realistic and effective. When the effect was added onto the audio clip, there was a difference but I wasn't too keen on it, I didn't think it was as realistic as it could've been. Later on I revisited the audio clip and did some research into how this could be done differently. In the research I did, I found an effect called Lowpass that makes the audio sound muffled, almost like the character is in a different room. When I added this filter onto the audio clip I thought it sounded a lot better, and more realistic. I then used this same effect for an audio clip that needed the same effect in the same scene, and it both worked really well.
The same thing happened with the Last Dish advert - which we had previously shot and edited together - which was on the TV screen. I needed it to sound like it was on the TV screen and I tried several different effects to try and create this, but I finally found something that worked. Liked the Lowpass effect, there was an effect called Highpass which gave it the effect that it was coming the TV. I added this onto the audio clip and it worked really well, and out of the different experiments I tried this was definitely the best.

When editing scene 9 & 10, I remembered that we recorded the sound on a camera due to the zoom not working. This didn't make much difference to the process of adding the sound tracks into the sequence, but it did have a background hissing noise which I had to get rid of on audition. I adjusted this with the Hiss Reduction effect and tried multiple times to get it to a point that I was happy with.

The transition between scene 9 and 10 was quite difficult to edit as Dean is talking in both takes, but I played around with the two tracks and experimented with different ways in which it could. Eventually I found a good balance of audio from scene 9 and 10, and it created a good transition between the two scenes.

I edited scene 11 with the zoom audio, and adjusted the volume levels like I had done for the other scenes. It was fairly easy to link the baking audio tracks together, so it sounds really smooth and clean. When editing the audio for scene 12 & 13, I remembered to add the Highpass  effect on the TV screen in Marie's house, and this was really effective when bringing this scene to life. It sounded like it was coming from her TV, and it was a good difference from Marie's dialogue, making it seem realistic.

Scene's 15, 16 & 17 weren't too complicated to edit either, as the dialogue worked well together, and we had shot in the multi-cam set up, meaning I didn't have to find a lot of different audio tracks. I made sure all of the tracks sounded smooth and if I had any problems I experimented with the constant power effect and the exponential effect. I also added any other sound effects that needed to be added, such as the knocking on the door which we decided worked a lot better then the door bell. Any other sound effects that I thought we need like the car sound effects, I wrote down ready to tell the others.
With all of the audio clean, edited together and synced, it made the whole video look really clean and it was a smooth watch. It definitely bought a lot of the scenes to life, and it made watching a lot more bearable without all of the over lapping dialogue we had before.
Overall, I'm really happy with how the edit of the audio has turned out, and I feel as if I have used my knowledge from previous work to help me, along with extra research I have done. The effects I have experimented with and chosen to use have worked really well, and I'm happy with the end result.
I will get the opinions of the other two and Simon, and see if anything else needs to change in terms of audio.