The Post-Production Pt.2

I'm almost done with editing. I've made a few changes though. My first one I was removed the white layer and just took down the saturation. It didn't look good, kind of unclear and hazy, but now it seems a little dull. It fits the mysterious tone of the film, and thescriptlab.com agrees that lowering the overall color of a scene can "give an eerie or suspenseful effect".

I also added an inverted ellipse with a decreased feather and opacity to give the perception that the audience is seeing the scenes from someone else's point of view. For some reason, it's white on the corners but in the video it's black because of the black video in the background. I did this to make the audience connect with the character and try and understand what's going on in the character's mind. Also, its got some pretty good hints and foreshadowings of what's to come later on in the movie. I explained in my Filming in LA posts why I chose the scenes I did.

My biggest issue is audio. I did my best to turn off any electronic thing in the house so there were no background noises, but I couldn't shut off my fish tank. You can hear it slightly in the background. Luckily, for some actions like the footsteps, I recorded an audio clip for them. I just need to make it seamless and realistic. I know how important audio can be, but filmbase.ie says it better than I can.

Fortunately, Alec and I recorded many self-made audio tracks. In addition to some footsteps, I recorded the opening/closing of the doors, Alec's scream, and the heartbeat at the beginning. However, I wasn't all that talented so I used some sounds from a website called orangefreesounds.com. It's royalty-free so they allow anyone to use any of the sounds in anything. I used a gong-like sound when Alec saw his parents' empty bed (to show that something was wrong in that there was no one around) and a climactic zoom sound (to pair with the vertigo shot because it just sounded better). I didn't like Alec's gasp in the beginning so I used a male gasp track and I think it sounds better.

A huge part in covering up any audio flaws like that one is adding music. Fortunately, I used royalty-free music so I won't have any issues there. I settled on a track called Eerie Atmospheres. It is very suspenseful and I'll use it in the beginning when the character wakes up confused.

I still have some finishing touches to do, but I'm in LA (again) and I will try and make time to do so. Next post I'll talk about what my finished product and what I would have done differently.

"Mystery/Suspense." The Script Lab. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Apr. 2017.

Dombchik, Max W. "The Importance of Sound." Filmbase. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Apr. 2017.