Cereal Offenders: Final Evaluation

Here is my final evaluation of our Major Project: Cereal Offenders Comedy Drama.

After reading the script, I honestly didn't now how we were going to translate some of the outlandish ideas onto film. The script contained sequences were there would be a giant penguin and people transforming into plants, conversing with other sunflowers. However, thanks to some great planning, we were able to successfully convey this script and its ideas in ways which felt achievable and din't push the barriers of imagination over achievable goals and the strict budget.

The filming process was thankfully mostly stress free. Our actors, while professional, were also able to communicate well with us and shared ideas and different interpretations between the crew in order to get the best performances out of them. I've mentioned in earlier posts that I had some difficulty concerning how the sound should be recorded (as sound operator and editor this was my primary concern) with some of crew repeatedly insisting that I should use the Tascam recording equipment, instead of recording the sound with the boom microphone directly connected to the camera. After some research I had eventually given in and used the Tascam, though this did cause several problems for the edit like I had predicted. despite these problems, most of the crew were very professional and there was good communication between all of our roles, often meaning we were finished shooting early than expected on most of the shoot days due to efficiency. This did perhaps come at a cost as I will explain.

It was during the editing process that I started to notice a few problems with the recorded footage. First of all, feedback from our Tutor indicated that the footage itself was shot more like a serious drama than a comedy meaning that, beyond reshooting the entire production, we had to try and bring some more energy into a blandly shot edit. However, this did admittedly give me more of a chance to try and experiment with the sound and show that my sound editing could elevate an otherwise boring production. 

There was also some criticism given to my recorded sound however, with comments that I might have been too far away from the actors when recording the sound, causing an echo. This was mostly down to trying to stay out of the way of the cameraman within relatively cramped space. Perhaps we should have filmed in a location that had larger space. Despite this, I could have still found some way to bring the microphone closer to the actors.

The next problem arose when editing the sound into the project itself. More often than not, every time a small edit was made, the sound would either be taken completely out of sync with the footage or deleted entirely. This meant that there were many editing sessions where I was re-doing a lot of what I had already completed before, effectively consuming more time which I could have been using to concentrate on something else. I felt that if I had been allowed to record with the boom microphone connected directly to the camera (which as sound operator should have ultimately been my decision anyway) this problem could have been avoided. Another minor problem I found was the editing of the footage itself. Sometimes matching the sound to the footage became difficult because of the way the footage had been edited, cutting off a character's speech or breaking continuity between shots. This wasn't helped by the fact that Will, our Director, always said cut far too early, not letting the shot continue long enough without hearing his voice suddenly come in for ease of editing and continuity. However, due to successful communication with the Aimee and I, were were mostly able to work around this issue.

One thing I'd also like to note is the rather noticeable absence of our Producer during the entire editing process. While i appreciate the work they had put in when preparing the shoot and the monetary management (which unfortunately did have some noticeable inconsistencies within the budget), it would have been better to the Producer be more involved in the edit. On the very few times they were there, their contributions were very little if there were any at all.

Here is the final exported version of Cereal Offenders uploaded onto YouTube by Aimee, our editor:

I am mostly happy with this final edit, though I do still think there are a few problems sound-wise:

Positives:

- The edit itself is of a good level and was energetic which shows we were able to overcome the stale and boring way in which the footage was shot. Some very minor reshoots also helped with this.

- My sound editing with aspects such as the sound effects and the music helped to contribute towards the more energetic elements of the edit and also helped to elevate the production to a more professional level.

- We were able to move past the usual conventional techniques of film editing and chose to be more experimental which suited the script and hopefully makes our production stand out from others.

- I was able to incorporate my research into shows such as The Mighty Boosh for the overall tone of the sound, sound effects and music that I had created and used for this edit. My research into music producers such as Trevor Horn also helped me to professionally produce the music for this project. 

Improvements:

- Despite being able to bring more energy into this edit, the remnants of the rather boringly shot footage still remain and it seems quite obvious that we were trying to force the edit into making the footage much more interesting. Therefore, the pacing is sometimes a bit uneven.

- The actors did not give the most energetic of performances. We did do some reshoots of certain scenes but they are sometimes inconsistent which does hurt the pacing slightly.

- Due to not properly starting the creation of the music until later on in the editing process, I do feel that the soundtrack itself does sound a bit rushed. I feel it could have used much more development had I given myself more time. This also counts for some of the sound effects as well, particularly when the characters have taken drugs and lead into their hallucinations.

- I never got around to fixing certain parts of the recorded audio from the shoot days. I had planned on taking all of the sound into a program such as Audacity or Adobe Audition in order to get rid of some of the echo and white noise. My original plan for this was to do this right at the very end of the edit once all of the sound was in place. However, I did not get the time to do this as the final edit was not finished until the last minute. I feel I should have instead done this at the very start of the editing process before editing the sound into the project. Therefore, the audio does have some inconsistencies with the level of white noise between certain parts of audio

Here is also the final poster Aimee created for our project, which I also did happen to give some advise and help with the creation of:

Overall I am happy with this final version of the project despite some of the problems which I have outlined. It was somewhat difficult try to help improve on footage that was not very good in the first place but I feel that the rest of the production crew and I were able to surpass this and make something which stands out. I feel we could have even taken it further in order to create an een more memorable production.