Updating Final Cut
After all the composited scenes were finished, I included them in the final cut. This was the first time seeing all the clips in the cut and it did not disappoint. All the clips followed after each other in a nice flow and looked cohesive. I proceeded to add some film burn overlays to create a seamless flow throughout the montage section and further reinforce the film aesthetic. Then I continued to polish up the final cut by adding some transitions, subtle zoom ins/outs, title screen and end credits which I hand animated to match the hand written motif we have throughout our project. We also included a funny little animation of the bear dancing in our end credits because we wanted to end it off on a light-hearted note.
An example of the end credits screen :
Sound Design
Once we added all the clips in, I added the sound design. Fortunately I had sourced most of the sound effects when I made the animatic at the start of the year so I just reused some of them. I still had to source new sound effects and record my own to match the actions of the characters which I recorded on my phone. The only difference between the sound design of my animatic and final short film is that I added some diegetic sound throughout the montage section to give it more weight and reinforce the environment they are in, as well as change the time of when the emotional music at the end plays. I received some feedback that it would be more impactful starting the music as the camera shows a close up of the picture frame rather than when she starts opening the photos. Surely enough, the silence created by the atmospheric sounds helped to build tension and resulted in a more impactful reveal. The music also helped to signify to the audience the importance of the picture frame.
Screening Test
After finishing the final short film, we did some screen tests to firstly ensure that the colour translated correctly on the big projector, and secondly to test the audio. After my first test it was painfully clear that my footage was too dark and the projector seemed to show the footage more contrasted compared to viewing it on a PC. The sound was also far too quiet.
Once I brightened up the footage and adjusted the sound levels I went back a second time to do a screen test. Fortunately the audio and most of the scenes looked much better but Emily did point out that some of our day time scenes were still too cold.
So after warming up the colours and making more small adjustments to the brightness, I did a final screen test. The result looked much. We then played the original and updated version side by side to compare them. It was very satisfying seeing the difference the screen tests made and was definitely worth the hassle of going back and forth between the lecture hall and the computer labs to ensure the final result was what we wanted.
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