Final days of editing advert 3

Last week we spend a large amount of time editing advert 3 in order for it to be finished. The first thing we did was to put all the shots that we had in the correct order, followed by cutting the clips down in order for it to run more smoothly. This allows us to see what may need re-shooting and what can be kept and removed from the original storyboard plans.

During one of our editing sessions, me and Hannah shared responsibilities in order to get it done quicker. Due to two shots of the mother needing to be shot, Hannah went home and took the responsibility of getting them shots done ready for us to use the following day. Due to Hannah having to leave earlier in one of our editing sessions, I made myself responsible to edit the shots on the Macs (that we had already planned to edit anyway) to makethe lip sync of the narration and the voice over fit correctly in the advert. The following day, I we both put our work together and continued finishing off the advert.

One problem which we faced was the music because none of us could find a downloadable instrumental version of the song that we had chosen to use with the advert. ('Heartbeat' by Scouting for Girls) With time running out, we therefore made a 'plan B' we decided to use the Edirol, which we had already used before, in order to record the music. Once we recorded the music, we uploaded it onto the Macs and used Adobe Soundbooth to edit the music to fit the advert. The disadvantage of doing this was the background noise from the recording which was really obvious when put into the advert, making the advert have an unfinished and unprofessional feel as well as loosing any aspects of verisimilitude. We therefore had to tweak the music by overlapping it and adjusting the sound in order to cover up these sounds. We further had to edit the dialogue of the advert because the sound did not flow well enough due to the amount of background noise.

Progress in re-shoots

Me and Hannah have finally managed to get footage from our re-shoot sessions last week. To begin with, it didn’t go very well because we struggled to achieve the shots which we originally intended to use meaning we had to find ones that would be more effective. Some shots that we did were the same as the ones which we put in to the first sequence of the advert because they worked well, but had to be re-done due to the characters having slight changes to their costume.

Some of the shots were more time consuming than others, such as when the boy greets the mother, because we tried it in different ways so that we could choose the best one when we edit. Furthermore, the dialogue proved a problem at times because the actors were not speaking loud and/or clear enough meaning that we had to keep trying to get the shot looking the way we intended it to.

Whilst we began filming we also found it a challenge to make the ‘meet the mother’ part of the advert understandable to an audience. We have had several ideas in which to portray this yet many of them appeared to be too complicated to show. We have therefore kept it quite simple, and have tried not to over do the interaction between the couple and the mother because we found that the shots looked messy which brought focus away from the couple and the actual product.

After our latest filming we now have the very end shot to complete which will only take a short amount of time so can be easily done after school.

Unfortunately, me and Hannah have not been able to make use of the Macs during the half term due to us already having made plans to be out filming re-shoots on those particular days. However, if all goes to plan, (and hopefully with no more re-shoots) then we should have the advert complete by the end of this week because we have planned to use our frees and after school sessions to complete the editing of this final advert.

Plans for re-shoots

The re-shoots will be on a tight schedule due to people only being available at certain times etc. We therefore have had the 6th and 8th of April to try and finish as many re-shoots as we can complete ready for editing.

Delay's that we have encountered

Recently, (since prior discussions about the advert) there have been several delays in the production of advert 3 (re-shoots, editing the re-shoots and music) meaning that we are getting more and more behind our original plans/schedule therefore are not progressing. Hannah and I have tried to decide on shots in which we will use for our third advert, yet the ideas that we have seem to make the advert over complicated. We have attempted to overcome this problem make notes on the order in which we will film our re-shoots to avoid confusion, as well as draw up a brief storyboard of the shots we will need to do. This will help filming go quicker as well as give us an idea of what the outcome should look like.

Another delay which we have had is characters/actors. Firstly, it has been difficult to get our actors available at the same time meaning that it is impossible to film because we cannot change actors now, and in most of the shots we need the two of them to be present. This has therefore meant that we have had to reschedule our planned filming on several occasions despite us trying to overcome this by organising to meet in advance. Secondly, after our discussion with our teacher, we decided not to use the same girl to play the mother role, therefore we have had to try and find somebody else. Using a real mother, or somebody who is distinctively older than the couple, is the ideal because it will make the advert more understandable to an audience. The only time in which we could have a character like this is during the holiday when Hannah’s mum would be free to film with us, including any extra re-shoots if necessary. This does however mean that there would be a week where we can not do much filming, but it allows me and Hannah to look through music, deciding upon a potential soundtrack to accompany the action as well as complete shots which do not have the mother in etc. The risk of doing this is that we may not finish or even start the editing during the break therefore will have to stay after school to finish off the editing for the advert. Me and Hannah have, however, agreed that we will stay a couple of hours to complete the advert, and try and get it done within two long after school sessions in order to try and get it done in one go because we find this a better, more convenient method than doing little work across several days.

Changes of Advert 3 (2)

As said in the previous post, there are going to be several changes made to the advert. Below is a quick breakdown of what happens in the advert now:

-Establishing shots of the couple arriving at the house. Both dressed smartly. Boy wearing shirt and tie and geeky glasses, girl in shirt and black trousers. (LS)
-Aud. aware of nervousness of the boy through dialogue ‘I hope your mum likes me’ said whilst girl adjusts his tie (CU)
-Couple enter the house, girl calls ‘mum, I’m home’ (MS)
-Boy is introduced to girl’s mother. It is established that the mother thinks the boy has bad breath. Dialogue including ‘mum this is Ben’ and ‘nice to finally meet you’ etc (MS & CU)
-Couple settle down in the house, when they are alone they hold hands etc like previous adverts, passing of time is shown (CU, MS)
-Mother re-joins them followed by awkwardness. Mother then raises the question ‘Do you use projection’ (MS, CU)
-Reaction shots of couple. Followed by speech such as ‘Well..’ and ‘mum!’ (CU)
-Jingle (CU)
-End shots, mother passing mint to boy and acceptance of boy by mother (CU, MS)