(M2) Apply video effects and titles and graphics to the materials

During the post production of our short film, we did not use a lot of editing techniques, video effects or graphics as our film was mostly dependent on natural and realistic feeling. This means that the effects that we used were minimal, however like all editing effects, they had an impact on the final version of our film.

Edit Log -

Title:

For the title of our film, we wanted something that was bold and stood out against a background. This means that we needed to pick a suitable font. The font we ended up using was the AKIRA font from DaFont.com. This was the bold font that we thought was most suitable, so we used it to create our title.

For the opening sequence, we wanted to do something more interesting than a normal bold white title. We decided to reveal the film through the text, so the text is a see through area in a black mask. This is a tool on After Effects called 'luma key' which means that we could reveal some of the video as a replacement of the text fill.

After this title sequence, we wanted to fade the surrounding black mask into the film. This was easily done by selecting the text layer with the black background and reducing the opacity in specific keyframes. At the same time, the video layer's opacity was increased from 0 to 100 during the exact same keyframes. This creates a seamless fade transition from the introduction to the film.

 This is what the title sequence looks like halfway through the fade transition.

Closing credits/ending scene - 

Within the closing credits, we used the same font as the title, as this fits well with the chosen style of the film. We kept the credits simple, detailing the roles and the names of the film in their individual sections. This is as simple as we needed it to be.

This is an example of how we kept the credits very simple, we used nothing but a black background and a white text layer. This means it is bold and easy to read.

These clips were matched with the beat of the music used in the credits. To make this easier, the audio was marked with Adobe's markers to make it easy to see where to cut each clip. We used straight cuts to make this flow better.

Footage Corrections - 

When filming, some of our shots were bound to have some mistakes with camera settings. Some of our shots ended up being over-exposed, and some under-exposed. This means that we had to correct the exposure in these shots. In some of our shots we also had to correct the colour, contrast and other things to enhance the image quality.

This is an example of how the shots were edited. We moved the sliders to change the levels until we thought that the shots looked better. We did this for every clip that we think needed improving. The tool we used was the Lumetri colour panel on Adobe Premiere Pro.

This is an example of one of the clips before we edited it, and after we edited it.

Text Message Graphic - 

The only graphic we used which needed an editing process was the text message that pops up during the montage section of the film. This was a simple editing process, but was more developed than every other editing technique we used other than this.

To start, a blue rectangle was created in After Effects and the edges were rounded to create the smooth 'bubble' like appearance. The box was coloured the same blue colour as the Apple text messages in order to gain a sense of realism. 

The font that was used was the San Francisco Font. This is because that is specifically the font that Apple uses for their text messages. this also generates realism.

This is the keyframe of the animation created for the message. The position and opacity was changed here in the same keyframe, this means that the message looked as if it floated onto the screen.