Editing: Colour Correction

Colour Finesse Image Correction

HSL Hue Offset

Without Hue Correction

With Hue Correction

The first thing I did with this was use the Hue Offsets to increase the dark blue highlights, then slightly increase pale blue midtones and the even out the colour within the shadows by increasing the shadows in the direction of a very pale yellow/orange colour. Doing this helped to give a cooler and slightly blue effect, which is often associated with night time film. It also helped to greatly reduce the yellowish tint that was being given off by the natural lighting on set. But even with all of this, the footage was still quite bright and didn't look like it was in a darker room or shot at night time.

CMY Colour Correction

Without Levels Correction

With Levels Correction

This colour correction helped to reduce the yellow tones further and slightly enhance the whites and paler tones shown in the footage, to help improve the quality of the image when the brightness is reduced, as the white tones can be darkened easier and with a lot smaller loss of quality than yellow tones being darkened.

Master Levels

Without Levels Correction

Without Levels Correction

The levels correction helped adjust the ratio of dark:light within my footage. I did this by bringing in the white and black sliders, to reduce the spectrum, then I moved the central slider towards the lighter side, so the ratio of dark:light is more in favor of the darker images, which reduced the amount of light areas, such as where the lighting was shining more brightly and more intensely and increases the amount of dark areas, such as shadows being enhanced more greatly.

Effects All Together

The effects layered all together, are what turned some quite bright and unrealistic lighting levels adjust the scenes to look more like I originally intended them too, which is as if it was shot at night time, but due to restrictions presented by the cameras ability, I was unable to do this through natural lighting levels, and resorted to doing it with the post-production colour correction, as shown above. This technique has helped me to achieve what I originally intended to achieve, but also for me to have had to improvise and teach my self a new skill, which is learning to do and use a completely unfamiliar and new style of colour correction and for me to use and learn new methodology to achieve the night time/low lighting level through this.

Grain Removal/Reduction

Grain Removal Tool

After doing the colour correction, it meant that because I had reduced certain aspects and elements of the shots, such as brightness and increasing settings such as the shadows, I had also increased the grainy effect in the background of the shots, but I found an easily solution to help fix, or at least reduce this, which was to use the grain reduction tool. This meant that I could easily remove a lot of the grain that was present in the video, and I could control how much I wanted the grain to be removed by, which is down to each individual shot. The grain removed is down by controlling a slight level of blurring within the selected area to you wish to be effected by the tool, and this is how you also increase the intensity of the blurring.

Evaluation

Learning to do this for my film was an important skill that I needed to develop to help make my film look as best as I could. The importance of this stage of post-production was very great as the raw versions of each piece of footage looked quite poor due to uneven colour levels, making the footage appear quite bland, overly bright and unnatural, bring the quality level of the film down greatly. By learning the steps required to make footage look balanced in terms of colours and adjusting lighting intensity, I was able to best bring out a look very typically used within Action/Adventure and Thriller films.

Audience Research

 Audience Research

For my audience research I created an online survey, in which I asked questions about their age, what kinds of films the respondents enjoy, what sub-genres they enjoy, how much they enjoy zombie and thriller films, whether zombie/thriller film would appeal to them and about the kind of movie poster that appeals to them.

I asked about what kinds of films people enjoy most and the most enjoyed film was comedy, with horror second and action and drama in joint third as the most enjoyed movie genres between the ages of 15 and 18. This is useful to me because it helps me know what genres are enjoyed most by my target audience and will help me add in elements to my final product, which'll be an action/thriller hybrid. For example, I can add elements of comedy through the use of sarcasm, but I need to make sure I don't over use it.

I asked a question about what kind of sub-genre they enjoy most when blended in with a thriller. The most enjoyed styles were survival and action/adventure, with comedy being the second most enjoyed. This helps back up the idea of making the plot about having to survive during a zombie apocalypse but by having to be constantly on the move, which uses elements of both action/adventure and mostly survival. It'll also back up my idea for using a small amount of comedy through the use of sarcasm in my media text.

Next, I asked a question about how much the respondents enjoy thriller films, on a scale of 1-5, with 1 being 'Strongly Dislike' them and 5 being 'Strongly Enjoy' them. From my results, I can see majority of the people asked, 57% of them, enjoy thrillers and a further 14% strongly enjoy them, with the rest of the respondents either choosing the neutral option or only disliking them. From this, I can see that majority of people in my target audience age range would enjoy a film with a base genre being a thriller.

Next, I asked whether they enjoy films which feature zombies. Luckily, no one dislikes those styles of films, with the mass majority of people enjoying that style of film. Only 14% of respondents picked the neutral option, and the remaining respondents picked either 'Partly Enjoy' or 'Enjoy', which helps further cement the idea of making a thriller/action film revolving around the idea of surviving in a world populated by mostly zombies.

For this question, I asked which of the four movie posters best portrays the idea of a zombie based thriller/action adventure. I used the Resident Evil film posters as an example because if you haven't seen the films or know what they're about, you'd have to judge their content purely based on what the posters look like, and now I can know which style of shot, use of colours, costumes and settings best give the impression of a post apocalyptic action adventure/thriller film.

Over 50% of respondents chose Resident Evil Apocalypse.

This gives the idea that the use of the colour blue works best for an eerie setting and zombie film. This could mean the use of shots that are lit up by moon light, as moon light gives quite a blue effect

This shot from 'American Horror Story: Coven' is an example of the use of less intensive blue lighting for a night time scene.

I can also learn from it that torn up and dirty costumes, that look like they've been over worn, give the impression of having to survive in a rough environment.

The costumes shown in these shots show that the characters are quite rough looking, they're wearing quite torn up and dirty clothing, and the characters themselves have quite a messy look, as their hair isn't neat and they aren't clean shaven.

Finally, I can learn from the title of the film that using words, such as 'Apocalypse' can help portray the idea of a zombie film, as the word itself is most often closely linked with zombies bring upon the end of the world within television and cinema. This can help me when I come to pick the title for my film as it can help me come up with a creative and effective movie title that'll drawn in the audience more.

Textual Analysis Of A Film Opening

The opening sequence for ‘Indiana Jones And The Raiders Of The Lost Ark’ contains lots of clever use of edits, camera shots, music, lighting and editing. For example, the film cleverly introduces the main character, but keeping his identity for the opening sequence hidden right until the very end.

This was done by having any camera shots on him always facing from behind him, obstructing his face and using low levels of lighting on him to add more shadows, which further builds up the mystery. When they finally show his face, they do it in quick paced little action clip, which uses many different shots in a quickly edited fashion, to keep the scene face paced and clearly show it was a very tense moment for the characters.

The show where the film is set and when the events take place, by showing clear shots of jungle canopy at the foot of a mountain in the opening shot, and carry on to show dense jungle throughout the entire sequence. Later on in the sequence, they a shot that says ‘South America, 1938’, which further shows the location the film is in, and the time period as to when it was set. Finally they show that the story is being based around adventure and action, and the possibility of going to exotic locations around the world.

I can learn from the elements used in this film that for any action scene, the shots need to be quick, short and snappy, and that high suspense orchestral music will help to build further suspense and add to the action present, no matter how shot the scene lasts.

I’ll try using the same style of mystery the is present about why they main character and his team are at first trekking deep through a South American jungle. I’ll do the introduction to the hero differently to this film, as I don’t wish to keep his identity a complete mystery until the end, instead showing his face in the first shot.

Film Synopsis

Film Synopsis

After the rest of the group finds out Alex is infected, then plan a journey from their garage in Marysville, OH to Washington, D.C. where there is supposedly a cure. They plan out their journey across the states and plan a route that takes 420 miles and across the different motorways connecting the locations.

Harry manages to get a car working to transport them in their journey and they grab their supplies, and set off. Throughout their journey they come across numerous obstacles such as while traveling in their car it breaks down and they're attacked by a group of infected and have to run on foot. Another example is when they're fleeing through a woodland area south of the city, they're ambushed by a group of scavengers and have to escape.

Just before they make it to the city, Alex turns and the fungus overtakes his brain and they have to kill him and flee to the city. When they reach it they head straight for the research center which is where they discover a cure has been found for infected people, but those who've already turned can't be saved, only those in the early stages on the infection.

The guilt Zak feels for letting Alex get infected causes him to take his own life due to the overwhelming levels of guilt he feels, leaving his brother, Olan, and Harry to fend with them selves after losing their two best friends.

Film Synopsis - Back Story

Back Story

In early February 2015, there was an infectious fungal outbreak that rapidly infected a large portion of the world. This fungus infects the blood stream and the brain, and after a week of rapid growth the spores overtake and control the Lateral Orbitofrontal Cortex and the Amygdala, which leads to constant anger and aggression, and a loss of control of the human body and emotions by the host.

After the outbreak, 4 friends; Alex Harrison, Zak Hughes, Olan Hughes and Harry Stokes, all manage to escape the mass outbreak close to them and avoid being infected and getting caught up in the widespread mass panic within all major towns and cities. This lead to them fleeing from Columbus, OH north to Marysville, OH. They found that the majority of the town had been quickly deserted after news of the outbreak and managed to find a small but secure garage outside a house with its own generator and well, meaning they have a constant supply of clean water and potential limitless power. Alex and Zak make regular weekly supply runs by heading back into a large grocery store on the outskirts of Columbus, around 8-9 miles away that had been completely untouched after news of the infection spread.

2 Years after the outbreak in early March, 2017, during their regular supply run to the store they reached the stores location to find that a large group had entered the store and taken all of the remaining supplies, leaving Alex and Zak searching all the shelves and storage sections of the store when they heard some noises around near the entrance of the store. Upon investigation, it had appeared that due to the large group having raided the store, they’d brought upon themselves a large amount of attention while hauling all the remaining food, drink and medical supplies out of the store, which lead a group of the infected to follow them into and getting trapped within the store. Alex and Zak then have to fight their way out of the store, and while in the process of killing one, Alex was deeply scratched by one of the infected humans. This lead to him contracting the fungal infection and a deep wound on his chest. Knowing they don’t have much time to escape and get back to the safe house in Marysville, Zak helps Alex to escape and they start their journey back to the rest of their group, a further 8 miles away.

Codes & Conventions Of Action/Adventure Films

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From these points, I know what kinds of characters to have in my film, for example what kind of person the hero will need to be, the side character that help the character on his quest have to be, and the way the villain and the false hero can team up to try stop the hero on his quest. I've also learnt that action scenes can be heavily dependent on props, like guns or fast cars, that'll help speed up the pace of the scene, along with quick and snappy edits of the shots, and add to the action and the suspense of each shot. Finally, I learnt about the kinds of locations action/adventure films tend to be sent it, for example if they're on a quest, a bulk of the plot and the quest itself will take place within an exotic location, such as deep in a jungle, up a mountain or in the middle of a desert. I also learnt that if they're on a quest to stop the villain, the film may be set in a densely populated area, such as a major city of the world, as for example, the villain may be attempting to destroy the city and is endangering the population. This means that the location will be based in the city that he's trying to take over.