Fiction Adaptation: From rough cut to fine cut

From Rough Cut to Fine Cut

Below is my rough cut and the feedback I received from Helen

Since I had only filmed this the day before the rough cut deadline I felt as though I could've put together a better rough cut but due to time this is all I could do. I was really happy with the way it turned out, it was nice seeing all the shots flow together.

Helen's rough cut feedback

When the camera is moving with them it looks great
Use more shots when they are in motion
Continue to play with layering
Shoot more fabric as cutaways
Try to start simple and build on the story, don't shot all the best shots first
Must not show a decline in quality, it must either build or stay consistent
Shots that show the reality of the settings bring it down as we are taken away from the world it is set in
Play around with lights
Capitalise on the claustrophobia part and build on that
Try to find a way of introducing the male character first without just showing him
Overlay the fabric
Play around with fabric in general
Push colour in Premiere

Upon receiving the feedback from both Helen and Sam, I was scared that they did not understand the direction I was going as I wanted them to notice that the dance moves were specifically shot for the narrative of the poem. I took on board what they said and decided to book out equipment to shoot more fabric. After getting the shots I wanted I begun to play around with the layering.

My biggest challenge was using the layering in an effective way and not letting it become overkill. I wanted to keep the rawness of the skin and the dancing but also enhance it with the post production and sound design. I did not want my dancers to get lost within the music and I also did not want the poem to be lost within the dancers so I had to find ways of breaking this up with the use of interesting sound design. Another challenge of mine was sifting through the shots and making sure I showed the most effective ones. I found that there were a lot of hidden shots that I forgot about. I now know that upon importing, I need to go through and group my shots together in separate folders as this would've saved me so much time when creating videos.

Fine Cut Feedback

I really struggled to create the piece after shooting the extra footage because I was trying to make something that Helen would like without losing my original idea. So I was only able to show 30 seconds of the fine cut to Helen and Sam as I felt as though I was stuck and didn't know which direction to take the rest of the video.

Great layering
Great sound design
continue to do that throughout, on the right track

After showing them and seeing that they liked it, I finally felt confident to continue with what I was doing and was able to elaborate on all the feedback they gave me. In the end I was happy with the way the shots were aligned so I moved onto colour correction

Fine Cut to Final & Colour correction

After finalising my layout, Below is an example of my first steps in colour correction. I wanted to enhance the tones and give it a colder, darker feel without losing too much shadows and detail.Since most of my shots are quite dark I had to be careful with the contrast because some of it was getting lost in the darkness. below is one of my favourite shots and I wanted to make sure this one was right first as I needed this to be as clear as possible. I just added an adjustment layer and played around.

At first I was happy with this but I still felt as though something was missing and I didn't like how it felt as if I was losing a bit of detail so I continued to play around as I wanted a more stylised look. Below is an example of the original against my finalised colour correction. I am really pleased with the result.