The Final Cut - "Lone Star"
My involvement to this project was the sound editing part. Because we wanted something sad but also hopeful for the background music we asked our friend and colleague Ema Borz to help us with the music. Due to her real talent of improvising at piano she was able to compose while watching the montage. This resulted a prefect matching between the video and the audio part of the final cut. We used a midi keyboard to record the piano. To do so, we connected the keyboard to a Mac running Ableton Live 9 Suite. After we recorded the piano we realized that we, because of the keyboard we captured an electronic noise in the back of the piano sound. Because I like to be more perfectionist I decided to use Adobe Audition CC for its awesome "Noise Reduction" effect. After getting out the noise from the background we recorded the voice over. We used Audition CS6 to record and process the voice. As I work in a radio station I took advantage of the recording studio that we have there. Besides the fact that is fully isolated it is also equipped with the hardware we needed.
The final mix between the VOX and the Piano was edited directly in Final Cut.
The final mix between the VOX and the Piano was edited directly in Final Cut.
Title Font
For the fonts, we looked through (too) many pages of different styles. Dafont is a website which allows you to preview your word(s) using different fonts and compare them. It was really useful for us to see which would suit our opening better.
As simple as it seems, it was actually a tough decision. In the end, we decided that the fonts we are going to use for the credits and our production company name are going to be classical. This is mostly because we want the audience to concentrate on the actual story and not other details.
Regarding the title of the movie, we chose a really bold, eye-popping font, as the narration will end by the time the title will appear. We agreed on this because we want the viewers to remember our film.
As simple as it seems, it was actually a tough decision. In the end, we decided that the fonts we are going to use for the credits and our production company name are going to be classical. This is mostly because we want the audience to concentrate on the actual story and not other details.
Regarding the title of the movie, we chose a really bold, eye-popping font, as the narration will end by the time the title will appear. We agreed on this because we want the viewers to remember our film.
Sound editing
When we moved to the sound, we decided to be unique with the background music and so we recorded our own. We need to specially thank our colleague Ema Borz for composing a background music while watching the movie. The software used to record the keyboard is Ableton Live 9 Suite. We recorded the song by connecting the keyboard directly to the MacBook Pro. As we noticed that there was a noise produced by the AC Adapter (electric noise) we used Adobe Audition CC for its awesome “Noise Reduction” effect. To do so, we captured a sample only with the noise and then loaded in the noise reduction. This resulted in a clear sound of the piano.
The voice over part was recorded in a studio, benefiting from the sound isolated room and the professional software and hardware. To record and edit the vox we used Adobe Audition CS6. The hardware we used was from Behringer, both the mic (C-1) and the mixer (XENYX QX1002USB)
The voice was edited using 8 effects from which we name: Expender, Compressor, Gate, EQ Eight and other extra plug ins
The voice over part was recorded in a studio, benefiting from the sound isolated room and the professional software and hardware. To record and edit the vox we used Adobe Audition CS6. The hardware we used was from Behringer, both the mic (C-1) and the mixer (XENYX QX1002USB)
The voice was edited using 8 effects from which we name: Expender, Compressor, Gate, EQ Eight and other extra plug ins
Rough Cut
This is our movie before being finalised. We added shots, transitions and sound. This is our rough cut.