FMP III
Post - Production
Instead of starting Post - Production after I finished filming, I decided to edit the footage and make more footage simultaneously.
Photos Legacy
A day of filming would consist predominantly of animating footage in the studio, photographing up to 2,000 individual pictures per day. Once filming for the day had concluded, I would take out the SD Card from the camera and upload the photos to the computer.
Once all the pictures were exported, I opened Photos Legacy on my computer and began turning the photos into videos. This would be a relatively quick process, on a timeline called "Converter". Firstly I would add all the pictures used for an individual shot. Then I set the duration for each picture, often 0.05 seconds each. I would then watch the now fully animated shot, often no more than 2 seconds in length, and see if theres any frames that need removing, shortening, or if the whole shot needs speeding up or slowing down.
Once the shot looked usable, it would be exported into the Filming Folder, and the Converter timeline would be wiped to allow the next shot with the exact same process. As more and more shots were added, I categorised all the shots into individual folders.
1. Heist, 2. Lighthouse, 3. Chase, 4. Structure, 5. Battle.
Once I had exported all the clips for the day, I added them to a 2nd Photos Legacy Timeline called "Full Film". Here, all the usable clips were arranged in the films chronological order, allowing me to get a good look at the full film. This allowed me to see if any additional shots were needed to be added to the filming shot list, which there ended up being a great number of.
Despite editing the final cut of the film in CapCut, I decided to view all the clips first in Photos Legacy as its a faster app and has less chances of crashing.
CapCut
Preferably, I would've edited the full film using Premiere Pro on the College computers, but I simply didn't have enough time to edit the full film on Campus, so I had to finish the edit at home.
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1. Organisation
The best alternative to Premiere Pro I had at my disposal at home was CapCut, which is a free editing software. It has all the same basic functions needed for video editing that Premiere Pro has and, almost more importantly, it has no watermarks unlike most free editing software and can export in 4k quality, which was technically uneeded for this project but is a reassuring feature.
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Editing on CaCut began once I finished the final shotlist, consisting entirely of additional shots the film would need. All the footage was added to one timeline, one folder at a time. I added the 1. Heist timeline first, rearranged all the clips to be in the right order, then went through the rest in the same way.
2. Sound Effects
Once all the clips were in the timeline, I immediately began looking for music and sound effects to be added to the footage, as it was currently completely silent. I knew that the majority of the sound effects would be engine sounds, as nearly the whole film involves cars racing across the desert. Because I'd need so many different kinds of sound effects for each action each vehicle does, I knew the best way to get all these sound effects would be from a video game. I tried a few different games on my Ps4 before settling on Mad Max (2015). This was the perfect choice for a few specific reasons. Firstly, the game features dozens off different vehicle sound effects which could be used for each vehicle.
Secondly, the game takes place on a desert, much like my film. This meant the game came with plenty of desert specific sound effects that were essential to the film, such as skidding on sand effects. This also meant I didn't have to worry about tyre screeching sounds, which wouldn't ever happen in a desert.
Thirdly, the Mad Max game is quite obscure, as it didn't sell many copies. This means it's harder for most to tell where these sound effects came from. If I used GTA V sounds effects, many more people would recognise them as it's a much more popular game, and it would be distracting for the final film.
Fourthly, my film is very Mad Max inspired, so it seemed very appropriate to use sound effects from it.
I recorded multiple clips in Mad Max, driving different cars in different ways, making sure the in-game soundtrack was turned to zero. I then attached my SD Card to a USB drive, plugged the USB into the PlayStation, added all the clips to the USB, plugged the USB back into my computer, dowloaded the clips onto the computer so I could delete them from the SD Card, then began adding them to the CapCut Timeline.
With the engine noises, crashes, car door sounds and desert floor sounds recorded, I went on YouTube to extract some free stock sound effects. Whilst I'm not a fan of stock sound effects and much prefer using Foley, I didn't have the time to experiment and needed sounds quickly. Despite the urgency, I didn't rush any of the effects. The sounds had to sound like they weren't stock, to the best of my ability. As I've been making YouTube short films for a few years, I've heard many different stock sounds, and I wanted to use ones I've never heard before, as there's less chance any eauidance members will have either. The sounds also couldn't be too clear or crisp, as that would give away that they're stock.
I ended up using stock sound effects for Gunshots, glass smashing, explosions, Chainsaw startup, bullet ricochets, Gun reloading and thunder which I wanted to use for the Armada when approaching the protagonists.
To further hide the sounds as being stock, I recorded as many sounds as I could at home using my phone microphone. Some sounds were recorded specifically because none of the sounds I found online matched what I wanted in my head.
The sounds I recorded myself included indoor footsteps, opening house doors, placing down metal objects, opening house windows, pressing light switch, car horn beeping and the engine startup sound. The sound of the Engines starting up in Mad Max sound very under pronounced and quite under-dramatic, so I recorded my own car starting up instead, which brings a good bit of oomph to the scenes. I also used my own cars horn for when it's needed in the film, as its a nice old fashioned sounding horn.
These real sounds I hope make it harder to distinguish the stock sound effects as being stock and instead make every feel like it's in the world of the film.
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3. Music
As my personal favourite genre of music are film soundtracks, finding some good music isn't tricky for me. What is a challenge for me though if finding music that not only fits the genre, matches the timing of the action, but also it's too identifiable to the scene it's from.
For my previous FMP, A Commendable yet Terribly Conceived Heist for an Expensive Spoon, I predominantly used the soundtrack to Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), composed by Alexandre Desplat. This was because The Grand Budapest Hotel was the single biggest influence for the whole film. The exact tracks I used were very obviously from The Grand Budapest Hotel, but I made sure not to use it's most popular themes nor tracks from the most memorable scenes.
The trick is to make sure the audaince dosen't know exactly where the music came from, otherwise they might just think about the original scene instead of the one their watching right now.
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For Power In The Machine, I wanted to go a step further and use music that people wouldn't be able to tell even what movie it's from, instead of just what scene. This would help the audience be more immersed in my film and not be distracted by some other films instead. To accomplish this, I went through all my favourite action films and listened to their full soundtracks on YouTube, trying to find music that would fit the scenes. The music tracks had to walk a fine line, between being not too recognisable, but also not being too generic and boring.
I ended up using music from All Quiet On The Western Front, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight Rises, 1917, Mad Max: Fury Road, Dune and TENET for a large number of scenes. However, the most obvious and predominant music used for my film was from Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. This was because it fit the tone of Power In The Machine perfectly, being a Mad Max inspired film, but is also quite obscure due to Furiosa unfortunately underperforming at the Box Office, meaning few people are watching it and will identify the music in my film. I also added tracks from Elysium and The French Dispatch, but it never made it into the final film.
When adding the tracks into my film, some scenes weren't quite feeling intense enough due to the music lacking slightly, a problem I've never faced before with this being my 1st full action film. To solve this issue, I ended up adding 2 soundtracks on top of each other for some scenes, meaning they'd play simultaneously. This made the scene much more dramtic, with more audible noise in the background. It also made the beat of the music faster, as it was now 2 beats slightly out of sync but working together like 1 beat going twice as fast.
4. Finishing Touches
With all the major sound effects and music added, the video for the 1st time finally feels like a full film. All thats left are a few final additions to make to the full film.
The main thing left to add are credits. The opening credits are introduced to the opening beat to Dream Of Arrakis from the Dune Soundtrack. The opening credits to Power In The Machine are very influenced by the opening to Dune (2021) with the simple white text appearing in sync with the simple "thumping" sound effect. It's an opening I'm very fond of, as it's simple yet very effective.
The opening title card was added, which I wanted to give an interesting effect which has the whole screen turn to white, then to black with the text becoming more pronounced as the sequence goes on. Originaly, I wanted there to be a small title sequence here, but time contraints meant this scene was cut for this much simpler visual instead.
The end credits were then added without any flare or visual effect, just simple white text appearing on a black background. I made sure to include the names of all the composers whose music features in this film, as I feel owed to use their incredible music in my film. Without their music, this film wouldn't have been anywhere near as entertaining as it is now.
Throughout the editing of the film, I also had to crop a number of shots as many showed the edges of the set. Many interior shots of the Driver also had to be cropped as you could see that the Passenger wasn't actually sat next to him, as he had to be taken out for many scenes to get a good view of the Driver, otherwise he'd be blocked from view by the Passenger.
5. Exportation
With the Film now completely finished, I had only to export the video which turned out to be a surprisingly difficult process. This was because, after adding all these thousands of pictures and converting them into hundreds of short videos, my computer had nearly completely ran out of storage and CapCut wouldn't export the video, even straight onto the SD Card.
I began by deleting some large videos on the computer from previous YouTube videos, then went into settings and deleted the largest apps dowloaded that wouldn't effect any of the footage, otherwise I might have to had edited the whole thing again. After freeing up a few Gigabytes of storage and restarting the Computer, CapCut still said it couldn't export. However, pressing the export button out of pure desperation did the job for some reason, and the film was exported.
After I finally had the full film exported, I quickly made a trailer for the film that I could put on YouTube to advertise the full film when it releases.
Due to making the trailer at 3Am on the day of deadline, I didn't give the trailer any sound effects, which would've taken at least an extra hour. Instead, I muted the footage and added a single track from the film, Macrotus from the Batman Begins Soundtrack by Hans Zimmer. This music was used for Power In The Machine when the Passenger stand off against the charging Armada, aiming his machine gun. The music is fittingly dramatic and designed to bring excitement and anticipation to the scene, which will hopefully be hightened by anyone who has seen the trailer first and will recognise it as an important piece of music.
For the visuals of the trailer, it roughly follows the opening heist of the film, showing all the key details of the plot that will play out throughout the story. The Passenger shooting the convoy truck, the Gold falling out and being put in the car Boot and the armada chasing after them are all in the trailer to give the audience a vague idea of what the story is about. I also made sure to leave out all the best bits of the film, so the audience won't be spoiled anything too major. All the actual car crashes are absent, the Lighthouse is barely shown and the trailer dosen't show any footage after the end of the 2nd chase. This means the entire 3rd act including the structure, armada stand-off, Car and Heli battle, the escape and the whole ending is completely unspoiled and left for the audience to experience themselves when watching the full film.
The vast number of sound files used in the Final Cut
Unused Footage
As upsetting as it is to spend hours planning, recording and editing a shot only to not even use it in the film, it's an inevitable part of film-making that can't be ignored.
Once a clip has been exported, it will go into one of three places.
If it's a good clip with next to no flaws in the animation, it will go in the Usable folder.
If the shot has a major flaw or has overall bad animation, then it will go in the Unusable folder.
If I'm unsure on whether to use the clip or not, based on it's animation or if the scene would work better without it, then it will be placed in neither folder.
Car Leaves Structure Interior Shot
At first, this shot doesn't look too bad. It being deemed unusable is due to lots of little problems that I thought added up to an unusable shot.
The main thing I didn't like about this shot is that the corner pieces of the windscreen (the A pillars) aren't actually touching the roof like they're meant to. It's a tiny detail that happened multiple times during filming that really bugged me. Another problem is that the edge of the set is visible for almost the whole shot. If you look to the right of the Passenger, you can see a black line forming. This is the edge of the baseplate and you can see the floor of the studio below. This problem was fixed for future shots by lowering the paper backdrop to cover up the gap.
Passenger Turns On Lights
The reason why this shot was scrapped is pretty obvious, the lighting is going mental. The Lighthouse is a completely enclosed set, aside from a section of the wall which opens to fit the camera in. This means that the open section is where all the light comes in, and I'm animating right in-front of it so my shadow is very controlling in this scene. Any movements I made resulted in great changes in the amount of light getting in, causing this effect.
The way I fixed this from happening again in future takes was by positioning the Lighthouse further away from me and by making sure I stayed completely still between each frame.
Heli Catches Up
It was a shame to not use this shot as I personally think the animation is actually really good. The Heli and Car are both moving very smoothly and the speed at which the Heli approaches is pretty perfect. The animation does fall apart a little bit once the Heli actually catches up though, with both vehicles becoming more jittery and jumpy.
The reason why I decided to cut this shot however was because the background was too in focus. This means the edge of the baseplate and the backdrop is very obvious, making the shot look like it's just on a small set as opposed to an endless desert.
If the focus was more blurred on the background, this shot would definitely have been used in the film.
Forklift In Armada
This was a much more experimental shot, intending to be of the Drivers POV looking through his binoculars. The original script required the Driver spotting the Forklift operator from a distance through his binoculars, with it approaching from afar.
To achieve the effect, I simply placed the camera very close to the vehicles and animated them moving very slowly to give the illusion that they're very far away. However, the effect didn't work at all, instead just looking like all the vehicles are going very slowly at a normal distance. This shot also took ages to animate, with the great number of vehicles on screen, so I didn't try to get the shot again and the scene was simply removed from the film.
Escape Empty Shot
Surprisingly, this is one of the only unused shots from the ending escape scene. Despite it's complexity, most shots worked first time and ended up in the final film. This was probably thanks to me deciding to film this action scene last, after all the experience I'd learnt from animating all the other action scenes.
The animation in this shot is also pretty good, without any major faults. The only reason I cut it was because there simply wasn't enough vehicles on screen. This scene is meant to be a near impossible looking stunt, with the Car barely missing dozens of vehicles by the skin of its teeth. In this shot, the Armada looks too open and too easy to avoid, with huge gaps between each vehicle.
Fortunately, this shot was reanimated immediately afterwards and ended up looking great, with way more vehicles in shot making the escape that little bit more exciting and worthy to end the film with.
Passenger Walks To Armada
For the final act of the film, the battle, I wanted to try and show off some more fancy camera movements to make the ending feel a bit more exciting. This shot is an example of that, with the Passenger walking towards the approaching Armada with the camera moving with him.
I had already attempted a very similar shot to this, with the Driver running to enter the Car at the Lighthouse, which worked very well and made the final cut.
However, the main difference between the 2 shots is that the Driver was meant to be running, but here the Passenger is meant to be slowly walking.
This is why the shot didn't work here, as the way I animate characters walking means they cover 1 stud every 3 frames, which is very quick. Having them walk at this speed with the camera also going 1 stud every 3 frames looks more like a sprint than a walk.
For the final shot, I had the camera sat stationary as the Passenger walked into centre frame. This ended up working much better, as everything felt slower and more appropriate for the scene,