Yesterday I made a mind map of the ideas I have for the plot of my film, but I’ve realised that a lot of the ideas I have depend on how I edit the colour throughout the film.
I’m not sure whether I want the colour to suddenly change (like the use of a flashback - suddenly cutting the scenes), or if I want the colour to gradually change throughout the film.
I like the idea of the colour slowly either fading, or filtering to a different scheme throughout the film, but I understand that that takes a lot of planning to be able to pull it off and make it look as good as possible, so I thought I would experiment now, so I can start to actually plan the plot for my film and start my final work.
I used previous clips I have already shot, so I didn’t have to spend more time gathering the shots.
Sharp cut between scenes:
For the sharp cut I just used two clips and created a ‘flashback’ type effect, adding a flash transition between the two clips.
I graded the first clip of a countryside walkway with a moody, desolate vibe; and to make the biggest contrast, added the flashback as a bright joyful clip of some daffodils.
Below shows the process of grading the first clip. I work in a non destructive way, using different nodes (same as layers in photoshop) for different things.
Process of grading moody clip.
This is the final product:
Sharp cut (flashback) transition between colours:
Overall, I like the effect that is created through the use of a flashback transition, as there is a lot of freedom to grade the clips however you want to, as essentially they are two clips joined together by a single transition. This way, they don’t need to be graded in the same way as each other.
This will make my work easier to show direct contrasts between colour usage.
Soft transition:
However, if I wanted the transition to be more subtle and affect the viewer more psychologically, I could use a soft transition, using colour that slowly shifts throughout the film.
This way, the viewer won’t necessarily notice that the colour is changing, but there might be psychological effects to how the audience reacts to the film.
And at the end, if you was to compare the first frame of the film to the last, there would be a very strong difference between the two, but while you’re watching you wouldn’t notice.
Experiment #1:
The first experiment I did was like the sharp cut, where I used a moody and a bright mood in the same film, and I transitioned between the two.
Final version of Soft Transition Experiment #1.
Overall, this isn’t my best work I’ve ever done since I had to colour grade the whole sequence pretty quickly, as I was just testing it out. But i like it.
To do it I first colour corrected the clips, and then went back in to change the tint and saturations of certain colours in the shots. At the start I added a warm tint, and towards the end it was a cool tint instead. I also slowly added a vignette effect onto the clips, to gradually make the scene darker.
The first and last frame in the short clip.
Experiment #2:
Experiment 2 was inspired by something Joel told me yesterday about another students work from the past. He said that they created a comic strip which slowly reduced the colour from the scenes, so the first frame is in full colour and the last frame is black and white.
This inspired me to do the same thing using the same sequence from the previous video.
Final version of Soft Transition Experiment #2.
To do this effect all I did was reduce the saturation by 5 every clip, until it became 0. I also think that this effect is quite cool, and it has opened my mind to different ideas I can incorporate into my final work.
Showing saturation change in clips.
Two storylines happening at the same time:
Another option is to of course have two timelines happening at the same time, with the cuts in the editing of the film moving between the two either one after the other, or even simultaneously using a split screen.
I had no practice footage to test this on, as I think it would work better with people in the shot, and I don’t have any footage of people at the moment; so instead I drew out two diagrams showing my ideas for possible timeline sequences.
Drawing of Timeline Ideas.
The first idea is inspired by Memento (2000), as I have previously talked about how I like the way Christopher Nolan uses timelines in the film to tell the story. The idea that there are two timelines that we are watching, and the cuts between each timeline slowly gets more frequent throughout the film, until they end up merging towards the end.
The second idea is to have each timeline (however many there are), slowly merge from one to another. The best example I can think of to explain it is to start the film following person 1, then have person 1 meet person 2, have a couple scenes when they’re both together, but instead of following on with person 1’s narrative, we follow the person 2 instead, then they meet person 3, and the same thing continues.
Both of these are ideas that I would have to plan out and really think about if I was to follow through with them, but I like both of the ideas.
Split Screen:
I have never tried to do a split screen before, so I thought I would have a go and try to create a scene using two narratives happening at the same time.
Process of making the split screen.
I did it by going into the effects panel in DaVinci, and layering two videos on top of each other, and then adding a plain black background on top. To the plain background layer I added the video collage effect, and adjusted the position of the videos underneath.
I also had to crop to fit, and change the settings of the collage so I had two columns and one row.
Final Split Screen Effect.
I think the effect turned out really cool actually, as it shows the videos side by side so you can see a direct comparison in the mood of the two clips. Even more split screens are able to be done, so I could create a 4x4 split screen with 16 different clips if I wanted to.
However, I also know that if I was to choose to do this effect, it would be difficult for the audience to watch both sides of the screen at the same time, especially is there are details in each shot that are important to be seen.
Overall:
Overall, experimenting and testing out different ideas that I have never tried before has given me insight to how I could possibly edit my film, there are many options I could choose to follow.
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