Final Ancillary- Film Poster

A Film Poster

Final Ancillary- A magazine Review

Editing problems and techniques

Rushes conversion

As I used DSLR Canon 60D so all the rushes were in the MOV format which was only acceptable in the mac editing software "Final Cut Pro". Initially I edited my film on my cousins macbook pro but later when my teacher said that I have to re edit my film so I edited the second/final edit on the school computer using adobe premire pro 4. But as the format was not acceptable so I first converted my rushes in the avi format and than in the mp4 format due to which the quality of my film was badly affected.

Color correction

First step after cutting the extras from the rushes was the color correction of the rushes. In some of the shots from the second day of the shoot had problem of over exposure to light so I lowered the exposure. Apart from that all the indoor shots had great natural lighting but I gave it a dull look by using the saturation, contrast and brightness options. This dull look helped developing a feeling of a poor government school which I needed in my film.

Visual effects

In my first edit there were many slow motions and fast motions out of which many were removed in the final edit as they were not justified. But I kept some of the slow motions in the start reason being that I wanted to establish the characters and convey the tension in the mind of student due to which he was not able to concentrate as well as the dominating character of the teacher. I used fade out and fade in to white and black when there was a start and end of the flashback scene. In the ending of my film I added an extreme slow motion when the mother hugs the son and a frame effect where the shot was in the frame and as well as in the background with the end credits coming on the right side. 

Audio effects, Sound and Music

In the start of the film I added a dialogue between mother and son where I also increased the volume. I also added an echo effect for the voice over of mother. I took sounds from the internet of early morning and two instrumentals as music of my film to create the mood of my film. The classical instrumental was only used in the flashback scene to convey the confusion in the story and lead to the audience to the resolution part of the narrative structure. Initially, I removed the natural sound of the rushes and doubt the dialogues but as it was looking very unnatural so when I re edited my film I used the background natural sound of the rushes and the dialogues in the rushes so in the final edit sound was more natural.

Mistakes and learning

I know the fact that I need to improve a lot on my editing skills and there are some technical problems in the final cut of my film as well due to which I am not completely satisfied with my product but I think that I have given my best attempt in the limited resources. Unintentionally, the confusion I wanted to create in the mind of the audience which was there in the characters has affected my product in negative way due to which the audience may get confuse about the theme of the film as well. The biggest mistake I did was that I was unaware of the fact of the compatibility of the camera and the school computer I had to edit on when my laptop crashed due to which the quality of my film has suffered a lot. May be I am unable to deliver the message and representation I wanted to show to my audience but this entire process taught me a lot of things about how a film can be made or can be destroyed on the editing table even if the pre-production and production process are extremely good. I learned some editing techniques which I didn't knew previously like the color correction, sound/music editing and some visual effects. I can say that although it is a very immature start of film making in my life but all the learning in this entire process will definitely help me in my future projects at the university level.  

Final Film "Maa Ki Dua"

When I edited my film again so I changed the name of the film as I accepted the fact that my film was more leaned towards the mother and son relationship than the education system. I added some dialogues in the start of my film to give an exposition of the film and also removed the slow and fast motions from many parts of the film. I edited the sound of my film, used some follies and changed the music also in one part of the film. Now my film and the story was conveyed in a more clear way with all the natural sound and natural feeling of the local school and common man of developing countries. Below is the link of my final film.

Maa ki dua - A short film