EXPERIMENTAL FILM - EDITING PROCESS III

Today was the day we wanted to get our film finished and exported. We would have been able to do that on the previous editing day, however we faces some After Effects issues where one of our effects stopped working a minute into the film. This was a major problem as the tutorial we followed didn't have this issue so we were trying to work out how to solve this problem. 

We had a look at the effect layer itself, we wondered if we had accidentally placed a key frame where it stopped, meaning we could simply undo the key frame and it would work. We then thought maybe we hadn't extended the duration of the effect enough, but that was fine and extended until the end of the video. We tried splitting the layer, and dragging it along to see if we could just continue the effect, but this didn't work. So we got a technician to come and have a look at the effect and what was going wrong, he suggested that we render the file as maybe after effects couldn't keep up with the effects we had put on. However, once the film was rendered the glitch wasn't moving. This was incredibly annoying, and just slowed down the whole process as it took a long time to render as the file was so big. We were so close to being finished with the film, but it was just this issue with one glitch that was stopping us from being complete. 

The technician came back to see how the render had gone, and we explained that the glitch still wasn't working at the same point, so it wasn't an issue with after effects, it was an issue with the effect. He then looked at the evolution equation of the fractal noise edit, and reset the equation we had entered. We then played the film from where the glitch stopped, and it started to play the glitch the whole way through. The problem was with the equation we had used on the evolution of the fractal noise, and our evolution had reached it maximum where the glitch had stopped originally. He also gave us some advice to help After Effects manage your files, its that if the audio or underscore is not essential to your effects or editing then remove it when putting into After Effects, then it renders quicker, and then you can just re import it into Premier Pro and it will work fine, and be a quicker render.

Once this was all sorted we had to change the framing size of our project as it was too small, so we just adjusted the sequence setting in Premier Pro and then re imported it into our After Effects composition. We then watched the film through again once more just to check all the effects were working, as our file had become so big with all the effects we had to make sure that they all ran. After watching it through, and everything worked we rendered the final edit finally!  

Altogether I am so happy with how the whole process of this film went. We developed an idea of a small film we made, and created something we both adore and are proud of. We were incredibly dedicated and organised with this film, and I think that shows through the final product. I am so happy and proud of the final film, and I feel it really demonstrates our view and message on the digital world, and digital overload as a whole. 

I feel no negatives with this whole process, we got all of our pre production paperwork handed in on time, so we had our project green lit. We then had extensive schedules and shooting scripts to keep us on track and capture our vision in the filming week. We managed to film in two days, and even in the filming process develop our idea even more into what it is now. In between this I finished off the soundtrack for the film, and slotted it in, when it came to editing week, which I am proud of. We then wasted no time getting into the post production, as we knew we had a lot on our hands, as our film would really come together in the post production with all the effects we made. As a team we were ambitious with our post production, but with the hard work and a lot of hours of practice we pulled it off. As we are both new to After Effects I wasn't sure if we would be able to get the glitches we wanted to, and would end up having to just give up and use an app to create the glitches but we kept going even through the difficult bits and did it! I am incredibly proud of our dedication and hard work with this film and I feel it really payed off. I feel Danielle and myself made a great and efficient team and would love to work with Danielle again in the future. 

I hope you enjoy. Thank you.