Old vs New Media

Creative Decisions made during post-production

Describe a range of creative decisions that you made in post-production and how these decisions made a difference to the final outcomes (50)

Post–production is perhaps the stage where it easiest to produce an array of creative outcomes. For example, in my thriller opening (AS Portfolio) entitled “Water’s Edge” and my music video (A2 Portfolio) for the song “Monkey Gone to Heaven” by “Pixies”, programs such as After Effects and Final Cut X enabled me to enliven creative ideas that I would not have been able to do in the production/filming stage.

        I created my thriller using Final Cut Pro X. Whilst Final Cut offers a whole range of editing possibilities, it is not properly suited for was the use of green screen. Consequently, I had to make changes to my initial storyboard. One such change was a scene, where I had intended a girl to be standing at train station on a platform, for a train to pass her and have her disappear or alternatively transform into a lifeless version of herself. This would have ideally been created with a green screen. However, upon becoming fluent in the use of After Effects I was able to create more of my final product this year (the music video) in post- production. I used a green screen and through keying out the green and replacing it with moving backdrops and 3d images to give depth, I would say that this has allowed me to express myself more creatively. In this respect, I was actually able to do a lot more with less footage and surprisingly in comparison to last year I used less footage, as I was able to do more with less.

        Lighting is integral to producing a film product of reputable quality. For my thriller there is a shot of a murdered girl floating underwater in a lake. The actual shot was filmed in a swimming pool with a GoPro Hero HD, with ample lighting that resulted in the ‘blue’ of the swimming pool being very apparent. This made it very hard to give credibility to the idea that this supposed victim had drowned in a murky lake. In post-production, I was able to rectify this through colour correction. Through adjusting the hues and applying a filter I was able to simulate dirty swamp like water, which amplified the scene both in terms of the emotive response it evoked and its meaning. Similarly, I decided to emulate this technique of effectively altering the lighting to achieve a different final outcome for my music video. In order to create depth and place focus on my performer, I darkened the entire shot in After Effects and used an artificial light in the program to create a spotlight type effect, so that I control where my audience would look.

       Another creative decision I made in post-production was the use of sound effects to add another dimension to the final piece. The scene depicted a man murdering a much younger female, but where and when the scene was happening was a little unclear. It wasn’t perspicuous whether the scene was a flashback or the audience was just being shown the murder. I wanted to make coherent the fact that the scene was occurring in the protagonist’s mind. I achieved this through sound work. The scene was filmed using a sequence of short scenes, with quick cuts. Upon each cut, I placed a ‘scratch’ type sound that alluded to the idea, that what was being shown on screen was being experienced as a memory. This is a prime example of how a creative decision made in post-production changed the meaning of my work and made it feel more original. Sound work was equally as important for my music video, as my opening shot features non-diegetic sound to firmly establish and distinguish the narrative from the performance element of my music video.

  In conclusion, decisions I have made in post-production have altered the meaning of my text and amplified parts of it. Without the ‘fixes’ that post-production offers as well my final product would have been far less impressive to any audience.