Final scene and a lot of editing

So i have finally finished my film, the last scene was finished off on Wednesday the 16th of May, here is a summery of what i did.

This post will include spoilers of the film so i suggest that if you want to be surprised you wait until the film is posted up, it should be up on this page within the next few days, but will definitely be here on or before Tuesday the 29th of May.

First of all there was a lot of lip sync, luckily i did as much as i could before swanning off to Germany, so the rest was pretty easy to finish.

Then there was the problem of having Tobias stabbing himself, (this is the main spoiler i mentioned earlier) i could not have the knife that i had built penetrate the puppet as for one thing the puppet would be ruined, for another it's armature would not allow for this to happen, so i had to create a replacement body.

Here is what i did:

Above: Replacement body of Tobias with knife penetrating him

I first cut an oblong piece of pink modelling foam for the replacement body, this was easy to stab through whilst keeping the knife from sinking in or falling out when filming.

I then covered the replacement body with the same material i had used for Tobias's shirt and pulled his dressing gown around it.

I then glue gunned the replacement body to an old bit of set so that the body would look the right height beside the background.

I then unscrewed one of the arms from the armature and secured it into the pink modelling foam, i then threaded the arm through the dressing gown giving the illusion of the same puppet, i then used Vaseline and red paint mixed to a thick enough substance and dark enough colour for the blood.

Above: Still shot from the film, using the replacement body.

After this the animation flowed so smoothly i was just waiting for something to go wrong, but on the animation front nothing did and i was soon finished and ready for editing.

Editing

So i now fully appreciate editors, the amount of work and effort it takes to edit together even something as short as my film was incredible.

I had given myself a week for editing but i was sure i could knock the film together in a few hours, i luckily also finished filming ahead of schedule giving me an extra couple of days.

I started Thursday morning, up at eight and in for editing at ten, i worked on final cut pro, a piece of editing software i was only a little familiar with, but having no other option i began work editing together the final film.

 

I had decided to split the film into three sections to make it easier for editing and began the first scene.

By the end of day one i was awestruck at how little was done, effects were complicated, the software although effective i found a little hard to get the hang of and rendering must be one of the worst things in the world to wait for.

I fully appreciate editors but would never consider this as a career choice in the future.

 

I then continued to work from ten in the morning until around half past ten at night on the library's editing macs and a week and a half later i was finished, my film was officially complete at 15:32 on Tuesday 26th May 2012.

Music

All sound effects in the film were created by me on a Marantz, i used real objects and tried to make the sounds as natural as possible.

The music that i used in the film was created by Kevin MacLeod, i was recommended his website where i could download and use royalty free music.

The tracks i found worked wonderfully with my film and i am very pleased with the end result.

Still image of Tobias from the final scene