Website

Link To Website: http://faaizaferoz22059.wix.com/indie-film-company

Process For Postcard

The postcard was solely created by me. The first step in creating this postcard for our documentary was to make sure every element that I was going to include had to all cohesively work together and include similar branding to our other products - the actual documentary itself and the website. I used the background of our film poster as a common theme, making the background of the postcard the same. It is a black background with squares randomly placed throughout. The squares are all different shades of blue, except for one square, which is a purple and has a neon glow. The setup on photoshop that I used was A3 and landscape as that is the approximate size for a film postcard.

The title I created was using the same font as we used in the documentary and the poster for the documentary: "Batman Forever Alternate". I also made it in italics and added a drop shadow to make it more prominent against the background. I used the text tool to create the title as well.

I imported the same picture I used for the poster on to the postcard. I used the magic wand tool to remove the original background from the picture and then I enlarged it to fill the space.

Next I used the text tool and added the credits: "Directed by: Adrian Harder, Yousef Zine and Faaiza Feroz". The font I used here is Abadi MT Condensed Extra Bold and I also made it in italics.

I then added the awards by googling for the "leaves". I had to transfer them on to photoshop, rasterise each layer and then use the paint bucket tool to make them white colour as they were originally black. I then used various fonts to create the text for each "leaf".

I then added the social media logos according to what social media we created for our film company - Polygon Productions. The social media logos I added are:  Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. I imported these images from Google and then transferred them to Photoshop. I rasterised each of the layers and then used the pain bucket tool to make them coloured white to stand out against the background.

Lastly, using the paint bucket tool, I coloured in the letters the same colours as on the game controller to create consistency. I also added a white outer glow to make them stand out against the background. This is the final outcome of the postcard for our documentary.

Postcard For Documentary/Short Film

Visual Editing

We used iMovie as we did not have much editing experience, and it was an easy go-to default on our school's iMacs. Compared to the audio, the visual editing was actually very easy.

The top left section of the program contained all out footage. We had to sift through it to find good lines of dialogue that we could link together from each other the interviews, creating sections on specific topics. We simply cut them appropriately and put them down in the "timeline", then edited their lengths to transition smoothly as well as synced up the audio.

We also layered footage over one another to include the audio of one while showing the footage of the other. We also added in minor effects, chiefly text to identify who was speaking when they were first shown.

The only other effect used was the transitions, either fade to black or fade to white.  Most clips simply cut from one to the other without transition, as it would have become distracting otherwise.

Sound Editing

There were 2 parts to the editing process: Visual and Audio. As we layered our interview audio over with other footage, we split the audio from the clips. The program we used to edit our documentary was iMovie due to the fact that we are not experts with editing, so we used the default program on our school's iMacs. The majority of the audio is in green with some of the audio still attached to clip being shown as blue sound waves.

This screenshot above shows an overview of the audio in our documentary. A majority of the audio is split from the clips, with some audio still remaining attached. Throughout the entire documentary there is a backing track and multiple layers of sound from the backing track itself, the dialogue and the gameplay.

Audio that started over another scene had to be split from the clip and lengthened. This can be seen with the green audio file on the bottom going back to before the beginning of the clip. Syncing the audio and the clip was a tedious job and our resolution for this was to clap during filming to find and easily identifiable moment of synchronisation. This aided us to cover the cuts in the audio as we jumped from specific moments of dialogue to another. We either showed other angles or gameplay footage, including the gameplay footage's own audio. We had to balance the sound so that both elements were easily heard but did not conflict with each other. The dialogue tended to be louder than the sound effects in the game as it was of greater import.

The backing track continued to play in the background throughout the entire documentary. We used an into and outro song as well as an ambient noise from the iMovie sound effect library. The song is called "Borealis". "Borealis" was only 30 seconds long so we had to loop it during the editing process. To make the continuity sound more like one piece, we shortened it before the 30 seconds faded out and added the same track preceding it. Matching the beats made it sound as it if is one continuous piece, and so could be used for an extended period of time. Complementing it with the intro and outro was a simple task as both had very similar beats and timing. In order to eliminate any differences, we faded out from one and into the other. This enabled the transitions to appear natural and eliminate any jarring elements.

Documentary Poster

Extended Final Version of Documentary - BETA

Final Version of Documentary - BETA (Submitted for THIMUN)