POST PRODUCTION

POST PRODUCTION

Read about the editing of "The Perfect Date" here.
EDITING THE PERFECT DATE

"Mr. Krispe" gets the
AVID Express Pro treatment

The early films from Hanover Pictures were edited on the old analogue systems of tape to tape. It was a tremendous learning experience where the editor had to more disciplined and have more forethought about what exactly he or she wanted in the edit as changes couldn't be made without a lot of difficulty. Audio channels consisted of 2, any more than that and you were looking at mixing down 2 on to 1 and that resulted in a generation loss. The same was with any kind of visual effect or transition. Now 10 years later with the digital revolution Post-Production has become not only easier but more widely available to anyone owning desktop computer.

Jason Poole edits
"Projection" with Avid
Media Composer
The first film to receive the digital treatment was "Projection" (2002). Edited on Avid's Media Composer by Jason Poole, "Projection" was ideal to take advantages of the freedom that Non-Linear Editing (NLE) allows. With whole scenes being moved around, once at the start now at the end, due to the fact that the structure of the film allowed scenes not related to others to be inter-changed. "Coldharbour" (2003) was also cut on Avid's Media Composer.

"Katie's Mission" (2004) opted for a slightly different route. Adobe's Premiere package for editing combined with Adobe's After Effects for compositing work were employed. For CG work Discreet's 3D Max was the ideal choice for quality and realism. Adobe After Effects is a perfect package for compositing and tweaking of shots that require it. It also has the option to create high quality renders if required when a project moves past Digital video on to Film.

"The Christmas Eve Snowfall"
used numerous effects
packages and
plug-ins to achieve
the desired look.
Adobe's Premiere was once again ultilised for Hanover Pictures' 8th film "The Christmas Eve Snowfall". With 33 shots requiring visual effects, the film was cut with the background plates for the effect shots included and then exported into After Effects for compositing with any CG produced by Lightworx Media using their chosen CG package Discreet's 3D Max. Once rendered, completed shots were then imported back into Premiere for the final edit. Many third party plugins were also used in conjunction with After Effects. Including Psunmai for water creation and rendering, Knoll Light Factory for sun flares and magic twinkles and shines, Tinderbox for skys and finally Red Giant's Magic Bullet for grading. Magic Bullet gave the film makers freedom to create a look over the film creating a warm and fuzzy Christmas feeling and a film effect flicker.

Music and sound effects were mixed and produced by using Digidesign's Pro Tools system. Under supervision by mixer Andy Cargill, the music was mixed and balanced with the recorded film narration by Joss Ackland. Pro Tools allowed for any exact tweaking to the narration that required, removing unwanted artifacts and noises.

For "Mr.Krispie" (2005) editing was moved from Premiere back to Avid using Avid's Xpress Pro package. With its excellent trim and rendering capabilities, it allows the editor much more freedom and ease of use. With half of any effects rendering on the fly means effects can be seen straight away, until effects use gets more intense that is. With it's matchback facility too it allows the program to be used as an off-line for editing film or high res video such as HD and then to be taken to a post house for on-line conforming. Avid's layout is so similar between it's various other high end editing stations, that it allows simple movement between packages without the editor having to learn a whole new program.

Visit these sites for more information:



Tinderbox
DigiDesign Pro Tools
RED GIANT SOFTWARE PLUG-INS