Evaluation

The completed film, "Fo' Sho' Mo' Fo' That's Crackalackin'!", comes to 2m 59s long. I edited it using Apple's Final Cut Studio. I'm very pleased with the finished result, it has turned out well despite some of the issues I had along the way. The film is a cop comedy and is aimed at young adults in their late teens and twenties. The film would probably be distributed by a medium to large sized institution such as New Line Cinema or Paramount. But it wouldn’t have an extremely high budget. 

To begin with, I looked at the generic conventions of cop comedies. The four films I looked at were the intros from Rush Hour 3, The Naked Gun 33 1/3 The Final Insult, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Hot Fuzz. I found that common traits of these types of films included over-dramatising (quite frequently (music is often used as a tool for this)), there is sometimes a lot of commotion and things going on, and quite a few of the events are unlikely to occur in the real world. With most comedies you’ll find that something funny happens usually within the first few minutes.

The biggest issue was when I first recorded it; the sound was all glitchy; there were pops and bits missing due to a problem with the tape. Luckily, after capturing the sound multiple times, I got it to a point where you could hear all the important bits, these being speech. Other gaps of silence where there was no speech I fixed using Soundtrack Pro to set an ambient noise print from another part of the audio, and then added ambient noise. Some clips from different angles had slightly different noise. I overcame this by cross fading all the noticeable cuts to create smoothly flowing diagetic sound. For much of the audio however, it didn't matter too much, as there was music playing over the top.

Another problem was that the video was glitchy in places, I couldn't do anything about this but it’s only minor.

I tried to use some fast cuts during the chase to build tension, the choice of music also aids this. But I didn’t want it all too quick, as it's a comedy so is meant to have you thinking it's a bit silly at the same time. The fact it's such a big chase over dropping a cigarette, which in the end comes to nothing, is meant to portray the incompetence of the two police officers.

For the introductions of Retro-Face and Tubgins I saved a frame of each of them as an image. Then I used GIMP, a piece of software similar to Photoshop, to cut each of them out, and then I saved the cut out as a .gif with a transparent background. I opened up Motion, and inserted the frame to play as a still and I added a colour filter; de-saturate. I then added the .gif on top, made it fade in, grow, and saturate gradually. To finish this off I added text, tweaked the colours, made it zap in from the top, and finally added an animation behind it. This faded in just before the text and faded out with it. A sound clip of a police siren I thought could add drama, I found one on the internet and looped it in Soundtrack Pro, cross fading the clips to make it sound like one siren. I used the same text to introduce Sergeant Tinkle but without the animation.

The phone call was also created in Motion. To achieve the split screen I created a Mask over the shot of Sergeant Tinkle and added a Luma key filter to make it a triangular shape. To fit the right parts in on both shots there were blank spots in two of the corners of each triangle. For the outdoor shot I simply extended the sky, and for the indoor shot I made the corners into shadows. I then animated Sergeant Tinkle's shot flying in from the bottom right corner and at the same time I made an orange line slide in from the top right to act as a divider. This orange line was a rectangle I drew, coloured orange and then softened the edges.

There are two other parts I created in Motion. One is near the beginning of the pursuit; the view from a CCTV camera. I tinted everything blue, added a box around the edge, wrote text that I thought fitted and put the time at the bottom, making the seconds change. The other thing I made in Motion was the title at the end. I made the text in Comic Life and cut this out in GIMP. This was added onto the tandem shots and animated; I made it grow and move to the beat of the music. Using the draw tool, I made a triangle and coloured it, then made it spin behind the text. For the siren lights I tried using an animated .gif but this didn't play. So in the end I used GIMP to cut out the glow and the background and saved each frame as an image. In Motion I made them appear and disappear over each other and used a glowing animation, editing the strength every other 4 frames to make the lights light up.

Certain shots have effects and are made to move using Final Cut Pro's video filter and motion features. Such as the close-up of the cigarette blurring, the low angle shot of the park bench zooming in and the running shot, which zooms out and is multicoloured. The park bench shot was originally too dark so after brightening it a bit it looked how it does, and I thought this was quite an interesting effect. The multicoloured running shot is like it is because I thought it was like a thermal imaging camera that is often used for police pursuits.

Throughout the film I made sure I edited it to the music, this was to build tension and give it a more comic feel, as it is over-dramatic. This is the reason I chose the music I have used. “Rapper’s Delight” at the end is hip-hop so suits the gangsta theme, but is also quite funky so I thought this reflected Retro-Face and Tubgins.

I thought I’d finished, but then realised it was about 20 seconds too long. It seemed difficult to cut down and still keep the story you want. But this is a vital part of video editing and having to do it helped me quite a lot. You learn to know which shots are pointless or unnecessary. I shortened many shots and deleted some that I thought weren’t needed.

After comparing the notes from other cop comedies with my film, I have come to the conclusion that “Fo’ Sho’ Mo’ Fo’ That’s Crackalackin’!” does follow these conventions. It begins with some establishing shots, and has something silly which is the chase over a cigarette. Although I don’t think the reason for the chase is totally clear. It also uses extreme close-ups to show expressions like The Naked Gun. Another aspect similar to The Naked Gun is the utilization of over-dramatic music. The whole scene is over-serious and wouldn’t happen in the real world, which is something I found in most of the films I looked at. So overall I would say it has been a success in being classed as a comedy.

My film represents certain social groups, mainly the youths that are seen by many as intimidating, the youths that are judged by so many. Even though they may not be intimidating. The ‘gangstas’ in the film were doing nothing wrong and were chased for a silly reason.

I chose the film’s quite unusual name because it is some of that typical exaggerated gangsta speech. In the original script I tried to write more speech like this with the gangsta dialogue but during filming one of the actors wanted to improvise. I let him and it went quite well but if I could do it again I’d make it more “gangsta” as it sounds a bit more “chavvy”. It’s set in England though so I suppose it adds realism. The other gangsta’s speech I wrote in this exaggerated style, but to go against the stereotype and surprise the audience, I gave him a posh English accent. This is not very realistic as it’s exaggerated Americanisms mixed with an exaggerated English accent, but adds to the comedy aspect.

I have few complaints, the black card on the shoulders of the police officers sometimes fell off, this is not particularly noticeable but maybe gaffa tape wasn’t the best choice for securing them. I would spend more time on details like costumes if I did it again; the police are in jeans with un-tucked shirts and this isn’t how I think of those two characters. It gives an image of a rebel, going against the system, and this is not what those two are like. Another aspect I would improve is the beginning with the cigarette; I don’t think it’s very clear what the reason for the chase is. If I could improve other aspects I would also use a better camera for greater definition and less glitches.

From making this film I have learnt many important and some technical editing skills in Final Cut Studio. These include using motion, using and creating video effects and cutting down the final time of the film. Also, I will remember to check the tape is good before filming or I will use a new one. From the preliminary task I have learnt to look out for breaks in continuity (unless done on purpose).

I have also learnt from audience feedback. I posted the video on “Youtube.com” and “Facebook.com” and here are some of the comments people made:

“I really like the idea of highlighting the characters, that was really clever and allows the audience to see exactly who is who in this film

I loved the idea of the split screen, with Aaron and George as it adds such comedy values.

The range of shot you used worked really well, and the soundtrack also added to the comic factor.”

“The bit where Aaron is talking to George, couldn’t hear George that well.”

It is perhaps reassuring that I only got one negative comment but it is a good point. In future work I will pay close attention to the volume of speech in the mix. I think there are two important things to do to achieve the desired clarity. One is a well-mixed audio track, the other is positioning of microphone(s). This whole film was recorded with only the microphone at the front of the small hand-held camera and at one point the sound of traffic is a little over-powering.