Editing

Throughout the opening, we wanted to express the feeling of unease portrayed by our character’s situation. To do so, we wanted to have a succession of fast paced quick cuts which grabbed the viewers attention. We decided to take previously mentioned inspiration from the film opening of Killing Them Softly; the cutting in between jarring noise amidst a black screen and then short shots of the scene portrayed was a visual we heavily enjoyed. At first, we attempted a slightly different approach to how this opening presented - flipping the audio so that the black screens would be silent while the footage would hold sound (below). We preferred, however, the convention that Killing Them Softly used, so stuck with this instead. It flowed much better with the rest of the opening, too, allowing for silence and sounds to integrate with one another fittingly.

For this first experiment, we used the diegetic sound from the raw footage along with two pieces: Lust Riders by Filmmaker and Distorted Signals_3, an experimental piece by Kenopsia (aka Kuzu). Both pieces hold a certain, uneasy atmosphere, tense and threatening throughout the segment.

Ultimately, we decided the best soundtrack for our opening would be a combination of pieces. Originally, we wanted to use the song used in the storyboard animatic, but this proved a task in terms of syncing up segments. At the point when we had decided this song might be a more fitting piece, we had already edited around ¾ of the opening and could not scrap the timing we had reached already. We improvised however, with this new combination of sound, leaning into the sporadicity of the atmosphere, grasping onto the sense of a more dehumanizing, uncomfortable series of events.

Pieces used:

Lust Riders - Filmmaker

Hard Hitting Track - Ermete Diara

Distorted Signals_4 - Kenopsia (Kuzu)

The ways in which the opening varies between interior and exterior locations - the stairwell to the forest; the parking garage to the hill - the juxtaposition between the generally associated peace and calm of outside vs. the claustrophobia of man made locations complement one each other in a chaotic portrayal mimicking our character’s mental state.

With transitions, I figured out a couple ways in which to glitch certain shots - datamoshing proved to be too tasking for the hardware we had available; yet another sacrifice made. These glitches, however, we think turned out to be pretty suitable - as the opening went along and the sounds in the second half of the opening transferred into more so literal sounds rather than a discernible music piece (note: this audio was unedited - this is the work and vibe of Kenopsia), the glitching heightened until the end where two morph cuts were used in succession between the last two shots.

The credits were placed both in between the black screens and with footage as the background, both proved fitting and with the shot with our character running down the stairs, a wipe proved perfect to introduce his name while he was on screen.

We think this editing suits the desired demographic - the sounds especially would not be suitable for a younger audience, they’re much too jarring and anxiety inducing. Instead, older teenagers fit the displayed atmosphere, they’re much more likely to enjoy and become intrigued by what is happening on screen. It’s dark and confusing, fast paced and chaotic. Both older and younger audiences would have trouble discerning this, so we believe this editing has perfectly targeted our set audience.

Below are screenshots of the editing process, timeline and settings of the glitch effects.