P3(c) Applying Visual Effects and Transitions

My aim was to make every cut seem almost seamless, I feel as though the shots we had taken allowed us to use continuity editing efficiently, making every cut cohesive.
One example of this would be in the first scene, where Oliver is writing in his notebook, the cuts are almost undetectable. Also when ʻMiddle Aged Ollyʼ appears in a TV interview, When he is reaching for his drink there is a very smooth cut within this. Overall I spent hours editing clips to make sure the match on action was as good as possible, it was arduous yet satisfying. Fig 1 shows the editing timeline of the production, showing various effects and non-diegetic audio.

Fig 1 

I used many cross fades to convey the idea of time passing, this was used throughout the film, including the montage, and in Ollyʼs office including a series of close ups of the protagonist. Also, using these transitions made the film flow, keeping the audience captivated throughout. The use of ʻfade to whiteʼ connoted death to the audience, this also appears in the final scene representing a near death state.
Nostalgia scenes were created by the use of montage and many fades showing the aging of the two boys. Fig 2 shows the effect used to create the fade to white.

Fig 2

I do wish there had been more shots of the TV interview, due to the fact I think the same shot continues for too long, which I found boring.
For the scene consisting of magazine covers coming in, I used Adobe After Effects to control where and when they were visible, this process did not take too much time, however I spent a long time creating the magazine covers. The 6-second sequence creatively compresses time and that it is a well recognised filmic motif indicating to the audience that the author has experienced meteoric success. Fig 3 shows every magazine transformation to show on screen.

Fig 3

Adding a Vignette 

In order to create a flashback type atmosphere, I added a white vignette to the clip. This vignette made the clip seem as though it was more in a dream state rather than the present, indicating to the audience that the protagonist was thinking about his past.

Firstly I added a 'circle' from the Generate tool in 'Video Effects'. This brought up a small circle shape in the centre of the screen.

 Example of the circle seen when applying the effect

The next process involve resizing the radius of the circle in order to create a large vignette. I altered the radius to 901.0, then simply added the outer feather and increased to 97.0. Furthermore I then selected 'invert circle' which then saw the vignette take shape for the first time.

Lastly I changed the blending option to normal, the revealed the footage behind the circle, which created the vignette effect for the final production, giving a more dreamlike effect.

Example of white vignette used in final production.

Tint

Another way in which I create more engaging footage was through using the 'tint' tool for part of the flashback montage. The clips of the two boys as children were shown with a sepia tone and a dust and scratches effect. This was applied to create a home video type montage, showing the friends growing up together. Below shows the process in which involved applying the tint filter, selecting the colour that mapped to black and simply altering the percentage the tint amounted to, in this case 70% was effective in creating a sepia tone for the footage.