Post production: Part 1

We began editing by watching all of the footage back and labeling the ones we liked by character and the specific shot, for example "Zaza Close-up Tree Shot 1". We liked the majority of the shots so began putting the rushes into bins depending on the character to make it easier to edit, as we had a rough idea from our shot list the order we wanted to edit in.

There were no crucial mistakes that we noticed, although there were some shots we didn't use solely due to us not liking them. an example of this is a shot whereby we panned the camera to show the sky and then tilted it down to introduce one of the characters, due to the placement of it in our sequence it stopped the sequence flowing as it didn't fit with the pace and the tension that had already been created. Moreover, there were a few shots whereby the characters were walking the wrong way or the composition was off so we decided not to use them. In addition to this, the sound was a bit of an issue whereby our only line, "have fun" which tells the audience lots about the narrative wasn't really picked up very well in the shot we wanted to use, therefore our only options were to either use another take, get rid of the scene (which could lead to later confusion) or unlink the audio and use it alongside the take we actually liked- although it may not have matched up. therefore we decided to firstly try and turn the sound up on the shot we liked although it didn't sound great so we just used several takes and made sure we just used the audio from the one where you can hear the dialogue. 

Some early choices we made that shaped our final opening title sequence include the use of costume, sound, and composition within the frame. Prior to filming, we made a shot list whereby we planned the shots we deemed necessary and put them into order, this gave us a rough idea of everything we needed to do on the day as well as helped us plan when editing as it helped us gauge where everything went. A crucial part to our sequence is the ending whereby we want to leave the audience on a cliffhanger and make them want to watch more, we initially intended for her to walk over the hunter's body while the titles play although we decided this wouldn't be as effective as it makes the opening sequence more into a short film, therefore we cut while she was still killing the hunter, on the day we made our protagonist- Daisy, hit the camera with the back of the gun which blacked out the entire screen, although by doing this didn't look very realistic as her movements were much slower than other shots we got, therefore instead of blacking out the screen with the base of the gun, we just cut to a black screen and bright yellow titles. Furthermore, from the offset, we knew that we wanted the hunters walking from the left to the right, and in any confrontation we wanted the girl to be on the left, as much like reading a book the audience read the screen from the left to the right, therefore if anyone walks in from the right it can create tension and unease.

It's difficult to pinpoint two choices that we made when editing, although as an introduction to our opening scene we were going to have one of our hunters - Stu - walking around the forest, this would set the scene as It shows off the location as well as his costume, being tweed and a gun. From this shot, we were going to cut to a black screen whereby some titles, including the production company and director, would appear, and then the action would begin. Although, we decided to get rid of this shot of the hunter as we decided that it would be more gripping if it started with action as people would want to watch more as they're gripped from the offset. In addition to this, we were going to have the protagonist - Daisy - run from her hideout, through trees and then "stalk" the hunter, and we took several takes of this one-shot, although we decided that due to the length of it, it slowed down the flow and therefore broke down the tension, therefore, we decided to just cut from her in the hut to her stalking the hunter, the faster pace helps heighten the tension as more action is taking place in less time, therefore the audience is more likely to be gripped as they don't want to stop watching in case they miss anything.