Software

To edit our teaser trailer we used IMovie06. There are many different transitions that can be applied to your project on IMoive. For producing and editing our trailer we found this very useful as we wanted it to be smooth and affective. We used fade in's and out's to achieve this. We also used a wash in transition for some shots as starting with a white background looked better than starting with a black background where the shots were taken in the dark.

Using IMovie06 also made it easy to upload audio recordings such as the voice over and non-diegetic music. To do this on IMovie you simply just drag it into your project and place it alongside your footage. It's also quite easy to cut audio content and to turn the volume up and down for effect, this was an important editing tool to have as sound is an important aspect of a teaser trailer.

There are some editing tools that aren't present on IMovie06 that would make a difference to our final piece. On IMovie you can't crop shots. In one of our shots there was someone in the background, it was a perfect shot but we were unable to use it as we couldn't crop the mise-en-scene. Another problem we had is that some of our shots were taken at night and they are too dark in our opinion. It would be useful if IMovie had the facility to lighten a shot.

After we decided to improve our trailer we also came to a decision to use Final Cut Express to achieve a more sophisticated and professional look for our teaser trailer. Final Cut has many advantages over iMovie as it allows you to use editing tools that are unavailable on iMovie. These include the ability to incorporate a split screen, zoom in to a shot already taken and to adjust the brightness of a shot.

We used many transitions to give our teaser trailer the desired effect. There were allot more options for transitions in Final Cut although some were not suitable for the style of our trailer. The transitions help to connect the different shots therefore telling a story. However some of the shot we left out transitions as it speeds up the trailer and adds drama.

Also for the first scene of the trailer we used a filter. We decided we wanted a shot where the camera focuses on the male protagonist and his fiancee then blur and focus on the branches that frame the shot. After researching this we discovered this had to be done on the camera not on the program used for editing. However after experimenting with the different filters we decided to use 2 shots of the same scene, put a filter on the first shot to make it appear slightly blurry then leave the second shot normal with a subtle transition between them. Although this didn't have the exact same effect it did have a similar effect which works effectively.

Also on Final Cut we were able to use a zoom in tool which wasn't available on iMovie. When we filmed the scenes on the front lawn at Ilkley Grammar School we were unable to avoid a mini bus in the mise-en-scene so we had to come up with a solution or not use the clip but this wasn't really an option as using the clip was vital for the audience to understand the plot. We therefore used the zoom in tool so that the mini bus wasn't visible.

When we edited the original teaser trailer we encountered a problem with the lighting for the 'ball scenes'. We had to solve this problem by using transitions that would lighten the scenes slightly. However we decided to use these clips again in the improved trailer so as we were using Final Cut we could adjust the brightness of the clips. This has made a huge difference to the trailer, although the clips do appear slightly artificial it is an improvement from having them in there original colour.

Adding audio to our footage on Final Cut was relatively easy. All we had to do was drag the audio from iTunes to Final Cut. Then all we had to do was cut the audio, like how you cut the footage, and drag it to the appropriate parts of the footage.

One other technique we were able to use in Final Cut was to use a split screen. This was very difficult and complex to do. We had to drag the other clip we wanted to appear by the side of the clip and place it above it. We then had to crop one of the clips and pull the other clip over the clip. This meant we lost one side from each clip but this was able to be done due to the framing being centred.

Although Final Cut is a cutting edge piece of technology for editing it does have its disadvantages. It's a very difficult program to learn to use and takes a while to get used to as it's much more advance than iMovie. Using the split screen is very complicated to edit and you have to loose part of the image of the clip which is a slight disadvantage and needs to be taken into account when filming the clip wanted for the split screen.

To compose our film poster and magazine front covers we used Photoshop Elements 2.0. This was an effective program to use to reach a professional end piece. The tools available allowed us to manipulate the original images we used and also allowed us to adapt text. However we did decide to improve our original magazine front cover by changing the layout and colour slightly. It was fairly easy changing aspects of the cover using Photoshop Elements 2.0.