Choice - A Tribute to Film Noir (Laforet Edit Contest Entry)

[Navinder]

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[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

Hey guys,

creativeLive and Vincent Laforet organized an editing competition and they gave around 40 clips of a scene that they shot in their workshop. As I don't get much chances to practice editing, I thought this was an amazing opportunity and I came up with the video below. I'm really looking for feedback, for I really want to improve my editing skills. Any kind of suggestion, criticism is welcome.

I wanted to get that film noir look with this video, but after watching the end result, I think it needs more work. Perhaps some more noise and little bit of blur. Any tips on this topic is appreciated.

Alright, I'm not going to take much time of yours. Here is the video (BTW, if you can, a response on Vimeo page will be really helpful).

Thanks and take care!

Edited with - Adobe Premiere Pro CS4
Color Correction – Color Finesse 3
Sound design and mixing – Adobe Audition 3
Title Sequence – Adobe After Effects CS4

A couple of points... and most of them are on the camera work, rather than the editing...

1) I would have liked to have seen some shots where the camera is placed at 90 deg. from the axis of the two people. I think there was a reliance on shooting from the axis,
or perhaps slighting off that axis.
2) The dress the woman is wearing... was it 'white'? If it was white, I think you need to look at the lighting situation when she is a significant element of the shot. If the dress was not white... it became a 'dirty' grey
that almost matched her skin tone...(which sort of suggests to me it was not white...).
3) Lighting.
a) While everyone had 'some' light, I think the shots of the woman from the 'behind the desk' POV, could have had more light, and 'dramatic' lighting.
b) The black man behind the desk had 'frontal light' and because of that the sides of his head tended to 'blend' with the darker background. I'd suggest a 'cross lighting' setup, where the sides of his head are 'lit' and
only a soft fill for the front.
c) The guy's shirt tends to 'blow out'. You can 'cheat' by having the guy with a 'off white/light color' shirt keeping the 'value' up will 'read as white'.

4) Camera Angles. I think it would have been interesting to give some High/dutch angled shots, or even low upwards shots. It seemed that most shots were 'ground floor' and about mid level.

5) in the "noir" period there was a tendency to have more full length shots. That along with 'angles' could allow for showing certain 'states', 'everything orderly', with a shot where the verticals and horizontals all lined up, and ground floor camera placement... things 'getting complex', dutchangles, and 'different' POV etc.

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

Hey, thanks for the reply. Well, I didn't shoot those scenes myself, so I can't do anything about it Here are the original videos, if you want to look into something

http://vimeo.com/creativelive

Anyway, I was looking for some advice on editing (color correction and sound design). Anything will be helpful

That will learn me to read that you were give 'clips'...

Looking one of the clips I found... not one that you used, here's my 'grade' to B&W done quickly in Photoshop, but After Effects could do this as well. The woman's dress is 'light yellow', and doesn't read too well with B&W, turns a muddy grey fairly quickly.

The goal was to have detail in the white shirt of the man, minimize the 'muddy' grey on the woman's dress, and give a bit of contrast, while maintaining tones of dark grey on the man's face.

I used a combination of 'channel mixer' selecting 'monochrome', and then boosting the red channel contribution, while slightly reducing green and blue.
Then I applied a curves, with an 'S' curve, and 'pushed' tones darker than the mans face into a 'deeper grey', and pushed the whites a little more whiter in the high values.