Improvements To Make - Opening

The feedback we had received was extremely useful. From it we have decided we have a few minor adjustments to make, which are:
- The font of the title
- The volume of the music

It is simple to change how loud the music is in iMovie by simply adjusting it. It is important we are able to hear the narrator's speech clearly as shocking statistics are being presented. Finding a volume that people would be happy with is a simple task, however...
Changing the title font is an issue! Due to the transition we have chosen there is only one font the software allows us to use. Since others and ourselves are not happy with the font it provides we are trying to work around this. From the website http://www.cooltext.com we created the following image:

We plan to put this in the opening after the transition. The font we chose is what we feel most like the text that appears on CCTV cameras which is relevant to our documentary.

Unfortunately after trying this it didn't work as the gap between the transition and the image was a few second black screen which didn't look good. We decided to stick with the transition and leave the image.

The Opening Sequence

Here is the opening sequence completed. Unfortunately, as we didn't include parts from the storyboard and plan, it is shorter than we had originally planned. I feel that as it is shorter it keeps the audience enticed and gets straight to the point. We also replaced parts of the plan that were less obviously linked to CCTV such as including footage from the television show 'Big Brother'.

The Opening Voiceover

After having finished editing the transitions, videos and music of the opening it was time to finish it by adding the voiceov

er. After discussing with the rest of my group we decided that having a presenter could be a possibility when filming later interviews. We therefore decided that keeping the same voice throughout the documentary would keep a sense of continuity and it would seem more professional. We chose to use group member Cissie as the narrator as she is the most well spoken of us all with the most mature voice.

We had never used the school's microph

one before so we decided to make the most of the macbook's applications and tested it in GarageBand. The microphone had a mode specifically for voiceovers as it is a Yeti microphone. After adjusting the volume and a few tests of how close to be to the mic we were happy with the quality of playback.

From previous research we had done on the subject of CCTV we had a script prepared for the opening. We added more than enough facts to this script incase it was the original length we had planned - 30 seconds.

The voiceover was recorded straight onto iMovie and after testing it with different timings and saying different parts of the script with different sections of the opening we found what we thought was best. The final voiceover is on the video of the opening sequence which is in the post above.

Making the opening sequence

We had planned the opening sequence thoroughly including our powerpoint which is posted in a previous post and with a storyboard.

Using pictures we had taken at school and footage we previously filmed in London we began to edit the opening using the mac program iMovie. A large number of the shots were slightly shaky but using the stabilisation tool we were able to sort this out. We placed the clips in iMovie in a random order to add variety - for example; we didn't want two crowd shots next to each other. We sped up, cut, cropped and muted shots until we had a sequence we were happy with. One shot we were particularly happy with was a zoom in to a CCTV camera but unfortunately it was incredibly shaky. We then decided to re-film this shot at Weybridge station a few days later and edited it in. We were much happier with this shot and felt the sequence flowed nicely. Here is a screenshot of speeding up the new CCTV shot:

It was then time to add some transitions. From our previous knowledge of documentaries we had noticed a pattern - beginning with a cross blur. We took advantage of picking this up and added it to the beginning of our sequence so that it blurred into a shot of a crowd walking down oxford street. After testing a few transitions for the ending we found Lens Flare. This transition then leads to the title of our documentary 'Caught On Camera'.