Pre-Production: Final Title Sequence

After filming and editing my first title sequence I found I just didn't like it. I feel visually it didn't really tell the story and came across too Hacker-like which is something I wanted to avoid. In order to progress from this I decided to edit a title sequence I would be happy with, one which has been inspired by a number of different titles, and something I believe would fit into Netflix perfectly.

Editing
My first mission was to try and find a collection of television archive footage talking about Britains judicial system failings, especially with regards to disclosure. I really wanted to send the message out on disclosure within the police and Crime Prosecution Service to initially sum up what the documentary is going to be about, certain cases that will be covered and to establish that this is an issue, it is topical and very much current.

There is very little media coverage on this topic which made the process of finding archive footage all the more difficult. However, after a lot of research and exploring various avenues I managed to gather together various news coverage. Once I imported footage into Adobe Premier Pro and put it all together on the timeline there was a clear mismatch in terms of continuity and image quality with a lot of grain, some clips even being 720p which is something Netflix alongside many ofter commissioners would reject. it was therefore important I found a solution to this and after brainstorming a few ideas, I came up with a solution. I would create the illusion that these broadcasts were recordings off an old box television.

 I would do this by creating transparent layer and applying above the timeline. I then added a grid effect to this.

 When I applied the initial gird it created a load of white boxes similar to graph paper which obviously wasn't what I wanted. However, with several modifications I changed the side from Width and Hight Sliders, increased the width and height dramatically and created and anchor point.

When this effect was applied there were horizontal lines across the screen which were very noticeable and with this sort of effect I believe subtlety is key. As a result, I brought the opacity down so the lines were visible but not overpowering.







In terms of editing the sequence together I decided to have the montage of clips transition in a realistic, static television way I was able to achieve this through a lot of playing around with methods of creating a glitch effect. The stages to this were as follows:

 Firstly I created a new adjustment layer and added it to the sequence timeline.

 I then would search for the immersive video effects to see the different options. In playing around with the effects I would test out different variations. I wanted to have each glitch different as usually no two are the same; it is a glitch and therefore not something that the control. TO emphasise this I would change the speed and Aberration colours of Red, Green and Blue. The colours that would distort.




To enhance the realism behind this effect I added static TV snow in-between clips whilst the effect was applied to the adjustment layer. This combined with the static and glitch sound effects really made this title sequence come to life. "white hiss that appeared whenever reception was bad, or a station went off the air." (https://www.saffo.com/02009/06/17/save-that-old-tv-theres-a-message-in-the-snow/)

Creating the vintage TV switch off effect was also something I wanted to create from scratch to avoid copyright restrictions and also the customisability of my choice. This gave me more flexibility with the edit. Also, I found many of the tv static clips available online were lacking in quality; this is to be a professional looking title sequence and quality is fundamental. 

I downloaded a tv static clip and imported into Premier Pro. I then dragged this clip into my timeline in a new sequence separate from he rest of the sequence. I then key framed the scale width and height.

 I started off with the clip in full screen and then went forward 5 frames and had it shrink into this line, then to disappear instantly. Key framing is actually a hugely important skill in editing and is one of the first thinks I taught myself. It enables so much potential I the edit.

I keyframes the exposure and levels of white in colour correction. Because the video is grey, it wasn't as effective when switching off. It looked very bland and although the basic graphic elements were there they weren't finalised and needed perfecting. By key framing the exposure and whites it brought a glow around the white line which would've been more accurate to a vintage television switching off.