Editing - Filters

Adding the Filter

In this post I create a grainy, black and white filter to layer over our film. This is what the filter looks like as a standalone image:

First of all, I placed the picture over the top of the film and dragged it out so it covered all the footage. 

However, this made the footage extremely grainy and dark, more than it did in photoshop, as it was a png image rather than a photoshop document which I could alter the opacities and blending modes. The footage could still be seen as the image is partially transparent.

To alter this, I changed the image's overall blending mode and its opacity in final cut pro. As the inside and outside scenes had different levels of lighting, this was different for each bit. The indoor scene is much darker, so I used the Lighten mode to bring out the light in the scene. It still looks quite grainy and dark, however it's much better than it was and the titles added over the top distract the attention from this. I also lowered the opacity to roughly 75% to decrease the noise.






















In contrast, the outside scene is very light and quite overexposed in some places, so I used the darken mode which brought the colour down to one more similar than the one seen in the first scene.























Overall, I'm pleased with the result however the quality is nowhere near as good as it was in the photoshop document. However, this was anticipated as I was aware that I wouldn't be able to edit the blending modes and opacities of each individual layer in final cut the way I would in photoshop, and this makes a very big difference to the colour and quality. To do this, I would have needed to import each layer individually into final cut to edit and if given more time I would have liked to experiment with this to see if I could improve the quality.