Rough Cut

So finally came the stage of editing. The first and most important part of editing is the rough cut. We just had to arrange our selected clips in an order they were supposed to appear.

When starting our project in premier we were taught that we should save the project in the location with the most space. In my computer system disc drive D had the most memory and we saved our project in it.

We made a mother folder with the name of our project and then made sub folders in it with the selected audios, videos and pictures that were later on used in our film.

After saving the project began the real task. The first step in premier was to import the selected videos and then arrange them on the timeline in the correct sequence. This was a bit troublesome as we didn't rename the files. once we imported them to premier we didn't know which video had to come first just because we didn't label them. However we looked into each video one by one and managed to put them in the right sequence in the timeline.

Importing files to premier. (shortcut to importing files is CTRL+I)

Dragging videos to timeline and arranging them in the sequence

After arranging videos on the timeline, our rough cut was complete. We were ready to go onto the next stage which was adding effects, adding audio and other titles etc.

Movie review page

Our plan for the movie review page was simple. We wanted to give it a very professional look. We also decided that we would design our review page as if it had to be published in the local sunday times magazine.

As per the conventions of these pages, it is very usual to have a full image on one half of the page and the review on the other half. Apart from this there has to be a quote/highlighted text. We paid special attention to this when designing our page.

The size of the page was 16 by 10 inches and the steps involved in making the page were as follows:

In the first step we added the margins to the page. It was important to add margins so that the pages could be divided equally and the rest of the layout of the page could be designed accordingly.

We then changed the background colour to black and started with adding on the other conventions.

 we then added the images and added a box on the main image where the quote had to appear.

added the movie review

added the quote.

Poster planing

As part of the ancillary task we were given the option of designing a poster and a movie review page for our film.

Through our poster we wanted to show the whole ideology behind our film. As our film is based on Lahore so we wanted to focus on minar-e-Pakistan for our poster.
Our initial plan was to feature,both the actor and the minar-e-pakistan on our poster. Our first attempt was inspired by the poster of the famous film 'Shutter speed'

This was our first attempt at making the poster for 'Mera Lahore'

We were not really happy with what we made. It didnot come out as we had expected. The poster looked very untidy and confusing and there was no professional feel to it so we decided to go with our second plan which was to feature just the mina-e-pakistan on our poster.

We took several pictures of the minar such as the follows:

We selected the second picture for our poster.

We adjusted the brightness of the picture in Photoshop to add dark shadows to it. The dark shadows and the different shades of grey colour in the image represent the days of suppression. The days when dictatorship had been imposed on a democratic nation like Pakistan. Whereas the lighter shades and the minar itself represent hope and the belief that things will get better one day.

Construction:

In the first step we imported the picture into photoshop and adjusted the shadows and contrast of the picture using the adjustment option in the tool bar.

The second step involved adding the title to the poster. We added a rectangular shape in black colour using the rectangular shape tool (shortcut U) and lowered down its opacity so that the picture underneath it could be visible. Then we added the title using the text tool. the font that we used was 'shonar bangla'

We then added the selling line, tag line,date and details of the cast and directors.

The last stage was adding the other conventions that are found in any poster. These include the logo's of the production and distribution house.

Day 3

Today was the final day for our shoot. We had to finish up our shoot today because it was getting to late and our final date of submission had arrived.
It took us a whole day to do our shoot at anarkali and minar-e-Pakistan.
Managing crowd at such public places was the biggest problem that we faced. Whenever we started shooting, everybody started to gather around us. However we exploited the situation and took shots that showed events that have been part of the history of this place.

For the shoot at badshahi mosque and minar-e-Pakistan we set the ISO at 160, the shutter speed was 1/30 and aperture was 3.5.
The main problem was framing the minar-e-Pakistan. We had to take several shots in order to get to the perfect shot where we used the best framing we could.

For the night scenes the ISO was 800, the shutter speed was 1/30 and the aperture was 3.5.

Day 2

It has been raining since the past 2 days; our shoot needs to be re-scheduled. We have decided that we would first finish up our indoor shots and maybe by then the weather conditions might improve.

Today we shot the first scene of our film in which the protagonist is show writing and after this point he goes into flashbacks of the Lahore he remembers. The shoot was quite easy. We just had to take a shot of Hamza (protagonist) bent and writing something. We took this shot from two-three perspectives showing his side view, his front view and the back view.

The main problem we faced today was that we got late for the shoot. Due to some unforeseen circumstances our actor got late for shoot. By the time he arrived there was not sufficient sunlight and we could not delay our shoot so we decided to take this shot using a lamp light. 

Zainab doing makeup touchups before the shoot:

Before the shoot.

(Before the shoot) Discussing the next few scenes with Hamza.

Zainab and I with the camera. Checking the lights and setting the ISO and shutter speed according to the setting.

Day 1

Due to weather conditions we had to reschedule our outdoor shoot today. As previously planned, we had to postpone our plan to shoot at Anarkali. Instead we carried our indoor shoot which was actually scheduled for the next day.

Though we didn’t have any preparations but thankfully we were able to arrange for an auditorium at such a short notice. The next issue was to get the perfect lights that we wanted. Was a tough job but we still managed. We covered the white lights with yellow tinted paper. Rest we adjusted the aperture and iso accordingly to get the desired effect.

We then made up a set i.e. a solitary confinement using Styrofoam sheets. Luckily it did create the effect that we wanted.

The result was good and we were successful in shooting what we wanted.

Shot Listing

                 Shot listing

Scene #	Shot distance	Camera angle	Camera movement	Description	Location
#1	Establishing Long shot	Normal angle	Panning towards the left	The camera pans as we shoot the minar-e-pakistan and the surrounding area	minar-e-Pakistan
#2	mid shot	normal angle	Static camera. Zooms in to record special movements	Intro of the protagonist- camera is static and at a normal angle. Zooms in where important activity needs to be recorded.	House
#3	long shot	Subjective angle	Camera is static at the start and then pans and then zooms where necessary.	Starts with the minar-e-pakistan shoot, then badshahi mosque and other scenes form the flashback	Anarkali, Badshahi mosque, gawalmandi
#4	closeup and then long shot	Normal angle	zoom in and zoom out	the man being shown tortured.	solitary confinment