how to remove footer and padding completely

Iam using sydney theme the free one.
Iam new to php, js and word press.
I want to completely remove footer and padding from my site. I right now set my page to static one as on the slider page the content was getting cropped in the bottom of the page even when I have the resolution as required ( 1300*500) approx.
Pls let me know how to get the content properly.
I even modified the footer.php to have only the below content but still it does not work

<?php
/**
 * The template for displaying the footer.
 *
 * Contains the closing of the #content div and all content after
 *
 * @package Sydney
 */
?>
<?php wp_footer(); ?>

</body>
</html>

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Thanks.