40. Editing Day 1

To start off, I decided to put the clips I had in chronological order, then I went back to decide which to use and how much to shorten each. 

After picking the clips, and removing over half, I felt that the beginning was extremely fast. I had wanted it to be a nice, slow introduction of V, then LI would come and break the slowness. When adding more clips, it makes it even faster with the quick cuts and extending the clips felt uneasy and awkward, although that could be from the angles taken. 

A video of the edited down beginning.

When looking through the title clips, I did notice that they all were slightly slanted and had a bit too much space on the right side. I may try to fix it in editing or re-film it. 

An example of how slanted the title was.

The worst part is honestly the acting. I know that Talia said she can't act, but I didn't think it was this bad. The moments where she is supposed to be concerned/nervous she's constantly smiling and it's unconvincing overall. There's also the problem where she would move way too quick from a position, and it's difficult to have a clip be a certain length to stretch out the tension between the characters. Also, the scene where she jumped on me, she immediately raised her head. The way I will try to change this when we re-film is to play out entire scenes (rather than just the moment in the take) to try to make it seem more natural and less stiff. This can also give me more footage in case I have to change an angle. This will definitely take a lot more time, but I feel that the acting will be much better.

Due to the amount of camera angle changes, I didn't think about how the background would be affected. I used a leveling app to make sure the camera itself was level, but not what looked nice in the video. I realize I can slightly rotate the video in editing; however, there are so many inconsistencies with the background all together. 

For some reason there is a stool in one shot, then it's not there in another. 

The shot with the stool in it.

The shot without the stool.

The time-lapse idea was a strange idea. I didn't think about how I was going to incorporate it (transition-wise) into the film smoothly. It also was very weird going from a nice, calm, slow scene to extremely fast in a second. It didn't fit in the film at all so I removed it. 

With all the issues, poor acting and inconsistent background, I made the decision to re-film everything. I had talked to Talia about it to figure out when we're both free and, unfortunately, we'll be filming on the 3/9-10/24, which is basically a week before everything is due. I fear that I won't get the film done, but this does bring the opportunity to completely focus on the minor tasks and the music. 

Even with all the issues, I did enjoy how far away the camera was and how small the characters looked compared to the environment. It feels like the audience is a spectator watching the two's personal moments (the swings and LI being concerned in the hallway), but the audience gets involved with the story when learning new information about the characters (the walking in the park). When re-filming I will try to replicate this and it gives me a better idea for the cinematography. 

The swings scene.

The hallway scene.