Production Blog: Editing Time!

Hello, great to see you here again! After finally being able to film, the group was so excited to begin the editing process. As outlined in my filming blog, the group was only able to complete one scene due to time constraints, so this first part of the editing process was rather brief. When assigning tasks to the group members, it was agreed upon that Jordyn was the most tech-savvy and would therefore be the leader of the editing aspect of the film, in the same way that I handle the marketing and videography, and Ashley handles the musical aspect. Jordyn began editing shortly after filming ended, and for this brief scene, she primarily used the application iMovie on IOS. Upon asking, Jordyn told me that this was very convenient for the short duration of the bathroom scene. As I have again outlined in a previous blog, the group used various technologies and tools for filming, one of which being a phone stabilizer, which, as the name entails, holds the cell phone steady while filming, and also keeps it in this steady position even as the handle is moved from side to side or up and down. As awesome and futuristic as this device seems and is, it lost battery while filming, making the process of holding the phone steady much more difficult. This in turn made the editing process even more difficult since the shots no longer lined up perfectly, as they had before (on certain takes where the actor or videographer erred). Every slight movement of human error was much more noticeable once the clips had been merged together, and the group was very unhappy with this. I suggested to Jordyn, although a long shot, that she try to line up the first half of the scene that the group all favored, with other, less favorable shots of the second half of the scene. I was hoping that even though these shots were not as good as the final one, a fine one would match up with the first half, as I generally used the same landmarks of the bathroom to decide where to angle the camera. The group agreed that this would be better than having both favorable shots with a poor-looking transition. Unfortunately, this did not avail. Regardless of the take, it was always just a smidge off from the starting point, or somehow dimmer than before, and even the placements of the flask were off; too much so that the group deemed it highly noticeable. Therefore, this tactic was not successful.  Jordyn was able to fix the lighting problem by editing the tints and hues, to sort of add a filter to the scene. Along with fixing the issue, this fulfilled my wish for a vintage-looking film, which I have seen before in other shorts and even documentaries. I quite enjoy the concept of "modern vintage" as Jorydn and I have deemed it, where a film is set in the present day yet feels like it is filmed in the 80's-90's time period due to low lighting and older technology; I believe the tint also adds to this effect. The other issue, though, remains unsolved. Jordyn deemed that the positioning of the clips during the scene cannot be further modified until she can compare them to the scenes placed before and after the bathroom scene, which have not yet been filmed. After saving the modifications, Jordyn was able to add the score that Ashley had created on the same day of filming to match the emotion and tone of the film. After finding there was nothing more to do, the group placed a hold on editing until further filming endured.