Sunday, August 11, 2013

IN THE SHADOWS OF NOVEMBER EDITING WEEK 5

A much better week once the green screen scenes were done and it's in the home stretch for the video editing.  I'm taking a few days of vacation during the next week and reserved studio time to edit so I'm sure I'll have a majority, 90% if not more, of the project done in a few days.
Then it will be the audio work, some fx, and a few pick up shots.  There is a scene where they are having a dinner and I need footage of the dishes, etc, so most of it is pretty easy.  I'm hoping Sara can spare an hour some Saturday so we can do a few shots of her as November.  
After that it's the music that needs to be done.  I'm hoping the guys who were going to do it will still be able but it's right before classes start and they may just not have the time.  Starting to look at plan B in case that doesn't work out.  The problem is I have no idea what plan B is.
I was hoping that, at some point in the production, I can get an emotional response from the viewer.  Even if it's just a smile in reaction to something good happening to the characters.  GOT IT!  It's one very light hearted moment but it's in the middle of a very dark story.  This week I'm working on the action and the serious drama scenes.  

Sunday, August 4, 2013

IN THE SHADOWS OF NOVEMBER EDITING WEEK 4

Last week I finished feeling like Steven Spielberg but this week started feeling like Ed Wood.  I can only think it was because of outside influences, mom's health, etc, but I got very little accomplished.  Went back on Thursday and got much more done.  Sort of.
There is a simple scene with Sean, David Mione, and Hank, Kevin Litten, in a garage.  There's no fx or fancy lighting, etc, just some camera movement.  You can even hear me saying it'll be an easy scene to shoot on the sound track.  I think that's a curse just like "How hard can it be?" or "What else can go wrong."  
I wanted to get some actual camera movement for this scene.  As much as I like the ability to keyframe scenes and create movement with Final Cut Pro I still wanted the feel of actual camera movement but it turned out to be harder than I imagined.  I put the camera and tripod on a Radio Flyer and gently moved the whole thing across the floor in front of David.  I kept the frame wide so that would cut down on any vibration.  In itself that sounds like it should work but when you add the uneven surface of a well used garage floor it just isn't so easy.  It was just to hard to get a smooth surface and make the movement work.  I tried several takes from several angles hoping I could get enough good footage to string them together in editing.  I looked over every second but I couldn't get it to work especially when I added the reverse shots of Kevin talking to him.  Luckily I also shot the scene from a still tripod so I could use that footage instead.  Still, at four hours, it's the longest time I spent editing any scene in the production.