Re-shooting: Coronavirus

Kaitlyn and I had problems planning to refilm. There were weekends where we couldn't go to each other's houses because we didn't have rides. In addition to this, everyone was concerned about leaving the house because of the Coronavirus. Because of the outbreak, our parents did not let us to each other's houses. Therefore, we had to refilm individually. We discussed what shots we needed to retake. We came to the conclusion that Kaitlyn had to refilm the establishing shot of her backyard. I had to refilm a scene that was shot poorly. We would've liked to refilm more scenes, but we would have had to be together. Kaitlyn took a 5-second pan of her backyard. This was to establish the location. We didn't have an establishing shot in our original opening sequence when we should've. I had to refilm a scene that I was in the wrong location for. Instead of sitting in a chair, I was supposed to be on the ground. Luckily, my mom was there to hold the camera and record the scene. This was helpful because I would've had to set the camera on something. I took a few takes, and I will decide the best shot during the editing process. This was inconvenient, but we still completed the reshoot. The Coronavirus didn't allow us to physically go to each other's houses. Luckily, we have cell phones, so we could communicate and discuss our new plans. The picture above is the establishing shot.

Editing: My Computer (Continued)

It took a while to find good music that was uncopyrighted. However, we found some and used it for the action section of our film. We then added some sound effects like the doors slamming and the dialogue. Unfortunately, Kaitlyn wasn't at my house so she couldn't say her dialogue. I was planning to say it for her, but it didn't sound right. So we didn't complete that part. After all of the dialogue, non-diegetic, and diegetic sounds were added, I put filters on some of the takes. For the flashforward scenes, we planned to dim the colors. I took all of those scenes and applied a filter that dimmed the colors. This was so the audience can distinguish what was the present and future. This process took about 15 minutes. After this, Kaitlyn sent me the title order. We then called so we could decide who gets credit for certain jobs. After coming to an agreement, I inserted the first title. For our design, we decided to used red and green body text, with a black outline. In some scenes, it was difficult to read, so we put some titles in white. This process took about 90 minutes. After this, I video chatted Kaitlyn so she could see the finished product. She gave me some feedback, and I adjusted some of the titles. I spaced them out so they were evenly distributed,

Editing: My Computer

Throughout the past week, I wasn't at school. Because of this, I couldn't edit on pinnacle studios. However, I had the storyboard with me. I sent pictures to Kaitlyn so she could continue working. Unfortunately, she was still having computer issues. So I downloaded a program called iMovie, and I began to edit. I selected the takes and put them in order. After placing them in the correct order, I trimmed the videos. This allowed the transitions to be smooth. This process took about 45 minutes. I then unattached the sound from each clip. Kaitlyn and I were planning to use voiceovers for our speaking. This opening sequence doesn't have much dialogue, but there are lots of diegetic sounds. For example, doors slamming, people fighting, and other things. In addition to this, we added non-diegetic sounds. This was our action-filled music. We got the music by searching up uncopyrighted action music. We then found one that we liked, and made sure that we could use it. The creator said that the sound was free for anyone to use. Therefore we saved it and used it for our opening sequence.

2nd Peer Review

This was the peer review that my group was originally assigned. The opening sequence wasn't completed. The opening sequence was over 5 minutes long. In addition to this, the takes weren't trimmed. You can see the group members turn the camera off and on and then begin the scene. It was extremely choppy, and not all of the angles were included. In addition to this, the lighting was bad. For some of the outdoor scenes, I couldn't see anything. It took me about 30 seconds to realize that there were people in the frame and that they were talking. Throughout the opening sequence, there was music. Because of this, I wasn't able to hear anything that the actors were saying. The music should've been lowered for these scenes. The scenes with dialogue weren't smooth. The dialogue was messed up, and the actors began to laugh. This was most likely not meant to be in the opening sequence. Group 13 also recorded the tripod. The tripod is meant to not be filmed, but it was in the background of some takes. There were also no titles. An opening sequence isn't considered an opening sequence if there are no titles. There is definitely room for improvement.

Peer Review

Kaitlyn and I peer-reviewed another person's opening sequence. We watched group 9's video. This is because the group that we were originally assigned didn't have access to the video. So we peer-reviewed a different group. Overall, their opening sequence was well made. However, Kaitlyn and I noticed that they didn't include an establishing shot, a pan, and a shot-reverse-shot. However, it did meet the rest of the shot requirements. In addition to this, group 9 forgot to edit certain things. For example, they didn't include all of the titles. They forgot to put titles like directed by. The titles that they did have weren't spread out evenly either. All of the titles were at the beginning of the opening sequence. The last thing that could be improved was the sound. The sound fluctuated a lot, and sometimes it was hard to hear and understand what the actors were saying. There was some background noise, so a voiceover could've been helpful to use. On a positive note, the video was the appropriate length, the titles were in order, they didn't film the tripod or other people filming, and there was good lighting throughout. All of these things are important when creating an opening sequence. In addition to this, the plot of the story was interesting. This makes the audience want to continue watching. They used the majority of the required shots and additional ones like a trunk shot. Overall, this group did really well, but there is still room for improvement.

Editing: Computer Died

Kaitlyn and I grabbed a computer and opened pinnacle studios. The laptop was extremely slow. Therefore, we couldn't work at the pace we would've liked. We watched all of the takes and imported the shots. We used our storyboard to import the videos in the correct order. We began to edit the length of the videos. We did this by selecting the length and deleting the part we didn't need. This process took a long time. Then, our computer died. Some of the data were saved, but we couldn't work for the rest of the class. We then plugged in the computer. We decided to talk about editing. We decided how the flashforward section would look. We decided to dull the colors so the audience can tell that it is not in the present tense. We also decided when we were going to put music. Even though our computer died, we were still productive. Pinnacle studios is on each individual laptop, and the information cannot be accessed from a different computer. Therefore, we couldn't continue working on our project. Kaitlyn and I did decide on many things. This allowed the editing process to be easier once we started again.