Editing- Struggles with COVD-19

As we are informed, the virus that has been spread around is a clear struggle for our film. Schools are closed, all public gatherings are banned, and more. This is making filming and editing for my group mate and I very difficult. If schools were still opened and we did not need to follow social distancing, we would be able to continue on perfecting our movie. However, due to social distancing, we are not allowed to meet and film. We are both quarantined in our homes, which is not enabling us to film and edit. This is a major inconvenience, which we are both very upset about. We will need to find time to film soon when everything is safe. Until then, we must follow the rules and suggestions from the government. It is for this reason that we have not been able to edit or even film for our movie.
As previously stated, we are currently putting our movie production on hold. Knowing this, we must find other things and ways to work on our movie. Not only must we focus on our movie, but also our final exam for Cambridge, as it is coming up soon. We want to have everything completed soon, so that we will not need to stress and rush into our work when the deadline approaches. Next week is spring break, so we will need to make sure to work before or even after this. Oe project that we must start to work on is our CCR. Our CCR will be in the format of a video interview. This will take a long time to plan and make, so we will begin soon. This is something we can work on while quarantined in our homes, due to the virus. Below is a picture, showing us working from home, because we cannot be at school.

Re-Edit

As I have previously explained, we have done a peer-review. We took the advice given to us and we did more filming. We added new clips that we did not have before. Additionally, we made sure to include most of the different types of shots into our film. However, now we had to actually edit each clip into our already existing film. This was slightly challenging for me, but it turned out okay in the end. As previously mentioned, we filmed a pan and a tilt that needed to be included into the new film. The process of re-editing is a little more complicated than I had previously thought. Since we are using iMovie, it is much easier since we can just insert the clips from our phone into our already saved movie. However, we did run into some complications that made this a little bit more challenging.
One of the challenges that I faced were the transitions. When using iMovie, each way you choose to insert a clip restricts you to certain transitions only. I was having some trouble inserting them in the same way, so that I could use the same transitions for all of them. It was further even more complicated when I had to individually fix each clip and transition in. I could not insert them in at the same time, so I needed to insert each individually and then make sure they transition was right. This process was very tedious for me. Another complication that we faced was the music. In order to avoid any form of copyright, we made a voiceover of a song and placed it to the background of the movie. This made the whole process much easier, as we did not have to find a way to use a song without copyright. Since we only recorded a certain length of song, when we added in the new clips, it misplaced the rest of the film and sound. We figured it out, by just recording the voice over again, even though this took longer than expected. Overall, even though this re-editing process was slightly tedious; I think that it was very beneficial to the movie. Below is a screenshot from one of our new clips that we edited into our new movie.

Re-Shooting

This past weekend, we began to re-shoot. Since we did the peer review, we knew what we needed to re-shoot. Before the peer review, we thought that our film was good and that nothing needed to be fixed. We decided to take their advice and re-shoot a few scenes, and add some extras that we were missing. One thing that we were missing was a shot-reverse-shot. This is a shot that shows one person, then switches to what they are looking at or talking to, and then switches back to them. This is an important shot to include for Cambridge and we need to ensure that it is in our movie. We did create this shot when the main girl gets in the car. It shows her friend saying hi, then the main girl saying hi back, and then the other girl telling her to get in the car with them. This is just one example of our shot-reverse shot.
Something else that we fixed in our re-shoot was adding a tilt. Originally, we did not have this in our film. A tilt is when you show the surroundings from the ground moving upwards. This is also a crucial shot to include in our film for Cambridge. We were deciding where to add this in, and it was slightly challenging. I thought to add it in when we first got to the restaurant and we can show the actual diner in a tilt. My group mate suggested that we insert it in the end, but after consideration we both decided to show the diner in a tilt. Another shot we were missing was a pan. A pan is the same thing as a tilt, just from side to side and not up and down. We decided that we needed to add this in as well. We included our pan into the portion of the film when they are in the car. We created a pan of the surroundings outside of the car, to show that it is at night and we are on the way to the restaurant. Overall, re-shooting was necessary for our film, as we realized that we have many shots missing. Below is a screenshot from our new film.

Pier Review

This week, we completed the pier review process. Overall, I believe that this process is very helpful in assisting the quality of our movie. Hearing advice from another group just like us helps us to realize what we really need to fix. We were assigned a group of 3 girls, whose movie we were reviewing. We were given a piece of paper to take down guided notes about their film. Even though we were reviewing their movie, they were not reviewing ours. Another group reviewed ours, and we read about our feedback. When we reviewed the other group, we realized a few things that were wrong. Even though we wanted to not criticize their movie, we wanted to give them helpful advice so their final grade will be really good. We watched their movie a few times before beginning to edit.

One thing that we noticed that needs to be fixed within their movie was the titles. They did not have any titles yet, but they were planning on adding them. Another thing that we suggested to them was to add some back ground music, or non-diegetic sound. Their whole film consists of diegetic sound, and at some points it can be slightly too quiet. I believe that this will make their film more interesting and easier to stay intrigued. In our film, we added quiet background music to keep the audience interested. Additionally, this music adds suspense to the film. When the car honks outside, the music stops and the movie switches locations. I believe that if this group strategically added music in a format like this, it could really help keep their movie interesting. Below is a picture of their pier review sheet that we filled out for them.

Editing- Beginning of Editing

This past weekend we began our editing process. As previously mentioned, my group mate and I decided to film with our iPhones. This way it is much easier to transport the clips when we edit. Additionally, we agree that the camera quality is better than the school's cameras, leading us to choosing our iPhones over them. We are editing on iMovie, which will take time. When using iMovie, I needed to ensure that all of my clips were inserted in the right order, properly. If they were not inserted in a specific way, then I was not able to utilize the transitions I wanted. When we finished filming, we did encounter a mistake that we made. Some of the film was not facing the correct way, which messed up our editing and final product. We then needed to re-shoot these certain clips.

Besides this mistake that we made, I did not really encounter many other errors when editing. My main challenge that I faced when editing was the creativity of the movie. I do not want to just insert a lot of clips together and have that be our final product. I envision for our movie to be interesting, innovating, inspiring and creative. In order to achieve this, I needed to rearrange, add, delete, and edit some things in our film. For example, I began the movie with an extreme close-up of the girl's eyes. This was too boring so I made it black and white. Also, I added some sound effects, like a text message sound, or the sound of keys, or even the turning of the lock on the door. We also made sure to include all of our titles in the correct and proper order. We are now preparing to evaluate our pier-editing session and listen to the feedback that we were given. Below is a picture of how far we have gotten in our editing process so far.