Smile, Inc. Editing

 

Today, I edited The opening for the imaginary film I created called Smile, Inc. Here's how it went.

    After compiling around 2 minutes of footage and importing each video into my premiere file, I had realized that each of the videos were overexposed and were low quality for some odd reason. This had always been a problem with making certain projects and it always perplexed me, but today, since the project is a much bigger deal than those past projects, I decided to get to the bottom of it. 

    After a bit of research, I had come to the realization that each of my videos had automatically been filmed in a filter of sorts called HDR on iPhone. Basically, HDR gives videos a much more saturated look and makes videos look prettier overall, but when put into certain editing softwares, the color/lighting settings ar too much for the program to handle, and when the program doesn't know what to do, the video come out very overexposed and yellow looking. Apparently, I found that there was no real way to get rid of the HDR feature on my phone, but I found a video that taught me how to convert HDR video to regular lighting. The video I used to fix the HDR issue can be found right here.

    I found the editing for this project fairly easy; besides having to learn how to make a green screen more aggressive to make the shadows and wrinkles on the screen itself disappear, I had come into the editing process already knowing how to use premiere and color correct.  It didn't take too long to edit, as it was only 2 minutes long, but something that I found myself editing in much more than I had previously expected to do so was incorporate royalty free sfx into it.  Audio elements like clicks, phone buzzing, dramatic build up, and a camera zoom sound truly enhanced the opening once I put them in. 

    Now that I am done with the opening, I can move into editing my CCR. I don't know the exact time my CCR will come out to being at the end, but let's just hope that it's just as fun and easy to edit as this was. 

    

Going Forward

Between work, school, and this project, I have a lot on my plate in the coming days. For the first time ever, I think I am going to abide by a strict schedule for editing my opening as well as my CCR. 

    For starters, I think I am going to have to start my editing for the opening on Thursday, the 31st. I have a test this Thursday and I badly need to study for it-I can't spend any time editing Wednesday. Thursday, I'll surely have some homework to do but I still believe Id be able to fit some time into the editing process. There is a possibility that I don't finish the editing all in one night, but I would expect to complete at least 75% of it Thursday. 

    Next, I sadly cannot work on the CCR editing until Sunday. I am completely booked Friday and Saturday with plans I had already made with family and friends, as well as long work hours. Thankfully, I am completely free on Sunday. I don't know how long the CCR will take considering I haven't really put any thought into what it will look like or what I will talk about, all i know is that it will take way longer than it takes to film a 2 minute film. That is why, in those two packed days (Fri and Sat) I need to somehow fit in a bit of scriptwriting or brainstorming general ideas of talking points for each of the 4 questions so I can dedicate all my time to filming and editing on Sunday. 

    While Thursday's editing is manageable, fitting the scriptwriting and CCR into my life over Friday and Saturday will prove to be a bit difficult, but it has to be done. With these guidelines in mind going forward, I think I just saved myself from a lot of stress that would have built up had I not done anything till this Sunday. I rarely ever worry about these kinds of things and rely on my ability to bounce back from any hardship magically, but considering that this project is really important, I can't just risk the possibility of not getting it done. 

ALL I KNOW IS GRIND.

Filming

     

Today, my friends and I filmed all parts of the opening of my film. 

    We started our day by meeting at the park and filming the latter half of the opening first, and it took us roughly 1.5 hours to film the whole thing. We planned to get there at 12:45, but an actual car accident halted our schedule. Nobody was hurt in the accident(thank god,) and the damage was not too bad. While filming, it was extremely hot out and there was a lot going on at the park itself, so it was slightly frustrating for all of us, but we were able to complete everything and have fun while we were doing it. 

    Afterward, we all drove to my house and filmed the green screen scene(tongue twister.) It was pretty hard not to laugh while being on camera/ recording someone with a dead stare for 30 seconds straight, but we got it done pretty quickly. Once we finished recording, we played basketball in my driveway, snacked on food around the house, and even played a bit of VR. 

    Today was not only an extremely productive day, but it was a really fun experience in general. Now that all of my shots are accounted for, it is time to move on to the post-production process. I anticipate a fairly simple editing job ahead, but I shouldn't speak too soon.   

Storyboarding

My storyboarding for the project is complete. I printed out three sheets of paper with a storyboard template on them and thoroughly detailed what I wanted in each scene. I must warn you, they are very sloppy and rough, but with a bit of patience(something I clearly didn't have while drawing in each panel,) they are readable. Here are my three pages in order: 

    This first page starts off with the green screen scene and starts the scene showing how Julie is waiting for something(the viewers don't know yet.) In the margins, I included the length of the opening credits as well as teh duration of the green screen montage. 

    The second page is where things get really messy. The 2 panels at the top depict Julie looking over to a couple in the distance who are laughing about, and the panel afterward is a close up on her face, her emotions being a visual indicator of her depression/loneliness. The last four panels depict the phone call interaction between Julie and Diane, and the waterfall of writing that goes down the page is scrapped dialogue I tried writing onto the paper. I accidentally wrote so much that it wrote on top of the drawing I made, but it doesn't quite matter because the shot composition is fairly simple and I still have the physical script document at the ready if I need it. 

    The third page demonstrates her reaction to the call as well as the final shots with the mysterious man lurking from afar. This page is the least messt of the three, but the final picture is a bit hard to decrypt-it is my idea for the focus shift through the built in feature on my phone and how it should look on film. 

With absolutely everything at the ready, I am fully prepared to film. After some quick planning with my friends, I scheduled our filming for this Saturday. 

Update, but Good This Time

     A few things happened recently that demonstrate significant progress toward the end of the production. 

    For one, my green screen came. The sacred tarp I had been waiting to arrive for a few days had finally come in the mail, and it works pretty well. The green screen is 10x7 feet long, which I realized after buying was massive, but it doesn't really change anything, it just means it's more of a hassle to fold and store. I decided to start playing around with it as soon as I got it, and while having fun editing funny videos with it(that frankly I can't post here) I realized how big of a deal keeping wrinkles out of the screen was to the final product looking real. Here are some stills from the videos I took with it, each one getting progressively better looking. 

    The other good thing that came in the last few days was the news that Breana, my old casting for Julie before she told me she would be going on a ski trip, is going to be in town for the latter half of spring break. Given that I was adding a new character to the production in Diana, I realized I could still use her when she comes back. I talked to her about it, and she gladly came back to the project. So, once again I'd like to introduce...

BREANA BASS AS...

"Diana"

    Things really are looking up recently, and it seems that filming will commence very very soon. 

How to Talk like a Professional

    

   

    For the part of the scene in the second half of my work where Julie is on the phone with the lady from the law firm(I named her Diana,) I need to sell the typical corporate, gushy type of speech from Diana, in particular, to make her call detailing Julie's rejection authentic. An easy way I decided to figure out this kind of language was to look through images of job rejection letters on Google. 

This is the specific example I used to write Diana's dialogue. 

    As for Julie, I wanted her to also sound professional in her response to Diana over the call, so I also decided I'd look up how to respond to job rejection letters. Instead of looking at images, I looked at websites detailing the basic things one should say in response to the employer to remain respectful and professional, the most important points being thanking the employer for the opportunity to interview regardless of the result and hoping to hear from again if a spot opens up in the future. The main website I used can be found here.

    After researching this professional speak, I was able to write a basic phone call interaction between Diana and Julie. It is the finalized script I plan to use in my opening, and I timed it out to be 35 seconds more or less. Here it is:

Eureka

 

    After weeks of neglecting the second half of my production, I finally decided to put some thought into what it should be. From the afternoon of my group meetings(this past Monday) to now, I had been constantly thinking about the content in the scene that would follow the montage, which brings me to today(Thursday.) Today, after 3 whole hours of a combination of talking to myself, pacing around, and rolling around on my floor(I am 100% serious about this,) I reached an epiphany. 

     I actually finalized and fleshed out the idea for the second half of my work. 

    The second half of the work will involve Julie waiting on a park bench in the middle of the day for a call from a law institution she applied to and unfortunately being rejected. Through the call with the lady on the other side of the phone(who it will be and if she is actually in the picture is still to be determined,) Julie's character background will be built, and the rejection, as well as her general being throughout the scene, will demonstrate her emotional state. At the end of the scene, a purposefully out-of-place shot will be taken of her, confusing the viewer in the process. Following this shot, a shot of Julie depressedly packing up her things and leaving the bench would play, but as she leaves the frame, my iPhone 13's built in cinematic mode would be able to shift focus onto whatever was behind her, which would reveal that someone had been recording her from afar through a camera. This mysterious man in the background would walk off soon after, and the scene would then cut to black. 

    This idea is far better than my original idea, which seems a bit more like something that would play at least a good ten minutes into the actual film. The genius (I would like to think) in having the mystery man not be given the spotlight in any single shot nor any dialogue whatsoever is that it doesn't take much away from the focus of the story at that given moment, that being the character of Julie and her life, while also hinting at what will unfold later in the work. I am also a firm believer in not spoonfeeding every single element of the story to the viewer because when a film does that, there's no room for the viewer to think or draw conclusions, making them feel like idiots or babies in the process. For example, unnecessary dialogue that tells exactly what is happening on-screen takes me out of the action sometimes, and I really want to avoid it with this scene. 

    I am so psyched that I have all of my plot points put together, now I can actually make concrete storyboards and such. Be on the lookout for that very, very soon.   

Group Meeting

 

    Today, I met with some of my classmates and we discussed each of our openings and the respective progress we've made on each of them. When it came time for us to collectively discuss my progress specifically, I was offered a few suggestions I came to really like as well as a nice reassurance about my own progress. 

    For one, they really liked the idea of the opening montage with the changing backgrounds. They were impartial when it came to the green screen vs. practical shots for the montage, but they agreed that the green screen would be much easier and result in a more fluid effect. 

    Additionally, my friend Aneesa brought up an idea for the end of the montage shot, that idea having to do with sound. What she proposed was that I have a growing drone sound play during the montage or simply have the chatter that plays in the background grow increasingly louder, and then as soon as I wanted to end the montage, I cut to silence. This gives the montage gravity through a dramatic effect. 

    Also, my group agreed that it would be better if I showed my credits before the film opens as opposed to before it opens because if I played credits during any scene, it automatically makes whatever scene is playing unimportant, and that is definitely not a good idea, as the two major scenes I plan to include in the opening are supposed to be integral to the story. 

    In terms of my progress, I was assured that I was not behind on my filming schedule, which was relieving because I was sure I was behind in comparison to my classmates. Only one person in my group had filmed already, and others were planning on doing so this weekend or over spring break. 

    Something I did realize I was behind in, however, was the rest of the production after the montage. I realized through speaking with others just how clueless I was about what was supposed to happen after the montage ends. I only have a semblance of an idea of what should happen afterward based on the type of film I would be making, but no clear idea as to what I would fit into the time id have left. The scene would have to evoke mystery and would act as a close that would entice audiences to continue watching, but in the genre my film is, that mysterious type of scene isn't normally in the very beginning of the work-definitely not the second scene. 

    This group meeting was beneficial in that it brought forth some helpful feedback on certain ideas of mine, a great idea for a way I could improve the montage itself, and, most importantly, a wake-up call to get on it with finalizing the second half of the production. 

Convenience

 I am making the decision to recast Julia for the THIRD time due to my own desire for time to not be so crushing and tight for the filming of this opening. I talked more with another friend who said no to my acting call initially and persuaded her to come on as Julia. For the THIRD time, I would like to introduce you to...

Natalia Diaz as...

"Julia"

NEW AND IMPROVED VERSION!!!

    There are three reasons for the recasting, actually. The convenience one I just mentioned is the first, but the second is that Natalia has a bit of acting experience herself. She isn't an actor or anything, but she has been cast as a lead in some plays in middle school and even got recognized/called for a tv audition by an acting scout after a performance in one of the plays. This isn't that big of a deal, because an Oscar-winning performance is not needed for a 2 minute opening to a film, but it is nevertheless a plus with Natalia on board. The third and final reason for this recasting is her face. When I was originally looking for actors to play the part of Julia(then named Cade,) I was looking for people who could sell the feeling that they were "dead inside" through their face, and compared to the last actor I cast, I think Natalia fits the role better in this regard(sorry Breana.) Big thanks to Natalia for joining the opening, and I'm excited to see how this casting plays out. 

Crumbling

     

    

    To my dismay, filming has once again been postponed. Complications involving timing between the three of us this weekend between soccer games, work, and family commitments have rendered us unable to find the right time to film this weekend, and it's surprising to me because I had literally cleared the date with my friends beforehand. There are no guarantees going into the next week/ weekend that my friends can get together either, so I will just have to improvise during the coming week or even during spring break. Surely, time will open up sooner or later, so it is not as insanely worrying to me, but I am still disappointed. 

    Going forward, I feel it would be wise to spend my time sitting on all the ideas I have compiled into storyboarding and such and really assessing which areas could possibly be improved if needed. Some research on the side could also be done. It is just a thought right now, but I might actually need to recast Cade for the third time to align with my own scheduling. With this news of time complications being a last straw of sorts for me, I think I need to find someone that could fit my schedule a bit better. 

I am getting so sick of these bad news updates, here is hoping that this one is the last. 

    

To Green Screen or Not to Green Screen?

    While storyboarding, I really started considering all of my options with my opening montage. There were two options for the background switch effect I was hoping for, those two being a green screen effect and a fully practical background switch(multiple shots at each location.) Initially, I was set on the practical version, because I felt that it would be only slightly challenging to edit in post-production, but now I'm scare of it being way too challenging. The worst part about this is that the only way to really see if the effect will be fluid(or worth the hassle, even) is to go and shoot it first. 

    So once again, I ask myself the question: Is a green screen the move here? 

    The cost of a green screen cannot be that bad, and it seems that there will still be a "hassle" in post involving the lighting changes with the backgrounds, but even with that, I am really starting to open up to the green screen idea. There are also two benefits to the montage itself that I can benefit off of, those two things being the ability to have the subject move around a bit during the shots (with it still being a fluid picture) and the possibility of an insanely subtle slow zoom out from Julia's face as the scene plays. Everything about the green screen seems much cleaner, and now that all of the pros and cons have been considered, I think I can concretely say I am going to stick with the green screen choice. 

    

Filming Schedule

 

    I got together with my actors and we decided on a timeframe to film- Saturday and Sunday of the coming week at anytime from 1-6PM. Because most of the shots are taken during the day, and with the first 30 seconds or so of the opening being a montage of same few shots repeating over and over, it might be so easy to accomplish we won't have to film on Sunday. You might be asking(probably not but let's assume you are,) why are the dates so far out? I'll tell you why: one of the most stressful weeks of our lives is keeping us from doing it earlier.

 

    For some odd reason, the universe made this week so incredibly stressful in different ways for the three of us (Breana, Santi, and I.) While I have 3 massive grade defining tests throughout the course of this week, Santi has to get accommodated at his entirely new school/ come to terms with this big change in his school career, and Breana hurt her ankle + starts at her new job on Tuesday. None of us can do anything through Saturday, either because we are studying or working. If the week wasn't so hectic, I would have preferred to film sometime after school throughout the week, but sadly it isn't the reality we live in. 

    On the brighter side, I have more time to make my script as good as possible and also time to flesh out my storyboards(which I have yet to put onto paper, they have kind of just been sitting in my head this entire time.) 

Narrative

 

    Over the week I thought some more about the narrative of the opening. I took ideas I had thrown at the wall and put aside the ones that didn't stick. 

    One idea I've decided to discount is the idea of the main character, now named Julie, quitting her job after the montage. There weren't any problems with time that forced this idea to be cut out entirely, it's more about what the inclusion of the scene says about the montage that precedes it. If I were to cut from the montage to, say, a wide shot of Julie throwing her apron on the floor and walking out of her job, it would mean that the montage before it was supposed to convey a growing sense of anger, when the montage's purpose is intended to make Julie seem depressed or bored with her repetitive life.  

    Another idea I decided to cut out is the idea of Julie waking up when the opening begins. This time, the main reason is time, but the other secondary reason is that it would be communicating/adding absolutely nothing to the narrative at all. Having the camera show Julie waking up in her house and possibly having her keep the dead-inside-type face while waking up would just be telling the viewer the same idea the montage would, and it would take away from the more important scene later in the opening. 

    The last change I decided to make was to change the time of the final scene to midday. The reasoning behind this is in no way because daytime is better than nighttime thematically, it is because it would be much easier to film during the day with lighting not being a problem. The lighting problem was sitting in the back of my head for a while, and I finally made the decision to stop making light of it(sorry.)