Back at it again! Reshoots

It was quick, the reshoots, as we had already done these same shots before. It was only two hours or so, but we got a lot done. I contacted Sydney, our other actor, and she was available, along with her dog. We all got together, and each of us got the equipment we needed. I made sure to have the same clothes and props as before. Sydney did as well. It was a smooth affair.

The shots we redid were purely for continuity’s sake. Whether it was the lighting or the puddles, we reshot shots that were out of place. There was only a few where we needed to redo the pans. As we had already taken these shots a dozen times over, it was quick and easy to do again. I jogged a lot. Of course, we made sure to have a water break.

Unfortunately, we were unable to reshot the shots we wanted to set in Snyder park, nearby. The park was and is closed due to the corona virus. There were a few I sorely wanted to reshot, but we have to stick with what we have, less we want to completely redo it in another location. But what we have is good enough for us, and we can only perfect it more during editing.

When we were done, we dumped all of the footage on our flash drive and went through them. We half-heartedly added them into the film, as we had a whole other day planned for re-editing. Here is a shot we retook and placed in:

Finishing Touches! Editing

Not much was done that day, but we did perfect the little things. We had all went and gathered a multitude of sound effects, which we all went over. The sound effects were for different things, like dog barking or a woman screaming. We went through almost 200 sounds to find things that we thought would work. Eventually, we placed them in our project and edited them accordingly. Some of them were almost out of place, so we edited the volume or we faded it in to be effective.

At the time, we weren’t satisfied with what we had, so we kept looking on lots of royalty-free sound effect websites. We timed some effects with the visuals and some with the song, to make it flow better. Other things we did was going to the cuts between each shot and editing it frame by frame. We did this so it looked like multiple angles were filmed at the same time. We did this by, for example: cutting one shot mid-step on my left leg, then starting the next shot - from another angle - mid-step on my left leg. This made everything flow way better over all. This also made our action match match better.

Some other things we did were do minor filters on our shots, to make them all look like they were shot with the same brightness and saturation. For the inside shots this helped a lot by brightening it up so it was easier to see. In the forest, we made everything more saturated to make it look more magical and different from the previous setting. This was a technique we got from Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. That was all we did that day, and the next step would be reshoots. We got a finished product to have for our peer review. Here is a picture of the screen with some edits, showing some sound effects we put in:

Sound and Titles! Editing

We came back again to edit another day, and our goal was to add the titles. We went through what we have previously said about what our titles will be and tried to follow it as closely as we could. The program we are using doesn’t have the font we previously mentioned so we had to go with a similar font that we liked. With that out of the way, we changed it’s color to black, as most of our two minutes had a lighter background. We put the first title into the establishing shot and then used that as a template for the rest. We gave a short amount of fading in and out to each title, but the length of it on screen varies. It’s unnoticeable for the most part, so we were okay with it.

Some of the titles we played with its placement, of where it looked better. Other ones we changed the perspective and made it look like it was lying on the sidewalk or up against the wall. On one of the titles, we made it come in in three different parts as the camera pans, which is pretty cool. Of course, for the parts where the text needed to be white, we changed it to white. Otherwise, the only neat thing we did to edit the titles is when the title of our film comes up, “Eden.” We made it big, to stand out. We played around with its fading in and out. Eventually, we added a glow to the back of it so it stands out even more. And, we changed our agreed upon storyboard just a tad by putting the actors names before the title. This is so the “Eden” can appear right when the neighbor disappears across the street.

The other thing we got done after fine-tuning the titles was the main background music! We went through a lot of songs. The many people we have contacted haven’t replied yet, so we used one that was already on the computer, just to have something there. It’s called “What is Real” by Mike Gordon. We timed it coming in according to the screen when I turn up the music, which is something we planned for. We also had it sharply fade out when I take off my headphones. We timed it just right so when “Eden” shows up and the neighbor disappears the song says “What is real?” The song was a great help to fill in that blank void where we wanted sound, and the video works great with it.

We also added in a track of white noise which slowly builds up until the part where I pass out. We tried playing around with white noise some, but we thought it would take too much time to do at the moment, so we set it aside for a future edit. At the end when our characters end up in the forest, we also added some royalty-free music. Over all, the titles and music made it go smoothly, now all we had to do was fine-tune it and add in sound effects!

Cutting it Down to Size! Editing

Once we had all the filming done, we dumped all of the footage onto a computer. We separated them into the different days and locations and went through all of them. We would watch it and determine its quality, and if it was good or one we liked, we placed it in another folder. There were about three or four takes a shot, so we would compare the takes with each other and choose one or two to be the final take on that shot. Once that process was completed we took the new folder and ordered it in chronological order, according to our storyboard. Then we went through and got rid of the lesser duplicates.

With our now finalized shot list, we dumped that into our editing software: Final Cut Pro. It was about five/six minutes long including all of the extra parts. So, we went through each shot and deleted the filler beginning and end of each one, cutting down the time. We weren’t focusing on making it perfect at this point, but only getting the bulk of what we needed there. Once we did that, the video was about three/four minutes long. Realizing that even with the blank spaces cut off, we were a little worried. So, we went back and through it again, this time a little more thorough.

We focused on exactly when we wanted there to be a cut, if only to shave down time. In one scene, we decided to have jump cuts, as the part we had was unnecessarily long. In that scene, I was supposed to be panicked anyway, so it made sense to make it look like I was rushing. We sped some things up and cut things so meticulously. We were very happy when we got it down to 1:59. A lot of time had passed when we got it there, and our time together was coming to an end soon. So we decided to only do a few more edits.

We wanted to get to sound and titles that day, but we planned to do it another day. The only sound we really edited was the only line in our project, “Wake up!” We liked the visual of one take but the sound from another, so we deleted the unneeded video and audio accordingly. We got it how we wanted and it looked good! For a work in progress. The only other thing we edited was when my character collapsed. My group mates sped it up a little to make it look like I was falling more realistically then my controlled acting. Otherwise, that is all we got done that day, and we anticipated the next time we could get so much work done!

Finishing up Filming!

Although we didn’t have Sydney, that was okay because we still needed to get the rest of the shots. We went in the same order as the film, back a block away from where I live. It wasn’t raining, so that was great. We made sure to have someone supervising us while we filmed near and on the street. I had to do a lot of jogging, because we took each shot at least three times. One main one(sometimes more), one for good measure and one for good luck.

I directed what I had envisioned, and Madelene took takes with her own ideas. We got me from multiple angles. I tried to look like I was enjoying myself on the run, putting my acting skills to use, as I was supposed to be on a routine run through the neighborhood. I wore the same outfit as before, and I made sure to hold my phone the same way, put my hair up the same way, and also wear my glasses instead of contacts. We took breaks as it was hot outside, but we got it all done in a few hours.

One of the few difficult shots was: when I was running on a long stretch of sidewalk, in the background there is a person who just disappeared, their ball bouncing as if dropped. This took some playing around with the timing. One person held the ball until just before they got on screen and they had to run away before I caught up to them. We switched out the people and the timing a lot, and we ended up getting a decent shot.

Another one was where the camera had to turn around. The thing was, there was a flag in the way, so Josh had to hold it down, and then right after I passed him he had to get out the reflector on me. This was where I really had to act, as I was supposed to be panicked about my dog whose barking just got cut off. We did this one multiple times.

Then there was inside. Getting the lighting was hard, and would have to be helped with editing. Most of it was easy, and we had to plan out where I would go so the ca era knew where to follow. One of the most anticipated shots was the Dolly-zoom. We needed to have a lot of assistance for it, and we did it a lot as well. That was the last shot of the day and we all were pleased with what we had accomplished.

Here is a picture from the ball scene mentioned above, with Josh holding the ball and myself telling him that he had to move one I got to the red plants off screen: