CCR

 

Final Cut

 

Final Edits

 In an earlier post, I brought up wanting to attempt double exposure and dissolve transitions to show our chess moves and setting up the board. In order to do this, I had to find out how to overlay videos on top of each other in Premiere Rush and change the opacity. I also had to make sure the clips fade into each other in an aesthetically pleasing way that still matched with the pacing of the film. Below is the video I based my edits off of and my final product of trying to reproduce that same editing style.

While the clip from Spider-Man overlays a POV shot of Peter drawing and the other shot of his face, it still creates this effect of long lapses of time passing within the visual seconds. I needed this overlap because our film was reaching over the minute mark and I needed to find a way to condense some of our clips to fit in the time. I also had to speed up some of the clips used to decrease elapsed time since some scenes were filmed a bit slow paced.

In my double exposure edit, I also made the opacity of the Pawn's scene 50% and the Mafia Boss' scene 75%. I wanted the Mafia Boss to be more prominent when exposed on top of the chess board to show visual dominance over the game.

Third Day Editing

My focus for this day was to focus on transitions and how to present each clip in the proper way. I watched Adobe's tutorial on how to apply transitions and found their explanation for duration or placing of transitions helpful. I did realize that editing on the computer was more accessible than my phone is since the layouts and shortcuts to get to certain items were different.

While playing around with transitions, I found that I enjoyed the dip to black transition, which made it feel more intense, like an eye blinking. While watching the video, I realized that this is normally only used to symbolize the end of a scene, so I might have to try different transitions, like I did below with a dissolve versus dip to black.

I think I like the dip to black more since it makes the audience feel more on edge as that black screen between clips is an element of action trailers that creates suspense and that's the emotion we're going for. However, in film, this transition is typically between scenes, not used throughout multiple clips, so that could also confuse the audience.

I tried using no transition instead. I thought since fast cuts were used in action and mafia genres, it would make the film seem quick paced and create intensity through that.

The 'no transition' edit feels more abrupt and janky, not the impression I was going for. The dip to black however feels intense, almost uneasy since you don't know what's going to happen in the time frame the black screen is up. While a dip to black is normally used to mark the ends of scenes, I feel as if it accurately portrays the mood of the film.

Second Day Editing

 On my second day of editing, I had hoped that I could finally edit on my computer instead of my phone. I loaded up Premiere Rush on my computer and tried editing, but the clips still hadn't uploaded. I then pulled Premiere Rush up on my phone and a message came up asking if I wanted to override the current file. I selected override thinking that would help transfer the files, but it got rid of all my work from the last class period and had me working from the beginning again...

Although I hadn't gotten far in the last class period, I still had to go back through and find the best cuts, trim them, and place them in sequential order again, while still working towards progressing further with editing. After this happened, I marked in the shot log what shots I was using/wanted to use, so if this happens again, I don't have to look back through and figure out which clip I wanted to use.

After getting past this setback, I dedicated this day to deciding which clips I wanted to use since we had takes of the same shot from different angles. A comparison of a still shot versus a close-up, tracking shot of the same move it below and I was debating which I liked more.

For the uniformity of the film, I went with the still as we don't have much camera movement throughout the short film, and I felt like it messed up the pacing and flow that was established earlier on. I had all the clips layed out up until the last couple moves to finish out the film, but our "short film" was becoming not so short and I'm sure we're going over the alotted time, so the next day I edit, I'm going to work on trimming or getting rid of uneeded shots. By doing this, it could also lead to quicker shots, averaging at around 2-3 seconds per shot. This ties into our action genre convention, which includes fast paced edits and pacing.

First Day Editing

 My first day of editing I immediately ran into an issue, Bella had been shooting simply on Premiere Rush and saving it to my camera roll, none of it went to the cloud to transfer it from my phone to the cloud to pull it up on the laptop. I was able to upload the videos from my phone onto the laptop and manually put them into Premiere Rush, but some of the files wouldn't load. I had to edit on my phone instead, which isn't an issue since I normally edit on my phone, but it's still fustrating. 

While I was tricked into thinking the files were uploading when really they just weren't transferring, I was reading Adobe's tips on how to edit. On this site it runs through the steps on how to start the editing process from the very beginning, starting with organizing your footage.

I've only ever edited dance videos before on VideoLeap, which as you can see below is a different style of editing than this film since I upload those to social media platforms. The Adobe site even stated that uploading to social media versus editing for these kinds of short films or clips require different editing styles, so this fast paced style I normally use could make or break our film.

What was similar was watching every video from start to finish and assembling the best cuts, rearranging if needed. While I don't have an alotted time frame in my dance videos, I had one for this, so many of the best takes had to be shortened since we had so much footage. Since we also didn't shoot everything in order or create a timeline of what goes where, most of this first day was trimming to the best cuts and attempting to put them in sequential order.

Third Day Filming

 We luckily had an extra day to film since we were still missing the end part of our film along with close-up shots I desperately wanted to film the first day. Like always, there was an issue for the day. Bella, our cinematographer was absent, so Brendan took over for her. Now that he had the camera, he took creative liberty and how I wanted the final shot of Kim standing up to be shot was changed.

I wanted the camera directly in front of her to make her take up most of the frame, showing extreme power and dominance for her character. I wanted her to stand up so only her torso was seen and crack her knuckles, but Brendan wanted to shoot it as an over-the-shoulder shot of me where it shows Kim's back standing up, not in front of her. This goes against everything I was trying to symbolize in the last scene and he would only film over-the-shoulder shots. 

Here's the four different angles we have of the scene, but it's still not what I wanted out of the shot.

The only angle I can use is the over-the-shoulder shot of Kim where I'm cornered and Kim takes up most of the middle, which shows me being overtaken since Kim is more important. It's not the angle I wanted for the story I wanted to tell but it's the best I got given unfortunately.

I refuse to use any of the other 3 since I feel the master shot of both of us doesn't have any symbolism, the over-the-shoulder of Kim where I'm in focus and taking up most of the camera tells a different narrative, and the over-the-shoulder shot of me doesn't even show Kim's front half anymore.

Most of this day was close-up shots for me to use as filler expressions in the film, but I felt that last scene was significant and I disliked how Brendan didn't stick with what was planned.

Second Day Filming

 On the second day, we focused on only the chess and the gameplay that way we didn't have to redraw Kim's facial hair. We had an outline that we wanted to put Kim's king in check by my pawn, hence the title The King and the Pawn. How we were going to do this was the problem since we wanted to abide to the rules of chess, but it was difficult to create a move that involved putting the king in check and then putting my king in checkmate shortly after. 

We decided first we should just play out a game of chess so we had footage of the board and us playing. Me and Brendan discussed attempting a double exposure edit for the chess move footage in order to tie as much footage into the few seconds of the film we have. Below is an example of what Brendan had in mind.

What I had in mind was more of a montage of moves layered on top of one another with each fading in and out. This clip of Spider-Man (2002) is what I had in mind. I don't know the exact terminology, but I think what I want to go for is a simple dissolve transition.

For the final move we had two different versions of the move, one that was on the standstill tripod, and the other that was a close-up, tracking shot of the move being played. 

First Day Filming

Leading up to the first day of filming, we realized that we didn't have a table to set the chess board on. This luckily got solved by Mr. Aaronson letting us use his stool, but we had to set this stool upside down in order for the chess board to balance properly. We had to quickly adjust to make sure you couldn't see the upside down stool in our film now, or at the very least have me edit it out in post.

Our other issue was that we quickly realized that I was a terrible actress. In the video below you'll see my poor attempt at acting anxious.

Throughout the first day of filming, I had to get so much acting help during my part that it sucked a good chunk of the allotted time to film and we should've casted better in that respect. It did, however, allow a lot more feedback from the others perspectives since they were throwing out suggestions to improve my acting. Below is an example of that same clip, but with them giving feedback and us reshooting it.

The final issue was the chess board. We filmed these scenes with the chess board still in the beginning setup and didn't account for progressing the board for the certain shots we filmed. When we realized this at the end of a full day of filming, I claimed I could edit out the board in post, but I'll find out if that's possible. I could change the aspect ratio to cut the radius of the frame more if that doesn't work, but that's worst case scenerio.

I also wanted to try and get all scenes with Kim's face in it done with on the first day out of fear of not replicating her beard the same way on a later filming date, but this plan fell through. Brendan was confident that he would replicate it the same way, so I just had to trust his makeup work.

Chess Film Portfolio

I think the portfolio is where our group experienced the most issues. We unfortanately had less days in person due to hurricane days, so our group had to do work at home, which was previously stated. When Thanksgiving break started, we only had the outline of the story along with the storyboard done. I have issues with group work out of fear of others not getting their work done, so when we went into break with very little done, I was worried. I created a group chat for us on the Tuesday and assigned everyone to certain parts of the project to complete. Below is who I assigned to what.

While I'm the editor and most of my work should be done in post, since we were 4 days into break without hearing anything from anyone I felt the need to put out a schedule so we'd have the work done in time. I mainly structured this because I knew Kim left for a field trip Sunday morning, so I wanted her work sent to us and reviewed before she went away. I thought since I know Bella and Kim had a history of being bad with deadlines, I kept their work to a minimum and I gave them both only one page to do while splitting the rest between me and Brendan would be the best course of action.

The problem was, Friday rolled around and only myself in the group chat had said I finished my part, so I sent another message asking how it's going and got no response. Then it was Monday, Kim is still on her field trip and I'm in study hall with Brendan and he tells me he still only has my work, both Kim and Bella hadn't sent in their work. This is exactly what I wanted to avoid and I was quite honestly frustrated because I felt like I gave them the bare minimum and took all the actions I needed to. Below are the texts I sent to Kim and Bella about their work.

Kim ended up submitting her part in late and Bella had sent Brendan her work the next period, but it was frustrating when I made a schedule that revolved around making things easy for the both of them and they still waited until the very last moment.

Location Scouting and Testing Equipment

Even thought I'm the editor, I wanted to test the tripod and the camera to make sure I understood how it worked, just for deeper understanding. We also figured out how to detach the middle part of the camera from the tripod for a hand-held shot because originally we wanted this maybe be a shot we added to film the board, but we didn't end up using it. 

We aligned the benches on the rule of thirds with a door in the background marking the middle of the shot, making it easier for us to lineup the benches and camera in the same spot when filming on different days. I personally wanted it to be this way since at times we had Kim (the mafia boss) lean back from the board when she's smug and winning, while when the scene is intense we're both leaned in, both present and struggling in the game.

For our over the shoulder shots, originally I wasn't helping with setting up where the camera should go. I instead stated that I believe when we have an over-the-shoulder shot of me (the minion), Kim should cover much of the room of the camera, almost cowering me into the corner. I thought since this was a silent film, having this clear power dynamic would help the audience visually understand that Kim has more importance and power than my character does.

The problem was, when I looked at where they had the camera for the shot, it still felt too far apart. I took over and placed where I thought the camera should go instead. You can see the difference in the two shots below.