Blog #57 Editing

 Editing is one of the most important parts of filmmaking- and is easily overlooked. It is a major process in post production which can take close to as long as it takes to film a movie or even longer. While the shots and actors are what make a movies composition, lighting and given tone, editing can create entirely new tones and feels for a film; transforming a boring scene of someone walking, into a suspenseful one. And not only can editing create a films tone, but it also determines a film's pacing and runtime; pacing being especially important if given a set runtime, and pacing vital to keep a film entertaining and keeping it from losing steam or traction throughout. 

Now that I understand the purpose of and how important editing is, I can begin it on my project

I began with a rough cut, where I compiled all my footage into a single cut, and edited it accordingly to get a grasp of where my film was at; my rough cut ended up being 6 minutes and 48 seconds.. thats well over my set runtime of 5 minutes (give or take 15 seconds). Cutting/ Editing down isnt something that worried me, it actually got me excited, its a process that forced me to cut out scenes that werent important, and cut down scenes that didn't need to drag, this also allowed me to fix some pacing issues I may not have noticed as the director appreciating each of my shots.

Heres a glimpse into what the process looked like for me;

Editing the titlecard

The titlecard was a fairly simple greenscreen, where I created an animated title and credits for the opening montage of my film, and greenscreened it over my existing shots.

Editing the crosscutting scene

Editing was very important in this crosscutting scene, as I had to make both POVs very distinct, allowing the tracking shot of Dillon and Anna to remain pretty much exactly like it was originally, but editing the cultmembers POV shot heavily; adding a super imposed eye, an eerie discordant theme, and editing the lighting a tad. 

Editing the closing shot

The closing shot called for a seamless integration of my super imposed eye deity as the finale reveal. I superimposed an eye onto the shot, and faded it in as seamlessly as I could, to make it appear as if the stars had opened up revealing a grand cosmic entity.

I managed to cut my film down to 5 minutes and 13 seconds, just making the 15 second mark, and I am quite proud of my work, and the pacing is quite well, not dragging out any scene, while also feeling in line with the film's tones itself