Hey, blog!!! It's almost wrap-up time and I'm fighting against the clock! As you already know, I have been spending my spring break in NYC for the past week, so working on the project daily hasn't been super successful (it's not like I expected to). I dedicated Thursday to working on the project and got a good amount done, dedicating most of my time to my first CCR. Today is the day we travel back home, so I was planning on dedicating the three hours on the plane to writing my CCR #2 and finishing editing the first one. Let's just say the AICE Media Gods heard me because my flight has been delayed from 12:00 pm to 8:00 pm!!! While you might be thinking "How is that a particularly good thing...", I tend to work better out of home, and so far the airport has been a hub for productivity. I want to dedicate this blog post, like the last, to update you on the progress I have been making regarding the opening and CCR #1.
The Opening
For me, the hardest part of the opening (being the part I think will make or break the "professionalism") is the visuals of the file clips. What I mean by visuals is the feel, the look. What I'm drawing inspiration from is the old film pictures/ what you would find in your grandparents' old film footage (as I have done :)) There is a specific tint that sparks feelings of nostalgia, and while Doran at that point is starting to feel a tiny bit of recognition of his siblings in the clips, the feel I'm looking for is more distant, less cozy. It's supposed to come off as dusty and lost. All in all, I NEEDED THIS TO BE RIGHT. Isabel was also simultaneously looking for a font/ filter that can fulfill all of our hopes, and I think, so far, Adobe is coming through.
I spent about two hours (no exaggeration) playing around with Adobe's settings, specifically Lumetri Color. This is where you can find a Basic Corrections tab (including conventional settings such as saturation or the temperature hues of a clip), or get more specific with coloration under tabs like Creative. The true definitive tool, however, I think is an overlay. An overlay is a video that can be found on YouTube (that's where I got them from) that, of course with the reassurance of no copyright issues, you can convert to MP4 and "overlay" it onto any video clip (meaning lay it over and adjust to your liking). I did this using a free website called wave.video, where I also converted an audio file to MP3 to be able to download it and import it to Adobe. I looked at a couple different options but was looking for two effects: that film, textured effect, and an old recording camera effect.
After trying out different ones and adjusting the opacity and blend mode of each one (some settings to make them fit well with the file clips), I finally got to a point I liked. Although I think there's always room for improvement, here is the final product, along with the overlay videos I used to get the wanted effects:
Blank VHS Tape
Kodak Vision Grain
As you can tell, the audio and cuts aren't yet complete, I was just focusing on the coloration. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, as it feels old and blurred by age. I was debating if it looked too blurry, but I like the mystery it adds, as you can't distinctively see the young girls' faces. Although it hasn't been 50 years since they filmed the files (as Doran is sent them when the girls were a couple years older), it induces mystery, and TESTS is secretive either way, so it makes sense for them to not want to fully expose their subjects.
Another factor of part of the opening that I decided on is the music for the file scene. Having heard a snippet of it in the video above, I was in between three that would determine my approach to that scene, as the feel of each would introduce the film in different ways. For example, the first one on the website artlist.io called Tales of the Mind is consistent with its intensity, with less of a buildup but still evoking intrigue. It feels more melancholy than the other two, but not necessarily sad. With this one, because there is no buildup toward the title entry, the music would kind of dominate the scene. There wouldn't be "beats" to follow while editing which gives space for a more impactful feel. Because of the music's separation from the scene (how it feels to me) and with input from my sisters, I decided to look at my other 2 options.
My final two options were on a website called fesliyanstudios.com, where there are very good overall options. One of the ones I liked was under the suspenseful category of music, called Too Crazy. It starts to build up after around 30 seconds of the song and continues a similar beat throughout. While this was a good option, I ended up choosing Broken Village under the sad category. I think that it matches the sounds of the old camera glitches really well, and it feels eerie from the start. It starts off tamer which I like, giving time to develop the suspense. At first, my sister was listening to it for her opening, and it automatically reminded me of what could be a dystopian movie trailer/ introduction scene. It gave me the impression that what Doran is finding is bigger than him, which is exactly the case.
Making these important choices like what music to use or what coloration to develop is very important, as it will give off an impression automatically. Because of this, I wanted to make sure I was taking the time to make thoughtful decisions that gave me more confidence to continue making impactful choices.
CCR
As for the CCR, I edited the first video (the NYC one) for three hours straight. I edited it on the editing application iMovie, as I've edited on there before for fun so I'm most comfortable there to make precise cuts. The song I ended up choosing is fun and complementary, allowing me to continue to diversify my video. The song is called South Side Slide, an alliteration that exposes the song's rhythmic attributes. I had a lot of fun editing it, and even more fun finding inspiration for stylistic choices that I will be experimenting with for the video...
Here are some of those:
- Light leak/ film overlays such as this one or this one ORRR these ones (Adobe)
- Fish eye lens effect with tutorials like this one, with inspo from this video
- Cool, personalized calligraphy with help from alishadinapop.art on Instagram.
Additionally, I wrote down the two questions I wanted to answer in that video, giving myself almost four minutes to do so in editing, and an unofficial, very partial, very uncut script in my Notes app. At one point I accidentally deleted part of what I wrote which was very frustrating, and with the undo button not working, I depended on my memory and got through it.
Below are screenshots of my notes for this CCR video:
What's underlined are things I would say, with the rest being non-listed specifics of what I want to include. While thinking, I began to list resources that I have researched from and shown on my blog, making sure the credibility of sources is checked. While of course I only have 4 minutes (that I have given myself) out of 7-10 MAX, I will only include the most important things, as the screenshots aren't even all of it... (it's a visualization of my thought process.)
The day has been productive, slightly tiring, but a gift for my project's progress! It's been really fun to edit and it feels so good when I conjure up ideas I can't wait to physically make come to life. Tomorrow when I get back home, I will write my CCR #2 script, film it, and continue to edit the opening. SEE YOU THENNNN
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