Filming and Editing Summary

     Now that we're done with filming, I figured I would talk to you about my main jobs while filming and editing. This blog is meant to be like a summary blog of all the work I did.
     My main job while filming the whole time was an actress. I was the main actress while we were filming which meant that I did not get to direct for the most part. I did help direct a little, however, like scenes I wasn't in and even some scenes I was it. I gave my creative input if I thought we should film another way. This allowed the project to be little parts of how we all wanted and not just the "vision" of one person. Acting was hard but it was a lot of fun because I got to be creative and explore my acting skills, no matter how poor they were.
     Every time we went to film, it was my job to set up some stuff. When we got to Katherine's house, Aitan and I got out the camera and tripod, while Katherine finished setting up her house to be "filming-ready." At my house, when it was time to film, Katherine and Aitan set up the camera, while I got our filming location ready. This allowed our set up and clean up to be fast and let us film as much as possible every time we met up to film.
     During our editing time, we also all had different jobs. My first job every time we got into class was to get the laptop. I also had to hand in our camera and tripod if we didn't need it anymore. That just meant that I had to hand it in and turn in the paper we used to sign materials in and out. During editing, I also usually imported all the files. Whenever our laptop didn't work, I usually went to get another one to test if it would work. I also was in charge of putting the laptops away and making sure we handed everything in.
      This photo is a photo from one of our filming days where you can see me mid-acting for one of the scenes.

Editing during a pandemic

As you probably know, the Coronavirus, or Covid-19 has taken over all of the news lately. It's insane living through this and has greatly affected us. Although it is kind of neat living through a pandemic, we are falling behind for our Cambridge testing and are not caught up in what we need to be. This is stressful and no one is really aware of what is going to happen. Even though we aren’t exactly aware, we will continue to work on our projects in hopes of being able to pass and get our Cambridge credit. Because of the virus, we have more than a month off. As relaxing as it sounds, my groupmates and I were hoping that during this time, we could be catching up on editing. Unfortunately, our editing process has not gone very smoothly during the time we've been at school. Almost every time we try to edit, something goes wrong. Sometimes the computers take forever to load and sometimes pinnacle studios takes forever to load. I think we are going to have to download Pinnacle studios on either our phones or computers as the way to edit. Since none of my groupmates or I have a Macbook or Apple computer, we are not able to use iMovie on our laptop. We did try to edit once on iMovie on our phones. It, unfortunately, it did not work as well on a phone and the editing was very choppy. We prefer pinnacle studios because it allows us to cut our shots as much as we want. IMovie made it hard to cut the shots to make them the exact length we wanted. Right now, my group is hoping for an extension or something to finish our project. This has never happened before so even though we have no experienced this before, neither has Cambridge so they have to make decisions accordingly. The map below shows everywhere that this virus has taken place. We will probably have school off longer than expected, too, because even though we have a lot of confirmed cases, there are a lot more we are unaware of. Right now, we’re just hoping for a plan because let’s just say that editing during a pandemic is a lot harder than you’d think.

Editing without a computer?

The next day of editing has gone similarly to other days of editing we've had. If you haven't read my other blogs, you're probably confused. What this means is that our day of editing was unsuccessful. We have been using a certain computer due to the fact that it has worked multiple times, unlike many other computers for us. When I walk into class, my job is always to get the laptop from the computer cart. When I went to get the laptop, I saw that it wasn't there and went to my groupmates to discuss what they wanted to do about it. Katherine and Aitan looked around the classroom to see if another group had our computer to see if it was just a mix-up. I went to our teacher to see if she knew about the missing computer and if she had a solution for us. Unfortunately, she didn't know where it went and we were directed to just get another laptop. Although we realized this was the only solution, my group was very disappointed about this. We knew we had to get another laptop because we couldn't edit without a computer. We already predicted that it would not be a good day. Due to these predictions, we decided to get multiple computers to see if any of them would work. Katherine's took a while to boot up but mine and Aitan's loaded up right away. When they finally loaded up, however, Pinnacle studios took a while to load, also. Luckily for us, we already had music and font sizes picked so when it was time to edit we'd be fully ready. When Pinnacle loaded on Aitan's computer, we still had to import all of our files. Unfortunately, we knew this would take a while. We still did it, though, because that way they'd be prepared for next time if we needed to use it again. We then put the laptops away and prayed that we'd be able to use our computer next time. Our editing process has not gone smoothly and we're aware that if it continues like this we will probably have to purchase pinnacle studios ourselves to edit at home.

Re-shooting at Katherine's House

After peer-reviewing, we were instructed to do a few re-shoots. Our main plan was to combine scenes that were choppy before to make our film smoother. The first part we wanted to re-shoot was scenes where I had something restraining me from getting up around my ankles. Before re-shoots, we did multiple scenes of these scenes because we wanted a lot of different angles. For re-shoots, we did all these scenes combined in order to reduce choppiness. We also re-did a scene where I had a gag in my mouth. This was because we had the same scene multiple times all at the same angles making the film choppy when there didn't need to do. The same thing happened with a window scene. I had to walk up to the scene and knock and the angles were weird last time we filmed. It was also a little blurry so we wanted to make it clearer in re-shoots. We re-filmed me walking to doors and trying to open them. Besides ensuring the reduction of choppiness, we also did this because I had said "come on" in too many scenes and we wanted to change my script a little. We re-filmed me in the hallway because the lighting was bad in the first round of shooting. We did this while it was lighter outside but were still able to create a dark effect using Katherine's curtains. The last scenes we re-shot were scenes in the kitchen. The lighting had been off and it was choppy. I was instructed to act just like last time but we changed the dimness of the lights. We also only made it one scene instead of 2 like last time. As shown, our main problem was choppiness but we were able to fix it to make our film run smoothly. The last day of filming was finally here and we were so excited to be finished because we were getting closer to seeing our final product!

Filming at another location

The next day of filming was done at my house. The difference in location is because we needed another house to make the film more realistic. The different locations were for the different characters, showing the kidnapper at one house and the friend at another. When Katherine and Aitan got to my house, we made sure our filming location was cleared. I cleared my kitchen table and cleaned the kitchen of anything that wouldn't be natural in our film. I reviewed what we had to film while Katherine and Aitan set up the camera. Unfortunately, we filmed when it was light outside and we needed our location to be dark. We filmed at a similar time as before but due to daylight savings time, the lighting was all messed up. I put all the curtains in my house down to create a night effect while Katherine and Aitan played with the settings on the camera. We decided on the curtains down and a low light setting to make the effect that it was night outside. We filmed Katherine's scenes first and she had to open the cabinet and tell my character to walk the dog. While she was doing this, she wanted me out of the room so she felt like she was yelling for me and making it feel more realistic. The scenes after this took a while for us to film. Katherine and I could not stay serious and it took us around 20 minutes to get serious enough to film the scenes. We had to film the same scene from my perspective and hers of Katherine giving me the leash. After this, we had to film phone call scenes in my room. We had to make the room very dark and put a flashlight at the ceiling to create the creepy lighting. Katherine filmed at one part of the room and Aitan filmed at another to show the difference in their locations. After this, we were done filming and we had to put everything away. We were officially done with first filming after what felt like forever.

Editing Complications

It was finally the next day of editing. Let's just say that today was not successful, whatsoever. When we got to class, Katherine went to get a computer. After I got an SD card, Aitan put the SD into the card reader. When the computer was logging in, I put the SD into the card and put it into the computer. When we tried to pull up Pinnacle studios it was taking a long time to load. We decided it would be best to get another computer due to how long Pinnacle studios was taking to load. We got up to 3 computers and Pinnacle studios wasn't loading on any of them. When one of them finally did load, there was a problem from a previous project on the editing software. There was music from another project and we could not get rid of it. By the time we figured it out, it was time to leave and we had to put all the computers and SD card readers away. We were not happy about this because we needed to edit and just wasted a day that could've been beneficial. The next time it was time to edit, we had problems again. This time we were able to find a computer where Pinnacle studios loaded. It still look a long time to load so we only had about 30 minutes to edit, however. Because of this, editing was very difficult. We still had to upload our files, which took a while, and therefore took all of our time and we were not able to edit. The next day when it was time to edit, however, we decided to get the same computer in hopes of it loading fast and already having our files. It didn't work again and we made the decision to edit the film on our phone on iMovie. This worked well but we still had a preference of Pinnacle studios to iMovie, especially because one was done on a phone and one was done on a computer.

Peer Reviewing

Today was the day of peer editing that would lead to re-shoots and re-edits. My group and I were in charge of looking at a group's video that only had 1 person. Her movie was about assassins that get sent to kill each other. The main characters were supposed to be twins but that did not come out as clear during the movie. The film as a whole was really well done and we all thoroughly enjoyed it. We really liked the production quality because it was very clear and was obviously taken on a good camera. From their production, it was obvious that using an iPhone rather than a camera ups the production quality tremendously. The sound quality was also very well done and we could hear everything the actors were saying. This was also thanks to the use of the iPhone. The cameras don't pick up the quality that well but we were able to hear and understand everything. One part I really enjoyed was the split screen. From previous experience, my group knows how much work a split screen is to edit. I also feel that a split screen shows diversity from other groups' videos. Although the film was very well done, there are of course room for improvements. The main point my group and I pointed out was about the characters. They were supposed to be twins but it wasn't clear and we only knew because she told us. In my opinion, the group should have the characters be on call when they're both told "You know them better than you may think." This will imply that they are at least related to incorporate that theme. They also need to add the titles. Adding titles will complete the project and their film will  be almost perfect.