After working on this multimedia project, I only have one thing to say: EDITING FILM IS SO HARD!
Writing this at 2 am after spending a huge chunk of time piecing footage together, making voice overs, and dubbing footage with crappy sound quality, I am dead. My eyes are red and itchy and I am sick of listening to the same lines over and over again. I’m pretty sure that I could recite the script by heart at this point. I can’t imagine having to do this for a living. Our movie is only 5 minutes long and I’m sick of it. I can’t imagine producing and editing an actual 2 to 3 hour-long film. What a nightmare.
My role in this project was cinematographer, which basically means I had to try and hold my camera steady while the actors (mainly Marinna and Pete) did their thing. It was tough, especially considering I’ve been trying to lift weights and eradicate the jelly-like flab that surrounds my pathetic bicep and triceps areas. While editing, especially the scenes filmed on stage, it was really obvious that my arms were shaking. Thank God for imovie’s stabilization feature and for Vanessa, who knew how to use it.
The first scenes we filmed were the ones on the beach in Baldwin on December 5th. We had already checked out the location on November 17th, but we didn’t see much as you can see by the pictures.
Thankfully, the spot was just as beautiful as Marinna said it would be. It was absolutely breathtaking (and really fucking cold).
As Peter and Marinna stripped to their costumes: a wife-beater and shorts for Pete and a dress and sandals for Marinna, I was thanking God that I was a shit actress. Standing on the beach in my dad’s massive leather jacket, boots, jeans, three shirts, gloves, and earmuffs, my teeth were chattering and compared to me, Peter and Marinna were practically naked.
On December 13th, Marinna and I met again to film on our own on a grassy patch behind Honors Hall. I was worried it wouldn’t work at first with the buildings in the background, but it turned out all right. It was still cold, but at least it was warmer than the beach.
The next day, the entire group got together again to film in the “Little Theater” in Kieley. After waiting for a class inside to finish a final, we finally got to see, for the first, time one of the most focal locations of our film. My immediate reaction was not a good one. As I observed all the crap on stage, the trash students had left behind, and the overall condition of the theater, once again I was worried.
This scene was honestly the most difficult one to work with. The lighting was tricky, the angle had to be straight on to keep the chairs, tables, and props on either side of the stage from being in the shot, and the sound quality on tape sounded awful. I spent more time fixing the audio than filming the shot. Because of the white noise in the background, I ended up getting my group members to re-read the script aloud on photo booth and editing the clips each person recorded together to re-make the audio. Dubbing the film to make the lip movements match the words being spoken was honestly on of the hardest things I have ever had to do in my life.
That Friday, on the 17th, I had two finals: Anthropology from 11 to 1 and Philosophy from 1:15 to 3:15 so my group decided to film without me. Olivia made a guest appearance and filmed the Underworld, potion, and final scenes with Peter and Marinna while Vanessa tried to transfer footage from Marinna’s computer to her own so that she and I could edit it the next day.
On Saturday, at Vanessa’s house, Vanessa and I watched the Friday footage and felt that the industrial settings really didn’t fit in with the rest of the film. The staircase where the Underworld scene was filmed had a ladies room sign on the wall, a fire hose, was really wide and awkward landings and the “stage” where the potion scene was filmed was unimpressive: concrete slabs and a brick wall in the background. We also felt that the Kissena Boulevard entrance with cars whizzing by in the background and people patrolling the pavement didn’t really set the right mood.
In addition, some of the props (the plastic bag and Fanta bottle in the Underworld Scene and the Magic Bullet blender attachment in the potion scene) were not exactly fitting for a story supposedly taking place in ancient Greece. Needless to say, we desperately NEEDED to re-film. So, Vanessa and I fit the usable footage into the film and spent most of the day eating Chinese food, fixing the audio, and cropping and cutting the footage.
On Sunday, our entire group reconvened to re-film some of Friday’s scenes and finish editing the film. In a moment of hysteria, I asked my friend Alyssa to check out our footage after which she suggested that I ask her roommate Sam for advice. After playing with the footage for less than an hour, Sam had worked her magic. By adding a few transitions and altering the speed of some of the audio, she managed to perfectly synchronize the dubbing with the footage. After a few disagreements, our group finally reached a happy medium and put the finishing touches on our not-so-crappy film. All I know is that film-making is not a career path I intend to pursue.
Here is the finished product: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fe_5ivakus0
