Hello! Today I began by focusing on the most meticulous work I had to complete first. Said task being the smoothening out of transitions. I figured that it'd be best to get the most difficult and time-consuming work out of the way before I delve into new and unfamiliar editing territory. You may recall that we did reshoot some of our scenes last time my team and I met, but of course, there is still quite a bit to be done to ensure that we produce the best quality of work possible. This required that I rely on my trusty and simple-to-use friend, reliable old iMovie. In the application, I began by trimming the length of our clips so that I could then begin to look for areas within each of my shots that I could connect to other parts in those subsequent to them. Doing so would allow for said clips to flow into one another by having the movements and cuts within them follow a more organic progression. Once that had been accomplished, I turned to "Prequel" to adjust the coloration and general tone of our opening. My team and I were initially going to maintain a completely dark look throughout our opening, but we rethought our decision because where's the fun in not tapping into the realm of thrillers and subverting the expectations of our audience? We decided that it would be best if we began with a lighter look to our film and then switched to one with darker tones whenever our subject traveled to the new world. Using some forethought, we think that we can use these subtle tonal shifts to lure our audience into a false sense of security, much like the one our subject was experienced he went back to the world that he originally believed to be his own, but soon came to find, truly isn't. This gives us the ability to use lighter colors when he first returns back and gradually have them become darker and darker as our subject comes to the crushing revelation that it is not the place he calls home. Moreover, the use of dark filters will project an eerie and uncomfortable feeling to our audience as the screen becomes dimmer while things that should be kept in the dark come to light.
Here's a side by side comparison of what we were originally going to do and what we finally settled on:
Once I was satisfied with the way in which I had joined the clips that I had together, I switched over to Davinci Resolve 17, yet another one of my go-to editing platforms. Once I had gotten on, I started experimenting with the addition of titles to our film opening. Like I've said before, I began researching how to go about doing so on that particular platform a little while back, so I came prepared with the necessary skills to efficiently and correctly execute that part of the project.
To ensure that you are able to get a clear picture of what the flickering effect will look like in our film, I've inserted a short video sample below, placing it against a black background to make it as visible as possible.
The next part of the titling process was figuring out how to overlay the text onto our video. That was a different beast entirely which meant that I needed to head over to YouTube to binge some tutorials on how to go about doing that. After about a quarter of an hour of doing so, I returned back to the program and only did the overlay on one of our scenes. That being the case, nothing with the overlaying has been finalized just yet because I want to take time over this upcoming weekend to evaluate all of my options before reaching a final decision with my group on how we will be incorporating the titles into our shots, more specifically, how opaque we wish for them to be and if we want them to fade or flicker out. Moreover, since we have our film review coming up, I didn't want to make "finalized" edits that my group and I would end up changing in the end because of a flaw we had overlooked.
Now, on to the conversation I've been wanting to avoid, our music situation. It's been a little under a month, but as we near our deadline, I think it's time for my team and I to be realistic. We will not be receiving a response from Billy Joel any time soon, and even if we do, it will be too late to integrate the song into our film anyways. Hence why I researched various royalty-free songs online via Youtube. I encountered a number of interesting songs all throughout my search. However, one song stuck out to me in particular: "Dark Theme Background Music" from the YouTube channel "Audio Instore." It has just the right "vibe," as the teenagers of today like to say, that I believe will set our audience on edge as they lie in anticipation of what's going to happen next. I find that it is able to achieve this effect because of its subtle dissonance throughout and the way in which it intensifies at some parts, reminding me a bit of Servant on Apple TV (a stellar show whose fourth season I just finished, likely why the show came to mind). I also like the fact that it acts perfectly as background music, not being prominent enough to distract our audience from the diegetic sound within our opening, but still maintaining an ominous and oppressing presence. As of right now my team and I are considering including another song, royalty-free of course, with vocals at the end to make our opening even more unsettling, but that remains to be seen. After having said all of that, I strongly believe that the use of filters to touch up on the visual aspects of our film, when paired with our carefully selected musical arrangement will serve to give our opening the ability to exude the primary characteristics of a heart-pounding science fiction thriller.
Even though I'd say that today was not as "hardcore" of an editing session as I'm used to, given that it was mainly centered around working on the titles, getting the filters set, and sorting out our music situation, I do believe that I learned a lot more with regards to the process itself. On Davinci Resolve 17 when I worked with the titles, I found that there were so many more features than I initially believed, so the program still has a lot of unchartered territory. I do hope that I'll be given the opportunity to explore some of said elements as I continue to edit our final task, but if not, I'm sure that this summer I'll be working on some kind of short film and have the chance to do so then! I was also able to come to terms with the harsh reality that Billy Joel probably isn't the one reading his Instagram direct messages, so my heartfelt message was probably in vain.
Anywho, I believe it's time for one of my classic signoffs! In light of my visitation of my niece and nephew over break (at least I'm going to go with those terms because I'm not sure what I'd be considered to them since my mother is cousins with their grandmother), both of whom were hyper fixated on watching the Princess and the Frog, I don't think there was a better option than one of Anika Noni Rose's (Tiana's voice actress) songs in the film, especially since we're "...almost there(!)" (2009).
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