Our final class cut is ready!

Today we will be presenting our final cut for the fall semester class. Our group has been working very hard to get the film to this point. As an editor, I am very proud of some of the things we accomplished in this film. The format of our film is very free, that is, a first time viewer will not be able to expect what is coming next. The simulated aesthetic of flipping channels works well with this format and adds a sense of fun to what otherwise could be a dry topic. Hugh also shot some additional B-Roll these last couple of weeks. Some of the shots were quite impressive and worked well with the interviews.

I also worked on some music for the film. I am no musician, but I tend to know what sounds and instruments I like. With the help of software and some doodling around on a keyboard, I was able to compose a few tracks to accompany the film and improve the pacing. This was not too difficult since each track was only about 30 seconds to a minute long.

In the end, there may still be a few problems with this cut. For example, there are some children's faces in the foreground of our B-Roll that we didn't get permission from. We didn't think about this until Kebba brought it up. After class Monday, we will go back to edit around that as much as we can. We are not too worried about this, though.

I am excited to see how the other cuts have been coming along, too!

Preparing Image Lock and Sound / Fall Semester coming to a close

As the semester comes to a close, we are making more and more progress with the post production of the film. We are starting to overlay B-Roll and clean up our interviews more and more. Balancing all the elements of the film is still pretty difficult, but we are getting better and better at it. I think we are getting to the point where we are tired of watching the same thing over and over, but hopefully first-time audiences, especially at the student screenings, will be surprised and impressed by not only the content but the quality of our film. As we plan on extending the project in the spring, we believe the cut we have will make it easy to simply intercut the new interviews with the existing footage.

Overall, I am very proud of my team. We faced our fare share of disappointments and hardships but we stuck to our roles and responsibilities and pushed through to make a film we will be proud of.

Cucalorus Response

Who would have guessed that my first time at Cucalorus would be as a filmmaker in the festival? I'm not going to lie, saying that I was a filmmaker when picking up my badge felt pretty dang cool.

While at the festival, I got to see all sorts of different films. The first film I saw was a thriller about an Uber driver titled Fare. This entire film took place inside a car, yet it still technically impressive. The writing was also super, as I was kept on the edge of me seat as the film progressed.

On Friday, I had the pleasure of seeing my own film, "Bygone Barns" right before the screening of the feature-length documentary, Farmer/Veteran. It was an absolute honor to be paired with that film, as it was an honest look at the life of a war veteran with PTSD. Our films were also only filmed about 20 minutes apart, which made it even more special! 

The Q&A for "Bygone Barns" went much better than I thought it would. To start, our moderator was incredible. I could tell that she not only watched, but studied our film before hand. She asked very good questions about style, form, and the creative process. The audience was also interested in the methods in which we shot and edited. While discussing a film all about aesthetics, it was great to see an older audience so invested!

At the festival, I received tons of postcards like we talked about in class. These were effective in raising awareness. I will certainly hand out post cards for any of my future films. 

Other stand outs from the week include Hunter/Gatherer, Generation Startup, and From the River to the Ocean. Overall, I had a great time seeing films that I wouldn't have seen anywhere else. I also had a great time with my crew and fellow Visions staff members. If my first Cucalorus experience is a fair  representation of future film festivals to come, then its safe to say that I am very excited!

Progress on the "Circles" fine cut

This past week of post production has been focused on "mixing the lumps" of our film as Carson mentioned in class a couple of weeks ago. In order to blend our pieces more effectively, our crew has decided to go for a TV/VHS aesthetic for our narrative scenes. In order to transition between the narrative and documentary sections, the film simulates either a pause, play, or channel switch. It is difficult to describe in words, but I believe it will surprise our classmates and will be considered creative and visually interesting. This style of transition also breaks the 4th wall in a way, which I think is pretty cool and different.

Our next steps for the film include tightening up the interviews and adding B-Roll, Lower Thirds, and end credits.

Distribution Project

The last couple of weeks we have focused on our distribution project. We are very satisfied with what we have! We have found a variety of festival, each with certain niches that we think our film can fit. My main part of the project was editing a trailer for our film. At a mere 35 seconds, our group is pleased with it, and so am I! The trailer cuts swiftly from the narrative and documentary parts while accompanied by a funky, playful beat. Honestly, editing this trailer helped Mariah and I visualize what the final film will be like. Not only was this trailer helpful for potential viewers, it was helpful for us!

Looking forward, our group is now focusing on post-production. We may shoot some additional b-roll, but for the most part, at least with our main nuggets, principal photography is done. We are very excited to see how it turns out!

Teenage Interview and Editing the Rough Cut

This weekend, our film crew FINALLY got to film our teenage interview. The subjects were not our first choice, but they were still everything we could have hoped for and more.

Unfortunately, I was not able to attend the shoot because of a huge commitment I made many months ago to take a group of high school kids to Carolina Point, a Young Life Camp in Brevard, NC. I was not able to get out of this commitment. Thankfully, our crew recruited Alex Matthews to do sound for the shoot.

Upon returning to town Sunday night, I met with our group to sync interview dailies and edit our 1st rough cut of Circles. Right now, our rough cut consists of the pieces we've filmed so far. As the editor, my main question going forward is deciding how we are going to combine our 6 separate segments into one coherant piece, especially because they are all so different stylistically. Right now, it seems strange because we have our Narrative scenes wrapped, but still a fair amount of work to do on interviews. Once our interviews are finished, I believe the stylistic consistency of our film will be enhanced.

This Tuesday evening, we will be filming our grandma interview. We are really excited to shoot this, because we believe this will have a lot in common with the teenage and mom interviews. This time, however, the answers will come from a wiser source.

Narrative Scenes Wrapped

And thats a wrap on all of our narrative scenes! This weekend we shot our grandma cooking scene and now we can focus solely on the documentary aspects of our film. The shoot was very fun and we got to do some things that we've never done before as filmmakers. For example, our crew doubled as extras within the scene itself, since it takes place behind the scenes of a cooking show. The actresses were also outstanding and very fun to shoot with.

We were also supposed to shoot our teenage interview Sunday, but once again Antonia fell through. Now we're at the point where we are just going to move on and find some other subjects. Thankfully we already have some more girls lined up in Raleigh. We are supposed to shoot that interview next Friday.

From a sound standpoint, we are really satisfied with all of the audio so far, which is great because this film is my first time being an on-set sound mixer. My past experience comes from being a post-production sound designer.

From an editing standpoint, the puzzle pieces are coming in place. It will be interesting to see how our 6+ pieces come together as one coherent film. This is something that might be aided by animated transitions, an original score, or some narration.