A Day of Editing

So today I began editing my movie, and after going through all the footage once, thinking it was importing and later discovering it never imported, I managed to secure all my files--all 152 of them. At least, I think that's how many files I had. I could be wrong. There are likely more than that, as I haven't even put in music or pictures.

I got a migraine after working with the footage for only about an hour. It turns out it didn't come out nearly as good as I wanted it to. It looked fine on the camera while I shot it, it looked pretty darn good on the camera when I reviewed it, but when I imported it, it looked all grainy and dark on the computer screen. I''m hoping this is because the computer is darker than the actual footage and that some changes can be made to the screen's light projection, because otherwise, I'll have to reshoot all my footage.

I have already decided that this script will be shot again with serious actors at a much later date, sometime that isn't this semester. Although my actors and actress did a good enough job, I feel like something is missing with their performances, and I want to reshoot the movie with other people when I have dates set, people who aren't quitting without telling me at a reasonable time beforehand, and equipment that actually works the first time I take it out. A budget might be nice, too, but isn't necessary, and having someone who knows how to use the camera better than me would be great, as well.

It turns out I shot about 33 minutes of footage, including outtakes and interviews among the actual footage for the movie itself. From what I shot, two scenes will have to be badly constructed because I shot them incorrectly, or I didn't notice something was in the scene that shouldn't have been. The lighting is off in some shots, or the white balance changed without me noticing it, and the acting isn't as good as I'd hoped in certain scenes but I'd forgotten to mention the mood I wanted the characters to be in and so their moods aren't as consistent as I would have liked.

Also, Simon says one line that's just so funny when it shouldn't be, and another that's really creepy, but I luckily got two takes of that line because that time I did notice that it was creepy. My outtakes may not be hilarious, but they're fairly funny, and I think one of the outtakes will explain my production company name, "Not On a Horse Productions". Some of the funnier outtakes didn't make it because the audio went out, but that's all right.

As of now, I have all the scenes chopped up and almost all of them are put together in the correct order. I think I have three scenes left to finish, one scene to start, and three shots I need to shoot once the weather gets better. I might reshoot some of the messed up scenes and I'm thinking about getting more shots of the books because they're fairly inadequate and there aren't nearly enough of them.