Finishing the Postcard and Editing the Short! (part 2)

     Hi again! The last blog got a bit lengthy and it got late... so here I am again! Where was I? Let's continue.
     Now that the postcard is complete, it is time for the editing! As I edited the postcard, Nico worked on putting the clips in order and finding the right ones we will use in the short to start editing. It took him a while too, but after putting it together, he started the rough draft. The way we did this was for us to approve the clips together and after he made every edit, he would show it to me. I would either approve it, disapprove it, or change it myself. By combining his ideas with mine, the film started coming together!
     We started with Oriana's scene because it was what Nico had started originally and we knew it would take a long time. Nico had to go clip by clip and frame by frame to try to match the previous clip to the current clip and make it look as smooth as possible. Let me tell you, it was HARD. Oriana didn't exactly spin in place and although I told her to spin with her arms up each time to make it as similar as possible for us to edit it, she didn't always do that. I then told Nico to try adding camera flashes to try to disguise the rough transitions.
     Nicolas went on Youtube and looked up tutorial videos. After some trial and error, it stopped looking like a random white screen and looking more like camera flashes. I found a nice sound effect and had Nico add it with changing volume levels so it didn't sound fake. These flashes definitely improved the scene immensely and helped make the transitions much smoother. The first transition wasn't as smooth as we desired, but then the next two came out much better than we expected... so we were happy.
     Another scene that challenged us immensely was the final scene with Martina and myself. Since we recorded outside on a windy day and the camera was too far from us for the sound to be clear, I recorded every shot on a phone (I've mentioned this on a previous blog). Trying to match the 10 minute voice notes with the videos that we were using was a PAIN. It took Nicolas (no joke) about 25 minutes to find the right voice notes that could work and more time to try to match it perfectly with the mouths. I also sometimes mixed around two words and it messed up the voice recordings, which I did subconsciously and it came back to bite us.
     For the final imagination, we decided to create flashbacks rather than imaginations. Having the main character look back on her treasured memories to see all of the possibilities that could come with her separation from her family gave it the nice, emotional ending we wanted for the film. Nicolas and I clearly challenged ourselves like we never have before through all of our difficult transitions, but took it even farther this time. When filming, we shot it backwards in order to draw the perfect shot in frame to be able to transition it later on. But, as easy as we tried to make it, it still wasn't. These transitions kept looking awkward or the drawings weren't aligned with the people in the actual scene, etc. Nicolas and I shot a variety of angles and clips that day to make sure we could change it in case the editing process went roughly, and thank the media angels that we did.
     We started changing the clips and matching them to see which transition looked the best and I am so happy to say that these scenes are by far my favorite. The transitions went so smoothly for the equipment and software we have!! I am very proud of our work.
     Up next, Nico went through all of the clips from Paz's imagination to put together a montage. I came up with the order to make it look as diverse as possible and Nico put them together. We decided on where to cut what clips and then finished another scene. After all of this editing and working, my mom called us to eat dinner. It was 8:30pm. I have never worked for 6 hours and a half STRAIGHT without taking a break before in my life. We ate dinner and then continued working. After I finished my postcard, I worked on getting the sound effects and songs for the short. I must have gone through over two hundred videos and sounds (no exaggeration) to find all of the sounds we used in the short. From the wind and bird effects we added to Paz's outdoor scene to make it sound real to the sad piano tune we added in the beginning to the remixed songs we added in the mansion imagination scene, I wanted everything to be perfect and am quite happy with the outcome.
     After stopping for thirty minutes to have dinner, Nico ended up leaving at 11pm. We worked on this short for eight. hours. in. one. day. It was INSANE. My head was pounding at this point and Nicolas and I both went straight to bed afterwards. We plan on getting together 2 to 3 more times before the project is due to finish up the final touches!

- Introduction and Paz Drawing scenes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9yWYs0XsQk
- Paz’s Party scene (used minute 3:50-4:07 & 5:04-5:23)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0Uo-JyWYTw
- Ori’s Fashion Show
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mkz2x-4dvUw
- My Last Flashbacks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaO8nQxYda4
- Final scene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1VKfJ340XM
- Camera shutter sound effect
https://www.audioblocks.com/stock-audio/camera-take-picture.html
- Car driving off sound effect (cut out from short)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwX0bgdNdJo
- Wind sound effect (replaced for Sunny Day)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5vFFEa-q_8
- Birds sound effect (replaced for Sunny Day)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYS2MBG-XEg
- Sunny Day
http://soundbible.com/1661-Sunny-Day.html