Final Post Production!

I love editing! Although I don't like researching a lot as it is time-consuming, I love watching how the shots I filmed come together and link creating something meaningful. It's like before editing there's no meaning as they are simply just shots, but after, they form into a complete creation. Just as my opening film, or my CCRs. 

Technologies used

I had to use several editing platforms including Premiere Rush, Adobe Premiere Pro, Veed.io, After Effects, or the Apple editing access from Photos. I struggled in most of them but I also learned from all. YouTube was an incredible help to know how to use all of these platforms as I researched tutorials that taught me step by step. First, I used Dropbox and Files to send all the videos from my camera to the laptop and then to my iPhone. It was so helpful as the quality was kept and the only thing that caused me some problems but not at all was that I had to keep erasing the videos from Dropbox that I already added to Premiere Rush because the iCloud space was not that big. It would not let me send all the videos to the app. 

Footage

Once I had every other video uploaded I started by first looking at the complete view of the view to see what were the most important things that I was missing because I already knew that I needed to complete the two minutes. I was barely around a minute and a half. Yet, the videos uploaded added my time to around 3-4 minutes, which was ok because I had to cut several videos and I was sure I was not going to add them all. I filmed several extra shots just in case some wouldn't look good with my film or maybe the quality was not the best. So I did the same thing when uploading to check if maybe when editing one that could have not been useful would instead look better than any and fit perfectly now. 

That did happen as in the running scenes I was able to crop or "transform" some shots so that it would match the next scene, or I even lowered the exposure of some while changing some of the other numbers of the colors of each shot. I first did this before deciding which videos to erase or cut so that a bigger picture of the overall video could be seen. I recommend this because in that way there are no mistakes in erasing something that could have been useful. I was also able to include some videos in between running scenes where it looked so short and they would not have looked good without these shots. For example, I included some close-ups of my brother's eyes before changing into the fight scenes so that it is conveyed that it is not actually happening but it's just coming to HIS mind. 

Other than that, another thing I did was to cut each shot so that it looks like a continuous running scene. What I focused the most on in this part was to see how my brother's legs and his body were positioned in the frame so that the next scene matched the movement. This would have been super important as in the moment of adding the sound, it would need to match the continuous and equal speed of the movement. Meaning if one leg moved to the front in 0.2 secs then the other ones would need to do the same. This leads me to also talk about how I modified the speed of each shot as sometimes they looked too fast or too slow, and as I said I need it to look continuous and synchronized. This was super easy to do in Premiere Rush as it had the speed range to move around. So I kept rewatching the shots by themselves and with the shots next to them several times to perfection and to be sure that I was showing the image that I wanted my audience to see. 

Sound

The speed of the sounds I used was also modified. I recorded several sounds by myself by using big leaves or shoes on the grass but I also used sound effects from Pixabay.com such as Footsteps_Grass_1, to simply modify the speed and instead of being just footsteps, make them running steps. I also used the heartbeat sounds from this platform as it was easy to download them and add them to Premiere Rush from files. Other than that, I used the original audio from the scenes where my characters are talking or well screaming. Yet, I decided at the end to add a voice-over. Although it was not the one where the whole explanation of who Adriel was because I decided to not add it as I think my film and the techniques used in it are enough to convey the idea of the movie, I did add the voice-over with Veed.io where my brother is reading the bible verses so that I can add a translation of them because if not I couldn't find any other way of showing the English version as there was no space left in the frame that would be enough to look good with the film. 

Comments

I knew I needed to add subtitles as my film was in Spanish and I noticed that this was the best choice as all of my actors are Hispanic so it was so much easier to have a Colombian accent and act in their natural way so that it looks more real. This is where my idea of the bible verses' voice-over came from as I noticed there was a record button that I could use to easily add the sound. Yet, I did have to pay at the end to take the watermark away, so that is why I recommend always researching and knowing everything that each app you would be using has so that there is no confusion and you don't have to do things last minute. Yet, it perfectly helped me to add the subtitles as it automatically added them. Although I tried this before and it perfectly worked, I knew that the words had to be clear and loud, which in my video most were not (excluding the voice-over) because most of them were like sound effects to show an environment or context as in the fight scene I added the echo effect to highlight the idea of a dream. So I would notice that the words would not translate with the exact words, but the website had the option to modify them and add them to the part of the video where I would want them to be. I had to do most of this manually though, which was kind of annoying as it was time-consuming but it had a beautiful ending. It looked so professional. 

Other Apps
I learned After Effects super quickly on my laptop because I had forgotten to add the "Edited by..." in my shot, and then once I tried using Premiere Rush and sending the video from Veed.io to my phone, it was lagging as it was too much space used. My students' plan included this app so I decided to try it out and I didn't even have to watch any tutorial as it was super similar to editing the text in Premiere Rush, just a little more broad and complicated, but nothing from the other world. I did look at the text settings that I had on my phone to put the same numbers of the size or the style of text as the ones on my laptop. It worked! It looked exactly the same as I would have made them on the same platform. Besides, I gained experience from both applications. 

I lastly learned Adobe Premiere Pro to edit my CCR #1 because my free trial from downloading videos from Premiere Rush ended so there was a student plan of Premiere Pro that I could do the same thing but instead of a 3-day-free trial, it was a 14-days free trial. So I could just cancel it. I watched this fast tutorial of Premiere Pro Tutorial for Beginners 2023 - Everything You NEED to KNOW! (UPDATED) to guide myself although there were similar uses to the one on the phone. Yet, watching this saved me time so that is why I recommend researching before doing anything. With this little by little, I kept going and I came to the finish line. I am so proud of all the work I've put into the project and of everything that I've learned. I must say that all the sacrifice was worth it and the chance to do it again would be just to perfect it as I still think I did a pretty good job. So, make sure to check my blog in the next couple of days where I will be posting my film intro and the CCRs. Make sure you don't miss them! See you around!!