Reflecting

 The end has come...

    While I am not finished with my CCR, I have exported the film opening and have completed that side of the project. It was not always smooth sailing (that's FOR SURE), but the end of the road is almost here.

    It is so weird to think that by Monday night I will be completely done with this project. We have been working on it for so long that it feels odd that it's coming to an end. I have put so much time and effort into "The Way Up," and even if it is not perfect, I am proud of what I created. So now let's talk about some key moments of the project and changes that had to be made.

Shortening Scenes

    When I first had the idea for the opening, I envisioned a morning routine sequence, but wasn't sure how long it would take. When I was made aware that it would be way too long for the 2 minutes I was given, I brushed it off. Wow was I wrong. I had to cut out a large amount of those clips that were supposed to be in the morning routine. When I originally imported all of the clips for that scene, it was around a minute (maybe more). That is when I realized my teacher was right. I took out half of the shots and only kept the most important ones. It honestly is better for the sake of the film considering the discarded shots did not play a major part. I cut it down to 30 seconds, giving me much more time for the rest of the opening.

Dialogue

    I had planned on Josh to have lines in the film opening, as I had put that in the script, but it did not make sense, forcing me to remove them. The script said that he would say something along the lines (haha get it?) of "I gotta go, great work today." When it came time to edit, I noticed that the entire duration of the football scene does not have diegetic sound. I had muted the track and let the background music take over. Meaning, it would have been odd for Josh's voice to come out of nowhere. I felt that sticking to the music was the better idea.

Problems With Media Files

    Within "The Way Up," there are two images that are shown. One being the production logo. This was a last minute addition because I kinda forgot and the opening looks more official with it. The other image was the screenshot of Oakley and her mom's text conversation. A iMessage notification pops up on the top right corner of the screen. This, especially, is a vital part to the storyline. Well... when I was editing, the red media offline screen emerged constantly on those two clips. I tried everything. I deleted the shots, changed the file type, and took new pictures. Nothing. Until it finally worked and I exported the opening while I could. I'm not sure what happened but the exported version has both the production logo and text screenshot, so I'll go with it.