"Every picture has its shadows..."

Hello again,

Yesterday's editing was both productive and... uhh... let's say, "educational." All of these sessions are highly educational, in fact -- inevitably, really, since I start from a position of Knowing Very Little (the best position for learning, let's optimistically call it).

I think I will be a significantly more prepared director next time. Not only did teaching COMM 3201 (an intro to TV studio production) at the U help solidify a lot of abstract "book knowledge" I had -- watching students' varying degrees of havoc and success on their own shoots proved to me the true-life benefits of many pre-production elements (I'm in love with storyboarding now) -- but editing even just this one scene of "my own," even after only this one week, has been as good a lesson as anything I ever got in a class, either teaching or studying. Granted, if I didn't have the background I have, I wouldn't be seeing many of the things I'm seeing. And believing.

Take these shots, for example:

Here's me (with some of that ridiculous ice cream) (ignore the lack of proper aspect ratio, please - I don't know why the still image isn't coming out right). Notice the black T-shirt and the dark background (and my dyed-darker hair) and also how pale/ashen I am.










And here's Kevin (who also had dyed his hair, as I recall). Note the pink in his skin (absent from my palor) and the bright background, which is brighter at certain times (as the shot of me is also sometimes darker).

These images have to cut together - but it goes dark-LIGHT, dark-LIGHT. It's quite distracting sometimes. And Kevin's shirt is actually blue rather than green in some of the shots of me.

Even if I had been wearing a lighter color, the contrast jump would have been less pronounced. I think I thought that both of us having the same-toned shirt would be a good idea -- and in some circumstances, that would have been true. But not here.

At least, that's what I think today. Any comments? I am thinking that this can be somewhat fixed with color adjustment. Isn't that right? But that will be much farther down the line.

In any case, I will be much more aware of this sort of thing in the future. And I will also avoid shooting so much of someone's spiny BACK as we did of mine in some set-ups. There's like this big black bony blob taking up the whole left side of the screen in some of the MCUs of Kevin -- making the light-DARK contrast even worse in those cases. Arrgh! We adjusted mid-shoot, and many of the takes have only my elbow (as above), but once again, I will be more aware of this next time.

Also, we did not survive the 180-degree challenge, after all. Our master shot (the only shot that shows Davis Square) is backwards. D'oh!!

I thought maybe I could fudge it and cut from WS to MS of Sarah (there isn't a good M2 in the lot, unfortunately) as she *turns* upon sitting on the table -- but Pete watched it last night and he said it looks like suddenly I'm doing a little pirouette, so I won't be including that bit. What I've done, then, is cut the whole scene in MS & CU. I think the last shot of Scene 5 (where Bill fixes Marissa plate after she's returned from the hospital) is a MS of Bill at his cutting board, so it might blend well enough. We'll see.

Oh - and isn't it possible to flip the shot? Hmmmm... the movie marquee would be backwards -- but if the shot is fairly short, couldn't we just cut & flip-back the marquee? Hmmmm...

For those who recall this scene: for the sake of time, I'm cutting out several lines from the part where Sarah says, "I'm loud, I don't hide my tampons." Scene too long!

I wonder if I can cut the whole scene...

Anyway, I hope to get a rough cut of the entire Scene 6 today -- and move on to an easier task tomorrow (something interior with no FOOD).

On a separate note, it was nice to hear back from R.J. & Jack yesterday (day before?). I hope we all can start to re-connect here in the next few weeks.

Peace out,
Rachel