WIllow's Walk: The Film

Here it is! I had so much fun making this film and I hope to have more opportunities to do this in the future! 

Afternotes from me!

Overall, I enjoyed this process and enjoyed making this film! It was very interactive and taught me a lot about what I should do, and what I should work on. The filming process was long and took a while, but every step of the journey I managed to learn something new. Film is subjective. It's like a canvas that I painted and through the sketch I drew, (the storyboard) the painting, and the final design, it all worked out in the end. It was a bit hard to adjust to at first, and I had to figure out a lot of it on my own. The process is never as easy as it looks, and I'm sure that a lot of people can agree! The countless hours spent revising, editing, working on the film. But finding the fun in it is the goal! Every step I managed to find something I enjoy. This is what helped carry me through the process especially, since it's easy to lose motivation. Today I gave the film one last look. I showed more people than I ever have, got their opinions and notes on it, and I'm ready to go! Everyone thinks it's wonderful! I got a few pointers too, so this is something I can definitely take with me in my future films. The learning process is what makes the person after all! That was it. I'm rendering everything out and adding some coloring, and that's it! The film I've been working on for months has finally been completed.  I'm looking forward to sharing this film with everyone! 

Finishing touches!

 Today I decided to finalize the film Willow's Walk. I figured that everything that had to be done was already done, so I took one last big look at what I was doing and why I was doing it. I understood that there could still be some polishing, so I went ahead and went in order. I started with the film as a whole. I watched the entire film and made sure there was nothing I couldn't misinterpret. After I checked plot and continuity, I polished up the editing. Made sure it wasn't too rough. After checking the editing, I decided to end up going through the voice acting next. Voice actin is very important, especially when doing important scenes and to ensure that the proper emotion is conveyed. I did see an issue with some though, so I decided to redo some voice lines for the sake of polishing. I then ended up changing a story continuity. It's a really big change but I decided it was necessary. Instead of a mask, due to the mysterious person In one frame not having it, but being covered by a hoodie, I decided that is a much better fit for the mysterious person. It's not really confirmed whether the person is a human or a monster or anything like that. So I decided to re-record the scenes where the mask was on and turn it into a hoodie covering a dark face that can't be seen. I didn't really have anything else to worry about in regards to the film, so I even decided to go the extra mile and have a bit of fun with it! I topped it off with some nice royalty-free sound effects to really immerse the viewer into the film. That's about it regarding my film! If I have any more important or last-minute changes I will note them, but I think everything is great just the way it is. I'm looking forward to everyone seeing my film. 

Changes, changes..

 Although my friend said it was good, and I do trust his intuition, I felt like there was far more I could touch up on with my film. So I wanted to surprise him by going even further and maxing out my editing skills! So I decided to focus more on the changes made from the film review he gave me, and improve on them. Things like the voiceovers, which I solved fairly quickly. But I noticed that a lot of the drama that the film managed to have with such uncut, regular acting in the scenes. With that in mind, I thought up a conclusion that could really just get me both done. I decided to do the voiceover with a bit more passion. Fear, horror, and emotions that you manage to feel in situations like these is really important if you want to convey that feeling. I feel like with the change of voice over that I did, it helped breathe new life into the actual film itself that I made. Camera stability was fine, so I essentially had no issues whatsoever with that. I focused on stability, Pacing I managed to fix up by making important clips longer or shorter, but with the second review of the critique I decided to change some more scenes around for pacing purposes. I think I managed to make it even more digestible than it was when I made the first changes and that's good. One more critique I was given was to be careful about plot and continuity. Basically, does your film add up. Can the viewer be focused. Are they confused? Focus in film is very important if you want to get your story across so I decided to work extra hard on that. I made sure it lined up and everything made sense. The simpler it is the more people understand! That's what I want my film to be. These are a few of the many changes that I've made after my friend reviewed the film.

Film Review (from a friend!)

 Today I got a film review from my friend down in Nebraska! It's pretty cool down there, and it's been a while since we've seen each other, so I figured, why not ask him about my film? I had to compress it, so that took a while. I then had to put him through a file converter due to it having issues, but I got that to work. I sent him my film through messages (isn't technology cool?) and after reviewing my little film preview, he gave me some really good advice on what I could do and how I could do it alone. First idea was to try to invest in a camera mount. I thought that would be a nice idea, but that's a lot of time and money invested, and my budget may not be able to meet that, so I thought of an alternate idea.  I'm pretty tall, so it could work. I decided to focus more on stability and camera angles than I did in my previous shoots, and did a reshoot. It ended up working! My camera was better than ever, but I did have to shake it to get that more natural, bare feel to the film. Next, was to improve the voice acting. The voice in the film ended up getting blown out, or muffled, due to the wind or surroundings, or even me running... so I decided to go ahead and do that much promised voiceover, and I must say, I could definitely be a voice actor in the future! It lets my voice be much clearer, and contrasts and properly outlines what I'm supposed to hear. One last thing I was told to work on was the pacing. For them, it felt way too fast, and way too speedy. I decided to make some clips longer and some clips shorter to offset this where some things that are important are long and less important are short. This helps progress the events in a predictable and digestible way. I made sure that this film was one for the theaters. I ended up showing him again and he approved it, so everything is okay now! He's a huge film buff so I knew he was just the right guy to ask.  In the end, I was able to get the glaring problems fixed thanks to my friend!

An editor's trials....

 Editing is definitely something I enjoy since it's my hobby, but it definitely has it's downsides. One thing that ended up happening was my file CRASHING! I was a little worried about it since I had done a bit of work already. It seemed to have taken out about 25% of my progress for the day. I wasn't too sad about it, but I still had to redo a bit of work. I ended up actually using it as a sort of learning moment. It helped me realize where I needed to pick up on some things. The experience let me see what I did prior and evolve it almost. So I ended up doing a completely new coloring for the film, giving it a more eerie vibe. This ended up turning out really well. I also did a little bit of tweaking with the credits. I have to decide whether I'll refilm and change it, or I'll just try to make it a bit more engaging in regards to the actual film. It seems that I'm more content with my original idea, though, and due to my editing experience, I could really make it look nice. I didn't see anything else missing, so I decided to leave it at that. It ended up even better than I left it, which was really cool. Redoing and revising things by accident ended up turning out really purposeful for me. I'd say I definitely appreciate it happening! But an editor's trials don't end... I had to download a lot of sound effects to my computer! And right now I'm messing around with them seeing which ones feel right. (All non-copyright free use sounds, of course!) And I'm getting the general vibe for what I want within this film. Things seem to be going pretty well!

Editing blog!

 So I decided that during my downtime I would decide to edit some scenes from Willow's Walk, the horror movie I'm making. Editing is definitely tough but due to my experience I made it a lot easier than it would have been. I have about 3 years of experience and it's one of my hobbies.  I decided to basically work on the first and second editing parts. These parts were okay to edit but I had to make the cuts seamless and make them look like an actual film. It's pretty neat on how I have so much I can do, but I stuck with the basics for now. I need to get things situated before I begin the movie. I started by following the storyboard and the clips. Then, I had to do some basic editing. I wanted to do the paper thing but I figured that instead of the black screen, I may have to change it into an actual scene. This is an important change and will be documented if it happens. It would probably be me looking through papers, though. I want to make the film near seamless, but if the story is good, I think I can manage. I also want to use some visual effects. These effects will be based off the idea that this is a camera and the person is recording. Some camera breaking, some fuzziness, the thing around the camera letting us know this is being recorded. This shows a lot of character regarding what the film is, and what it can be. This is especially important to immerse the watcher in the film. Something like this isn't the easiest, but I took today to do so by picking out what effects I use, overlays, etc. I also put the film together in full, or at least the parts I've done. I then mapped out what effects go where, and when these things happen. This is what I did with my editing.