Putting Together The Pieces

 Hello! As I'm typing this, I'm currently packing my bags to go on a 3 day road trip with my family tomorrow morning, so this might not be the most quality blog that I've posted. Additionally, there isn't a whole lot of stuff to discuss today, since all it consisted of was picking out my favorite cuts of each shot, downloading them all onto my computer, ordering them, and shuffling them around to see what works best.

    That being said, I feel pretty good about today's progress! I had been feeling a little overwhelmed and unmotivated these past few days, but after seeing an idea of what the project put together (roughly, unedited, but still complete in a way), my passion for the project had been reinvigorated, providing a much-needed moment of refreshment that was missing lately. 

        Getting into the editing side of things, I will admit that editing is decidedly not my forte, so I will avoid using some of the more complicated vernacular for fear of making a fool of myself. Anyways, the operating system that I used to stitch together the first draft of the opening was Openshot Video Editor, and this was for a few reasons. 

First off, it's a free application, so I didn't have to worry about free trials or renewing licenses. My school had provided me with a free version of Adobe Premiere, but I haven't really touched it because it's unfamiliar to me, and I know that if I warm up to it, I'll be locked into a trial renewal scandal or something, which is a situation I'm disinterested in experiencing.

   Secondly, I've worked with Openshot before. In fact, I use Openshot for all of my own personal projects, like editing funny videos of my friends or stitching together compilations of video game footage. My experience with other editing applications is somewhat rudimentary, but in Openshot I am well-versed in its ways, as I've had time to grow into the quirks and conventions of Openshot.

    Lastly, the user interface for Openshot (at least, in my experience) has been much more user-friendly than the super-complex Premiere. I'm a very simple editor, so being barraged with so many options and features that I had no clue how to use made Premiere and other OS's kind of daunting to use, whereas Openshot is very simple and direct, possessing those same features but making them options that you have to actively seek out, rather than have everything offered at once.

This clip is 20 seconds long, but could be shortened 
into fitting the same information into a 5 or 6
second long clip.

    Using Openshot as my editing app, I organized the shots into order, and played around with some of the timing in certain scenes, while experimenting with voice-overs during quiet areas in my opening (which there were a couple of). As of right now, the project is sitting at about three and a half minutes in length, which would be a problem if I knew that a solid minute of it has to be cut down and mixed together, easily shaving off about 40 seconds. To reach my goal of having it be slightly over 2 minutes, all I'd have to do is shorten some of the shot lengths, which may mess up the pacing a little    bit, but it's a necessary evil.
    

Besides this though, there isn't a whole lot to report about, plus I'm very tired (writing at 1.40 AM will do that to you), especially since I have to wake up early tomorrow (today?). I'll be gone for a few days on my trip, but when I get back, I plan on finishing what I've started today... Until then...