Wind

Tonight I came in and replaced the wind SFX that we had in the film. The previous wind sounded like the house was right next to the ocean, which is not the mood we are trying to set. I got some new wind SFX from Kasey and have layered them into the film. They sound a lot cleaner and appropriate. THey are more wispy and have a bit of a eeriness to them. I think it's a much better fit.

Festival Plan

Last week, Chris, John, and I finalized our festival plan. We had eight festivals that we found as good fits for The Basement. One of the festivals that I found with free submission is River Run in Winston Salem. They have no charge for NC students, which I thought was great because they are really helping support the students of the state, and if we got into that festival it would be an easy day drive up there. We also finished up our website with the cast and crew bios. It's looking pretty good. Basic, but clean and easy to navigate. We still need to burn a DVD copy and then just need to place our festival plan and completed budget in a binder with the link to our website, and we are good to go.

Whimpers, Wind, and Nearing the End

We've been working on refining the video and then adding sound effects to enhance the film. The video camera scene has not been cut down. Instead of seeing Phil walk away to turn off the light, which kind of broke up the tension, we cut straight from him setting up the camera and hitting record to him going to lay down with Jim in the bed. This not only helps cut down our overall time, but it adds to the scene in that it leaves more to the imagination for the audience. We also tweaked the scene in the woods when Phil goes to pick up Jim and carry him back. There are now a few more cuts with different angles worked into the sequence which helps give the scene momentum, rather than just standing back in the long shot the whole time. That's still something I wish we had more of throughout the whole film: close ups. Having some more punched in shots would be great for this film to really zero in on Jim's fear and uneasiness around Phil.

We've also enhanced the sound scape. In the opening shot in the basement, we hear Jim whimpering a bit which adds a nice touch. One of the whimpers sounds like a girl, so we have to mess with that still, but in all it sounds good. We also need to look for an alternative wind sound because it still sounds like ocean wind outside. Kasey says she has some wind sounds on her hard drive, so I'm going to check those out tomorrow.

Over all, it's looking good. It's still rather long (about 18min 30 sec, I believe) but I don't think there's a ton we can do about that. As long as the pace feels justified and we make it as concise as possible, I think we'll be okay.

I've also been working on the Festival Plan a bunch over the Eater weekend. The website is up and having last touches added to it. We already have our poster, and we're finishing up sifting through the festivals that we want as our top choices.

We submitted to Reel Teal, but they rejected our submission due to mature content. Lame.

Video All Laid Out

Chris came in and looked at what I had cut and then continued on. I liked the shots he used of Phil, however I thought that there was something missing in the tension of Phil catching up to Jim. I decided to add in our shot of Jim stopping to take a breath. The shot was initially planned to be use during a different part of the narrative, but it was able to be worked into the narrative here as well. I cut it so he stops to take a breath, and then that is when he hears Phil screaming for him and realizes that Phil isn't dead. He starts running again and right when he get's some momentum, he trips on a root, which stops him and allows Phil to fully catch up to him. Then the rest plays out well with what Chris cut. I really like our ending shot of Jim coming out of the woods. There's this one take where Jim winces a bit and it works really well with how we abruptly cut without ever seeing what he's looking at. Choosing that take was a good decision by Chris. Also, the score that he put at the end fits very well. We would have to get the rights for it to use it, but if we can, it's great. I've been looking at other choices on realty free music site. I've found a couple so far that may work, so it's good that we have options. We are still in the search for score for other parts of the film, such as when Jim is searching around the basement. All the video is laid out now though, which is great, and we are now working on audio, SFX, and score.

The Chase

Over break Chris and I both worked on the chase scene. I edited a cut that got us half way through the chase. It took a while figuring out what shot to use of Jim busting out of the house and then running into the woods. I wasn't sure if we should use the shot where the camera is situated at the woods line and Jim runs toward the camera and then passes it, moving out of frame and into the woods. Or, if we should use the shot where the camera follows behind Jim and runs with him into the woods. I messed around with some different options and decided on using the shot where we run with him into the woods, mostly because it helps with the sense of urgency as the camera bobbles around because it is moving hand held. Then, we cut to the LS pan of Jim running which is our opening shot of the film. This is proceeded with the fast paced running sequence that is used in the introduction of the film to cue in the audience that it was Phil that Jim was running from in the intro. I then added a few more quick running clips, and then I got stuck as to where to go from here. I wasn't sure how to cut into the visual of Phil running after Jim. I decided to give it a breather and be done with editing for the day. I wanted Chris to look at it and give his input and ideas, and then go from there.

Spring Break Progress

Before Spring Break, Chris and I looked over our film-in-progress and discussed where we wanted to continue with our film. We talked mostly about the chase scene in the woods because it could be cut so many different ways to reveal information at different times, and we wanted to have a concise vision. We discussed that we wanted to have jump cuts during the sequence, similar to the opening, in order to create suspense and anxiety in the audience. We also said that we wanted to hear Phil screaming for Jim before we actually see him in the woods at all. We then picked out a few snippets of the chase that we knew we wanted to use. We left our meeting with a good direction to work at over break.

Edit on

I came in today and looked at what Chris did and then continued on. We're going to have to figure out what we want to do at the end of the bear trap scene because he likes using an overhead shot, and I think it makes the edit look too choppy. I think the end of that scene has more of an impact in keeping with the low angle shot as Phillip drags the bear trap down the hall and out of frame and then cut to him dropping the chain and walking out. We'll have to look at the part together again and make a decision.

I then went to the next scene where Jim tricks Philip and is able to escape, and I briefly started the outdoor chase. I want to wait and collaborate more with Chris on the outdoor scenes because it could be cut many different ways depending how long we want to make it seem like he is running/being chased after. We also don't have to reveal that Philip is chasing him until he's well into the woods, depending how we want this to go. I'd say we're 75% done with laying down the video though, which is great!