Film Opening - Blog #26 - Editing and Grading (the fun part)

It is amazing to see all the footage come together - The process has finally been stitched together into a glorious piece. Here is the finalized timeline of the "Sciolism" sequence.

 The video clips are in the "V" rows, with the text pieces above in the light brown color, set with transitions. Most orange clips involve Emil's shots, while blue is with Nadya. Pink includes both of them in the composition, clearly the last bits of the opening. Most of the green tracks laying on the bottom laced with audio wave-forms are foley and sound mixing worked on in post. These include the score, external sound segments, SFX, and other important choices to bring stylizing to the scene. Lots of the sound effects included bass booms, heart beats, and winds.

Once I had my editing bit done, I moved on to taking the Blackmagic RAW video from my BMPCC4K and correcting all the imbalances in white balance and exposure, then choosing a coloring that I actually liked for the ambitions of what our film's message was. Something nature-infused and dim seemed most appropriate.

This section of my editing software, Davinci Resolve 16 (Thank you Blackmagic) includes a list of my shots in the sequence and my nodes for the coloring effects, which I can manipulate and then organize what it affects. I can add certain attributes to any color or add vignettes, warping, film grain, all sorts of things. I love using the plugin FilmConvert Pro to translate my digital footage into a more vintage look and adjust it freely to what I want. I can play with color, curves (non-linear contrast), grain, and camera sensor size (for how it treats the film format emulation, ie 8mm will look worse than Super 35) Once applied and tuned to every single shot, I have a consistent and quality look for the production of our video.

Editing has a start and an end to the process, and it takes a glorious amount of time to bring it all together and even figure out where to start. Years of producing in my school work has granted me great skills that I have worked hard for. I have learned to be efficient in my process of workflow and meanwhile produce quality content in a timely matter. In less than I week I have given my ultimate and best efforts to this project solely on my own. I'm seeing a theme now more prevalent than ever - Lack of team effort or interest beyond what they are forced to do. So be it. If they choose to live with an honesty beyond what credit is given, that is completely on them. I got this all back on its feet, and its basically everyone for themselves at this point.