I finally finished editing my project. Because editing is my weak spot, it took me quite a while to make something that I considered good, but it's over now. I had to deal with a couple of obstacles along the way, but now I can concentrate everything towards my creative critical reflection.
As you can see, the software I'm using to edit my film looks different from the previous screenshots I shared in my older posts. That's because I had to switch to CutShot, as OpenShot was simply not cutting it. It was so basic I knew that submitting my project with OpenShot being what I used to edit my film would likely land me with a C as my maximum grade. So, I asked a friend and he showed my CutShot, so I decided to go with the change. Of course, that meant I had to redo my editing. It took some time, but I got what I had edited in OpenShot and managed to replicate it somewhat onto CutShot, but with better effects added on. However, this did lead me to another sort of major issue: I had no idea how to use it and the deadline was looming in.
CutShot had a ton of more features and different effects that could be used for my scenes. As such, I felt completely overwhelmed and had no idea where to start. Fortunately, I was able to find a ton of videos giving tutorials on how to use CutShot. Once these videos told me where to I can go to add words onto my film or apply fade-ins, etc., it became relatively simple to handle. Long story short, OpenShot is not going to have a nice review from me.
Shoutout to this channel, they really helped me out with quick and easy to understand tutorials
For the last two months, I've been working and taking hours out of my schedule every week to make this project something I can be proud of. When the project was first announced, I'll admit that I was annoyed. Having to do 20+ blog posts, a CCR, and a film opening sounded like it would take me 6 months minimum. Especially the movie part, as I had barely done any improvements on my editing skills since I joined the class. I mean, I already get less than 10 hours of sleep in a full school week, my body feels weak all the time during classes, I need to study for the SAT in May, and I can almost never concentrate when working on schoolwork. So, getting this project on top of everything else felt like someone punched me in the gut. But the truth is, it wasn't that bad in the end. The blog posts were time-consuming, but they weren't difficult to make since I actually did the work and didn't have to make-up stuff. I haven't done the CCR yet, but if I managed to pull through with creating an opening that I'm actually proud to have made, then I think I can also make a CCR that I will be proud of. I also had a great time hanging out with friends who volunteered to act in my film piece, so that was nice. Granted, there were a lot of bumps down the road during my journey leading up to and during this project, such as having a minor Covid scare (luckily, I tested negative). I'm not lying when doing this project reminded me of something: just because it's a school assignment does not automatically make it boring. Granted, I would have preferred to indulge in my hobbies rather than research and make a film opening, but I'm glad that I got this experience. This was a unique experience to me, so the change of pace felt nice.
If there are two things I learned from this whole thing, it's that planning is everything in order to be successful in school and in the future, and that working in the film industry is much harder than I had originally believed. If this blog portion of the project was optional, I would not have done it. And that would have led me to do everything-the research, planning, filming, editing-the last week or two before it was due. So, while these blog posts cost me a lot of my time, they ultimately did help me earn a better grade than what I would get had this not been part of the final grade. Also, I really used to envy people like Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino, and anyone else whose role focused around the camera and deciding how a scene should be shot. I genuinely believed that their jobs were insanely easy for the money they make. What's so hard about getting a good camera angle, I thought. Well, after enduring this project, I realize how much talent they have for what they do, as well as how much effort is put into films. It took me a couple of hours with my friends to simply create a 2 minute opening. But if I were to create a whole film, now that'd be impossible. This project has certainly opened my eyes up with what goes on behind the scenes when producing a film.
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