Editing

Putting the Scenes Together

Welcome back everyone! Recently, we finally finished recording our scenes for Forgotten Trails after numerous rescheduling! We did have major changes going on during the set, so I will update you all on these tweaks in a later blog post. For now, we are focused on the post-recording phase where we will edit our clips and sound to get the most out of our film. 

For editing, we will use CapCut! We originally had concern about the application's availability due to governmental policies, but there seems to have been a shift (or delay) in this policy, bringing back this editing software! As of now, Edison has taken up the largest responsibility in editing. This will change soon as the rest of the group members and I start taking a more active role in the process, but Edison has gotten us started on these early stages of editing to make sure we are on track to complete the entire project within the next few weeks.

In all honesty, editing has overall been a difficult process. A starting position we took was changing the color gradient of our movie to give it a more cinematic, mood-evocative feel. Edison rummaged with different filters before settling in on a green/gray tint to bring out the colors of the forest while also evoking an eerie, hostile environment. This small change alone has produced a mass change in the outlook of our movie!

Transitions will also play a key role in our film. We learned about the massive impact of transitions a few months ago, so we know how important it is to implement them in our film, and to do so correctly. For the earlier stages of the film where we are still setting the mood, we are using fade transitions to indicate the passage of time. However, in the latter stages of the film where we have more suspenseful, dramatic scenes, we intend to use sharp, rapid cuts to create an exhilarated, anxious feel in our audience. Although not entirely transitions themselves, cuts will help us add to the horror aspect of our film.

Moreover, we also began experimenting with video effects to help develop the plot. One thing we considered is fog, which Edison has already added into some scenes of the forest to reinforce the eerie scenery. It signals to the viewers that something is off with the environment. We certainly plan to add more visual effects soon, like a supernatural glow around the dark figure to give it a greater hostile presence. 

A problem we have encountered during editing is probably the runtime of the film. Sometimes, certain transitions like the fade may seem short as a single unit, but when repeated multiple times in the film, it definitely adds up for a good amount of screen time. To solve this, we reduced the duration of each fade slightly and removed a couple of them from the movie entirely, replacing them with simpler cuts.