Uh Oh (Editing Day 1)

     So, on Thursday I put all my clips together to get the rough draft of the finished opening and it was 3 minutes long. Three minutes. A minute over the limit. Jesus. Christ. I tried cutting it down as much as I could and got it to around 2:40 and decided to talk to Mrs. Stoklosa about it as soon as I could. After asking, she straight up just told me that I'll have to cut it down to a 2:15 maximum. So I did. First thing I did was cut down Mika's guitar playing to only two progressions. I think that's what it's called. So, Mika's guitar playing consists of 6 different chords repeated 4 times (a tune I came up with myself), but when editing, I rerecorded the playing so the chords would only be played twice. I'd say it went from being 30 seconds of guitar playing to 15 so perfect, that helped a ton. I then went through the video and meticulously cut down as much as I could. 

    I cut a shot of  Mika stealing from the gas station market, now only implying that he does that. I trimmed the shot of Mika pulling out cigarettes, honestly most, if not all, of the shots are now trimmed. I also had to cut out some dialogue portions. Mika no longer asks Aba if kids at school keep picking on her. He no longer says that some people are saying someone had died, instead only asking if anyone died. The dialogue kept was kept to serve the purpose, developing the characters while also adding a bit of a mystery to Aba's character. I want to have the audience think "What does he mean by 'break?' Did he kill someone? What is up with this kid?' and the dialogue kept pushes the audience to ask these questions. The dialogue kept also fits with the coming-of-age genre's common opening 'essentials,' developing characters and their dynamics while also starting the plot (Aba's "I want to destroy the world" line). All that's left before I can get the final runtime for the opening is to get that extra footage to put the credits over, which I will have to record tomorrow since no one is home today and I cannot drive to Circle K myself. After that is sound editing, putting the credits on the screen, and maybe color correction but right now I'm not sure if I'll do that. Should be done before spring break then I could work on my CCR (already have an idea for one) (teenager humor).

(Cut shot. So sad.)