SUPERHUMAN - Scene 2 (Editing Process)

This scene is difficult.

I'm both pressed for time and also limited in the footage I have. There are a few clips that are difficult for me to edit because there isn't a lot of variation in the shots that I have, but I don't have a lot of time for reshoots.

I'm trying my best to change the character I'm focusing on during dialogue, but some of the lines are delivered very fast by the actors so it's not guaranteed that the audio will sound fluid with the cuts. This is something I have to test with outside opinions because I've watched and rewatched my video numerous times trying to perfect my edits.

This is what I have so far, I'm going to ask for outside opinions and hopefully in my next posting I will have this video completed!!

I also realized I have to have a brief credits section. That won't be too difficult to implement, but just something I have to consider before I finish editing.

                                     - Jake


TODAY'S HERO: CAPTAIN AMERICA (Steve Rodgers)



Backstory:
Steve Rodgers, a hopeful soldier in World War II, was chosen to be experimented on by the US Government to test a "super soldier serum".  Rodgers was then sent back into the battlefield as Captain America.  An incident during battle left him stranded in ice, where he stayed until the present day.

Powers:
"Cap" has maximized human strength, speed, durability, agility, reflexes, mental processing, master tactician, and wields a shield made of the strongest metal on Earth, Vibranium (fictionary metal of the Marvel Universe).  This shield can be thrown similar to a boomerang as it returns back to Rodgers after being thrown.

Other:
- A fun fact that I want to mention, there is actually a hero by the name of "Captain Britain" that I discovered while playing a LEGO Marvel game with one of my friends.  I thought it was a funny parody of Captain America. I might as well do my next TODAY'S HERO section about him.
- The original Captain America shield was manufactured by Tony Stark's (Iron Man's) dad.
- Had a sidekick during WWII named Bucky Barnes; he became the anti-hero "Winter Soldier"
- Bucky actually became Captain America in one rendition of the character.

First Appearance:
- Captain America first appeared in Captain America Comics #1 (1941)

Movie History:
In the MCU, Steve Rodgers is played by Chris Evans.
- Debut in Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
- Reappearance in The Avengers (2012)
- Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
- Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
- Captain America: Civil War (2016)
- Most recently appeared in Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

SUPERHUMAN - Scene 1 (Editing Process)

Man, conversation scenes are weird to edit.

I told Luis to get mostly over the shoulder shots for my scenes, so there didn't seem to be a lot of diversity in shots for me to work with.  One of my difficulties was trying to find breaks in dialogue where it made sense to switch shots. There are only four cuts, but I think that they are in places that are effective. 

I need to tighten some of the editing up, especially because some of the dialogue sounds choppy with the editing.  I could always extract the audio from one clip and play it over another one to lose the odd discontinuity in dialogue, but the actors speak to fast for me to make this edit. The timing of this scene is exactly how I timed it when I read from the script, so I'm very proud of myself for that. 

After watching, rewatching, and rewatching my edit multiple times, I realized that one of the flaws of WeVideo is that they don't show you your video in full resolution until the project is complete.  The screen recordings that I'm taking and uploading to the blog don't do the film justice (I know this because the G7X Mark II camera that I used films entirely in FullHD (1,920 x 1,080p)).  This is a huge downside to this software because it would be more effective for me to see my film clearly right at the moment of editing so I know exactly what the audience is going to see.


I'm glad I was able to sneak in some time to edit this short yet fun scene of my characters and (fingers crossed) I might get at least 80% of this project done by my next posting!!

                                 - Jake

TODAY'S HERO: HAWKEYE (Clint Barton)

Backstory:
Clint Barton and his brother Barney ran away to the circus after their parents were killed in a car accident.  At the circus, Clint was taught to be an expert marksman and was trained to be an extreme athlete.  Clint went on to become a star carnival attraction, being dubbed "The World's Greatest Marksman" and "Hawkeye".

Powers:
Clint obviously has excellent bowmanship, but in addition, he is skilled in hand-to-hand combat and has a slew of different arrows he can use in varying scenarios.

Other:
- His iconic purple suit is not worn in the movies because the mask was deemed "too weird" and challenging to make cool on screen.

First Appearance:
- First appeared in Tales of Suspense #57 (1964)

Movie History:
Played by Jeremy Renner, Clint has appeared in
- Thor (2011) (cameo)
- The Avengers (2012)
- The Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
- Captain America: Civil War (2016)
- Clint Barton's character is set to reappear in April's Avengers: Endgame (2019)

The Challenge that is Spring Break

Oh boy, this project could not have happened at a more convenient time for me. This entire week (starting yesterday morning through Sunday evening) I'm going to be in Nashville, Tennessee going around the city exploring, then heading to Gatlinburg to hike in the mountains.  If I was in any other stage of my production, this would be very convenient for my blog, but because I'm in the editing process (and taking into account that I slept on the 2 1/2 hour flight from Miami to Nashville), I've had to go to extreme lengths to try to get my editing done.

I'm currently sitting atop my hotel in Nashville which has an excellent view of the nearby convention center.  Because the weather is 67º and sunny today, I figured it would be a wasted opportunity to not sit outside.  Of course, this meant that I'd have to sit on the sixth-floor deck with my mom's sunglasses on, squinting at my laptop screen,  but the breeze is nice and I have a lot of fun working on my blogs (if you couldn't tell already).

I've connected to my hotel's WiFi so that I can edit the first scene of my film in the 90-minute window of time that I have before dinner, so in my next blog post I will definitely showcase my edit of that specific scene of the two characters outside the classroom, then my fourth post of this week will be of the scene inside the classroom.

From Nashville,

Jake

TODAY'S HERO: MS. MARVEL (Kamala Khan)

Backstory:

Kamala Khan is a teenager from New Jersey whose dormant "inhuman genes" are activated after a major event in the Marvel Comics storyline.  As a huge fan of heroine Captain Marvel, Khan adopted the name Ms. Marvel.

Powers:

Khan has the ability to alter the size and shape of her limbs (similar to Mr. Fantastic, my first superhero entry :) ) and has a healing factor (similar to Wolverine, who I've also posted about previously).

Other:

- She is the first Muslim character to headline her own comic book series

- She is the fourth person to hold the mantel of Ms. Marvel, the first was Carol Danvers (now Captain Marvel)

- The first volume of her series (Ms. Marvel) won a Hugo Award for the best graphic story in 2015

First Appearance:

- Kamala Khan actually first appeared in a Captain Marvel comic (Captain Marvel #14 (2013)), where she began her enthrallment for Carol Danver's superhero alter ego

Film History:

- She currently has not been in any major films at the time of this posting (although there have been rumors that her character is desired to hit the big screen).  I first found out this character existed two years ago and I really enjoyed that Marvel is trying to appeal to have more representation in their heroes.  Although Khan is not currently a household name, I hope in the future that more diverse characters will be discussed in society to join the ranks of T'Challa (Black Panther), Carol Danvers (Captain Marvel), and Matthew Murdock (DareDevil).

Title Graphic

Obviously the most straight forward and essential feature of a film opening is the title.  It helps the audience know what to associate the content of the film under; similar to how a book has a cover page that the reader has to look at before viewing the content of the story.  I'm going for a similar idea in my film with the title graphic I just created.

(The first 10 seconds of the film)

This is the first shot of my opening, and I want the audience to know (from the beginning) that they are watching a film about a SuperHuman.  It saves time and gets the title out of the way in the film so that the audience can be fully engrossed in the story and not interrupted by the title.

This graphic was super simple to implement in my film.  I knew I wanted the title to be on one side of the frame and Ivan to be on the other side.  During filming, I made sure to communicate my vision of this opening to the cinematographer, who composed the shot with me in the left corner so the title can appear on the right third.

In WeVideo, there is a tab that grants me access to text functions over my film. Upon entering this folder, I can see different text options that I can select for my film.  I chose a different style in this clip but for my film, I chose "puff", which is a cool (and brief) fade effect (this can be seen in the first video).

(how to access the text tab in WeVideo)

To reposition the location of the text on the screen, I used the x and y coordinates to alter where the title would be displayed.  This allowed the text to be in the composition I wanted.

Now to work on the timings of the dialogue. Hopefully the clips I got don't make the film run over time.

                                 - Jake

TODAY'S HERO: THE FOX ACQUISITION

In this section of "TODAY's HERO" I actually didn't want to talk about a specific hero, but an entire group of them.

This past week, Disney recently acquired 21 CENTURY FOX.  Although this purchase was fueled by the desire to fill their upcoming "Disney Plus" streaming program with more properties, many fans of the Marvel franchise have raved over this event. This is because FOX previously owned the rights to a multitude of beloved Marvel characters, such as The Fantastic Four family, the X-Men, and popular film franchise Deadpool. 

In the 1990's, Marvel had sold their properties online to a multitude of studios so that they could create films with their characters in them.  However, Marvel Comics realized their error in losing access to their roster of heroes, so they created their own production company and slowly tried acquiring production rights to their characters such as Spider-Man and The Incredible Hulk (who are both partially owned by Marvel at the moment). 

This recent merger allows for fan's dreams to come alive on the big screen and give them the ability to see the Fantastic Four partner with Spider-Man on missions as well as see the X-Man fight the Avengers. 

The next 10 years of Marvel will definitely be exciting years for the fans because they will see (practically) all of Marvel together as a family telling the same stories they did in the comics.

WeVideo

The software that I'm going to be using to edit my video in is WeVideo.  I have used it in the past for projects in my media class such as a sound project and a short film I did with one of my partners in the class.   I find it very easy to upload footage and images into the software using the green arrow and cloud icon.

After my videos are uploaded, they are placed into the "My Media" folder where I can access my content easily.  I can drop clips into the different categories to easily distinguish the sequence of my film.  I can also clip audio off of a specific video and overlay it over a different video. This will be convenient to show different angles during dialogue and allow for more engagement in the film.

Right now I am currently uploading all of my footage into the software so that I can start editing this weekend and during spring break next week.  That will be a fun series of posts about my editing process.

Until then,

                                 - Jake

TODAY'S HERO: THE HULK (Bruce Banner)

Backstory:

After a horrible accident involving gamma radiation infects scientist Bruce Banner, who discovers that he now shares his body with a creature called "The Hulk". 

Powers:

Once Bruce Banner's anger exceeds a specific limit, then Banner's body expands at a rapid rate and turns a distinct shade of green that identifies him as the Hulk.  He is invincible and has insurmountable strength, both of which become intensified as he grows angrier.

Other:

- There are a few other versions of "The Hulk": Red Hulk, Gray Hulk, and Professor Hulk

First Appearance:

- The Incredible Hulk #1 (1962)

Film History:

- First appeared in the 2003 film Hulk starring Eric Bana

- This film was rebooted in 2006 with Edward Norton as The Incredible Hulk

- Bruce Banner did not appear again on screen until The Avengers (2012) with Mark Ruffalo tasked as playing the character and continuing to play this character for the future films.

- Appeared in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

- Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

- Recently appeared in Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

And............ACTION!

I heard that on set a good number of times today.  No thanks to my cinematographer Luis (who makes every situation exciting and filled with energy), the shoot was very fun and informal and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.  Of course, if Luis heard that I thought he did an excellent job behind the camera, he'd be over the moon. But knowing Luis, he also knows that I think that he did an excellent job of capturing in the frame exactly what I had envisioned in the film.

Thanks for the help today, Luis.

Luis and I fixing the framing of the first scene.

The camera I am using in this photo is a G7X Mark II.  I've had this camera for a year and purchased it because of how compact it was, but also how excellent the resolution was. and how easy it is to use. I've used this camera in the past but this film is my first time using it on a large scale project.

I would like to add that it was a lot of fun to play off of my dad. Although it would have been much easier to be behind the camera telling other people what to do, I was happy in front of the camera telling my story about spreading kindness. 

Although my dad and I were not memorized, I thought that our pre-existing relationship allowed for less tension and awkwardness during scenes where we had forgotten our dialogue. In retrospect, it would have been much more efficient if we were both memorized, but I believe we put in good work today on set.

Me (left) playing Ivan, my dad (right) playing Mr. Carmichael.

The set that we used for filming was above expectations. In my last post, I showed images of the offices and conference room at my local YMCA that I could use for filming. I decided to go with the conference room because the table did not have a permanent border wall attached to it. I also brought some props with me to set (old classwork I have kept over the years, a computer monitor, a keyboard, an apple (classic teacher stereotype), and a pencil cup) to give the appearance of an actual desk that a teacher would use.

The original Conference Room.

Mr. Carmichael's Desk.

Overall, filming today went great, and I'm so excited to review my videos in more detail.  However, tomorrow I leave for a States competition from my Drama Club at school and do not have time to watch my content.  Because of that, I'm just going to make a post about the software I'm going to use to edit my film. 

Until next time,

                                - Jake

TODAY'S HERO: WONDER WOMAN (Diana Prince)

Backstory:

Born as Princess Diana of Themyiscira, Diana is a member of the women of the Amazons. She has special superhuman traits that make her a superheroine.

Powers:

Besides superstrength, agility, flight, and speed, Wonder Woman has a "Lasso of Truth" that can make any person answer honestly to any question upon inquiry.  She also has Amazonian bracelets that are bulletproof.

Other:

- Wonder Woman is one of the three flagship characters of the DC Universe, along with Batman and Superman

- She has a lot of ties to Greek culture and religion

First Appearance:

- All Star Comics #8 (1941)

Film History:

- In the current DCEU run of the character, she debuted in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) played by Gal Gadot

- Reappeared in the self-titled (and critically acclaimed) Wonder Woman (2017)

- Major role in Justice League (2017)