Editing the Directors Commentary

To begin my director's commentary, I first recorded the audio component, the script. When I recorded the script the first time, it came to be around three minutes and thirty seconds. When I was listening back to my responses and thinking about the visual component, I believe that there is more to be said about the editing process and the technology section can be divided into three components. Upon noticing this, I improved upon my script. I liked the way I opened the commentary, but the meat and information could be much more in depth. The script is written below.

"The technology used are not all implemented for the same purposes. To me it makes the most sense to divide this section, this dentin, into three parts: hardware, software, and online. The moviemaking process first begins with the planning. As such, I will first expand on the online component. This included Blogger, the website where I posted during the eight weeks I worked on the production. Not only this, but it allowed me to gather my thoughts. At the very beginning of preproduction, I was unsure what story to fully flesh out, blogging helped me to decide. Secondly, the hardware. These included devices such as a mobile camera, microphone, and memory cards. The mobile camera I used was an iPhone 13 mini. This phone allowed me to blur and capture the story which I created. An additional bonus that only this phone could provide was higher resolution quality which I could not obtain without it. The microphone collected the background audio in the dentist office and was attached to the inside of the actors' shirts in order to obtain clearer audio. Memory cards helped to transfer the video and audio components to be losslessly compressed into the postproduction software. Software, in my opinion, is the most critical aspect of the technology. Software composed of Premiere Pro, Photoshop, and Audacity. In Premiere Pro I was able to import and edit the video. The original, unedited clips had much potential which had to be refined through Premiere. This single executable numbed the cavities or roadblocks that I had to deal with. There were two of note: the overexposure of the clips and the lack of blood when the teeth were removed. The first problem was solved by working with the interpreter in Premiere to lower the exposure and make the clips much crisper. The tooth removal scene was rather lackluster without eye candy. Therefore, using Premiere, it allowed me to key in colors with the Color Replace feature and make the shots look much more vivid and harrowing. Photoshop helped with creating the Smile Room logo used at the end of the introduction which helps to establish the theme and has brand identity. Lastly, but not least, Audacity helped to record the audio recordings for the Foley sounds and recording over the video. This was used in the scene where the needle was unsheathed similarly to a sword. Lastly but not least, Audacity helped to make the puncturing needle sound. These two sound effects landed itself to a horror convention of making the audio have more of an unrealistic soundscape in order to instill fear.
The pulp is the most important part of the tooth, if the pulp has a cavity, then the entire tooth falls apart. Similarly, my production skills developing is a critical factor in this product. Not only did I learn how to manage such a large project with many parts, but my editing and filming skills also improved. When I started the project, I was at first unsure how to proceed with the mountain of work that had to be done in order to successfully complete the video. For me, it began with planning, so I did not fall behind, like I saw other producers when they let work surmount. As well as this, I learned what it meant to create a cohesive story. At the beginning of my career, I tried to bunch abstract ideas into one video, but this made it so that my ideas were not conveyed as I had hoped. Therefore, I went for a much simpler concept which I could master fully. Throughout my postproduction process, I learned more about software than I had known before. Even though I am certified in Premiere, this production allowed me to delve into more complex editing and Foley as well as using more utilities of Premiere like the Color Replace and the Interpreter. What I believe that I could improve upon given another chance is to work on the SFX Prosthetics which I was deterred from due to its complexity. As well as this, I would like to have more time and work better around the schedule of the dentistry in order to have more time to film. In the end, I am proud of the work that I have produced and will allow the content of my film to be figured out on an individual basis. I would like to see what the viewers think in the comments and want to see theories."

With this newly improved script, I was able to begin working on editing the video as I have all the clips I need. For this director's commentary I want it to stand differently from what Peele and others have created, making the video component more engaging rather than having simple linear edits. I want to make the video feel more accustomed to its platform, YouTube. This is why I wanted to add the pause resume feature to the video. In order to do this without using video from online, I went to a YouTube video with a green screen. Then I screen recorded the pause and resume animations from YouTube. Now when pasting it into my video I used a feature called the Ultra Key. This allowed me to remove the green screen background. In addition to this, I completed around 1/5 of the total video component for the first CCR. It begins with a simple screen with the Smile Room logo and begins with the ending music of the opening. Then, while the director is talking, the video plays in the background. I am still unsure of whether I want the music from the opening to play in the background or to find some other music, but this is something I will do last. 

While I was attempting to add the Smile Room Sequence into Premiere, I ran into a technical issue. This issue seems to be a redundancy error. When I added the Smile Room Sequence into a similarly named new sequence, it stated that there was an error with the renderer. After a few minutes of troubleshooting, I learned that you cannot place a sequence into another sequence with the same name or the video will not render or export. This seems to be something that would work on other editing platforms but is an issue with this software. 

This is what I have so far and I am going to continue working to make this commentary the best it can be! In the next post, I will likely have the commentary done and have started working more on the interview.