Editing Outage was honestly a rollercoaster. After everything that happened on set. Like my phone overheating, the lighting being totally off, and random background noises ruining half the audio—I wasn’t sure how it was all going to come together. But when I sat down to edit, I told myself I had to make it work. I had the footage, and now it was time to fix it.
At first, I opened up my editing software and just stared at all the clips. It felt like a mess. I was thinking, “How am I supposed to turn this chaos into something watchable?” But then I started cutting stuff out. I trimmed a lot of unnecessary pauses in scenes where things were just too slow. There were some moments I loved, but they just weren’t working for the pacing, so I had to be ruthless with the cuts. Honestly, it was kinda hard at first, but tightening everything up made the film feel way more intense, which was exactly what I needed.
The lighting was probably the hardest thing to fix. We shot in pretty dim light, and some scenes were way too dark, while others were way too bright. I spent hours messing with the brightness and contrast, trying to make everything look balanced. It wasn’t perfect, but with a few adjustments, it started to look way more cinematic and matched the suspenseful vibe I was going for. It’s not like I had pro equipment, but I definitely made the most of what I had!
Next came the sound, and wow, that was a struggle. Since we didn’t have proper mics, the audio was full of random background noises, I had to manually lower the volume in some spots and then fill in the quiet moments with ambient noise, just so it didn’t feel too empty. There were still moments when it wasn’t perfect, but honestly, after a lot of adjustments, it felt way cleaner and less distracting.
I also spent a lot of time figuring out the transitions between scenes. Since we didn’t have fancy effects, I kept it simple, just cross-dissolves and fades. I didn’t want it to feel like a beginner film, but I also didn’t want to overdo it. The simplicity worked, though. The flow between scenes felt natural, and it made the whole film feel smoother, even if I was just using my phone and a cheap tripod.
One of my favorite things was the color grading. I was aiming for a gritty, dark look to match the whole power outage theme, so I added a little sepia tint and played with the saturation. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but it felt real and raw, which is exactly what I wanted for the story.
After all the editing, I finally had my finished product, and honestly? I was super proud. Yeah, there were some weird angles and a couple of audio issues I couldn’t fix, but the film still came together. The actors were amazing, and the story was there, which was more than I could’ve hoped for.
Looking back on everything, I feel like I’ve learned so much about filmmaking—especially when you’re working with limited resources. The whole process showed me that you don’t need all the fancy gear or a perfect setup to make something cool. Sometimes, it’s about making the best of what you’ve got and finding creative ways to fix problems.
Comments
Post a Comment