Candide Video Project

My job in our Candide Video Project was a semi-important acting role, and more importantly, editor. To start, we brainstormed ideas with each other concerning the plot of the video and the order it would follow. Once we had our scene and the basic idea of what we were satirizing we started on our script. Anirudh typed up the basic draft of the script while me and the other team member pitched ideas to him. I’d say that Sathvik and Atul were responsible for constructing most of the plot, while me and Anirudh just added some ideas and tweaks here and there. Moving onto the filming process we had a basic idea of how the story was going to play out and a script to help us along. Atul had the better camera out of all of us so we relied on his phone for the filming. It took longer than expected to get one scene filmed that was
acceptable in my opinion, because of this we had to stay during homeroom to finish the filming.
In general, the filming was fun and entertaining, most of the retakes occurred because of wrong lines, or in the “picking up girls” scene, because of giggling. Me and Sathvik had the more major roles in the video, with Sathvik having the most and appearing on every scene, but I feel as though no one was left out at least in that aspect. When all the scenes were filmed I told Atul to send me all the files, so I could get started on them when I got home right away. I had some complications since Atul didn’t send me all the files I needed, and he would also refuse to send the raw video files, but used a link instead, which lowered the video quality and made it harder to download to my computer. After finally getting those things sorted out I got to work putting the clips together and editing intros, transitions, music, sound effects, etc. I used a program called Hitfilm Express 2017 which I had used on other projects before, the program is free, professional, and most importantly, easy to use. I got a very strong rough
draft done by the end of the day and decided to finish the rest on the next day. I still had to add a scene I was missing from Atul and some bloopers which we wanted to add as a group. The next day our group spent the whole class period waiting for Atul to add some simple fire effects and send the last clip I needed, it took the whole class period for him just to do that. Once again, Atul decided it was best to use a link instead of giving me the raw clip which lowered that specific clip even further, but it wasn’t intentional, and the clip was salvageable. Lastly, all I needed to finish the project was the bloopers which, like I said multiple times in class, is the best part of the project (as an editor, and viewer as well). Sadly though, because Atul kept insisting on using bad apps and programs to send the clips to me, somehow, the clips were corrupted, and he had no backups. It may seem as though I’m bashing Atul, but it was fun to work with him in person, when I needed to contact him outside of class though, it appeared he was unavailable half the time and just wouldn’t respond in a timely manner considering the project was due the same week. Waiting for vital clips for the project my whole afternoon was not pleasant, especially since I do have other homework. When all was said and done though, I completed the editing without the bloopers and sent the video off to my group member, so they could give me their opinion. Although this project did not go over as smoothly as I had liked, we got it done and I am proud of our final product. Honestly, everyone was a crucial asset to the project in their own way, even Atul. I couldn’t add the flame effect that Atul added onto the fire scene, that I couldn’t have been done without him. So although there were things I would definitely have done differently, I do think that this project is well-made and deserves to be presented.