Sticking to a Storyline

Narrative Impressions

Our film will showcase a friendship between two girls that is lost to drug addiction, costing one of the friends her life. It represents grief and the issue of addiction in two main parts. This was decided early-on as the message of our film. But now having our location and actors decisions set, we are now moving out of pre-production and into production days! 

We thought over how the entire film will be shot in the same bedroom but is intended to look entirely different in each scene to insinuate that a lot of time has passed between them. Through an editing perspective, this could be a hit or miss to the audience. They may not pick this up, causing confusion of the narrative storyline and message intended to be told. It could make the takes look inconsistent rather than develop the story.

Besides freezing the frame through editing to convey a 'pause' in between scenes to distinctly separate events, mis en scene techniques could accomplish the story we are trying to tell. The room itself could be colorful with lots of decorations and personality to it, while in the second scene, looks empty and lifeless without much decor or personal touches. Adding and removing props between the scenes that are meaningful to the mood they add to the room will be essential to conveying that the girl has changed significantly since her friend's death. The colorization of the actual film as well has a dramatic impact on the tone it has.

A warm color preset available on Adobe Premiere Rush applied to their stock videos for me to practice using editing features. This makes the weather in the photo appear pleasant and for the islands to look welcoming because of this balanced and saturated, warm-tone look.

The Azure color preset on Adobe Premiere Rush using the same image to contrast the vibe each change in color creates for the photo. The waters and islands look isolated and gloomy, scary even, because of the strong deep blues and darkness surrounding the photo.

Analyzing the same scenery but with various pre-sets on it made me realize that the scenes of the same room with different implied time periods and mental state of the girl could be conveyed by utilizing one of these colorization templates. Blue and some dark colors have association with sadness, while warm-tones remind people of comfort and coziness, which is why using this kind of dramatic color contrast between scenes could additionally be used to reflect the mental state of the girl; how it changed after her friend passed away. Resolving these physicalities and using all tools available on these softwares if helpful, will make my editing process smoother and for there to be a clear visual of what is needed from production days for me to edit the vision to life!