"Stolen Life"

The following design is my senior film (COMM 448 and 449) project. Screenwriters would write short films for the class to vote on to create; after a few films were selected, groups of four or five students would be chosen by the respective screenwriter. Each student had a specific role in their group; the main roles were:

• Producer – The producer was in charge of budget, scheduling, paperwork, clients, worked with the director on all major decisions, and generally was the spokesperson of the group.
• Director – The director was in charge of casting actors and directing them on screen, as well as working with the cinematographer and editor during production and post-production.
• Director of Photography (Cinematographer) – The director of photography (D.P.) was in charge of constructing storyboards with the director, set up all the individual shots, and physically filmed the movie.
• Editor – The editor was in charge of all post-production roles, which including editing and marketing the film.

In most groups, the Sound Recordist and Editor were combined into one role; the sound recordist was on set with the external recorder and boom microphone and was in charge with scoring the film. However, I was in a group of five and had a separate sound recordist, but I still was in charge of organizing and archiving each sound footage and working with the group’s composer (who was not a student at Pennsylvania State University) to make sure the film was completed on time.

The film that I was a part of was entitled “Stolen Life.” The plot follows two friends, Vin and Joe, who are caught in a difficult decision. Their friend, Aaron, owes money to dangerous people, and now Vin and Joe are forced to steal a car and bring it to their garage in order to save Aaron’s life. However, after stealing a car and making their way to the garage, Vin and Joe find a young boy suffering from an asthma attack in the backseat. They now must weigh the life of their hoodlum friend that they have known for a long time versus a young boy whom they have only known for a few minutes.

As an editor, I still applied the five step design process to my specific role:

1. Analyze: Before filming began, I sat down with the director and went over the script with him. What were the main themes being portrayed? Where would the editing pace be fast and where would be it slow? How did the director want the tension to come through? As an editor, I needed to understand what the director’s vision was and I was allowed to incorporate some of my own interpretation into the film.

2. Brainstorm: As the film was shot and the footage was brought to me, I analyzed each take to see which was usable for the final cut. I would then sync the external sound with the video to produce editable clips. Each scene was shot multiple times at different angles, and it was up to me where I would make the cut. I would plan out how each scene was cut and where the camera focus would be on.

3. Develop: With the planning done, it was time to open Final Cut Pro and edit all the shots together. As stated in the brainstorming phase, there are multiple way to edit the same scene to get different emotions and feelings. A great example was the scene where Vin and Joe argue over whose life to save – the young boy’s or their captured friend. If they go to save the young boy’s, they would have to be caught by the police and go to jail; however, going right to the garage to save their friend’s life would mean the death of the young boy. Initially, you would think you just cut to each character when they talk; while this is one way to edit the scene, I tried to look at the character’s reactions when the other was talking. As Joe argues his point that they need to leave the kid and go to save their friend, Vin’s horrified reaction is powerful and more visually interesting than looking at Joe talk. You are able to hear his argument anyway, and showing Vin be disgusted to realizing his life would also be over if he was sent to prison illustrates how difficult this moral decision is. Showing Vin's internal sturggles through the reactions on his face, as stated before, is more effective than showing Joe angrily argue at his partner. It is these decisions that help me develop the film and bring forth the themes of what is right and wrong.

Figure 16: Vin (Left) and Joe (Right) Arguing on Whose Life to Save

4. Test: There would be several drafts made of the scenes and they would be shown to the crew and class for critique. Example of feedback included:

• Some scenes dragged on too much (which meant that I had to make shorter and quicker cuts to increase the pace).
• Showing a cut to the kid wheezing in the backseat of the car would help pull at the audience’s ethos in the film.
• The scene seemed too dark at times and needed to be slightly brighter.

5. Improve: Depending on the various notes received, the crew may need to reshoot some scenes or need to get additional shots. Sometimes it would require me to work in post-production on making shorter edits or using color correction to brighten the shots. Once these corrections were made, the crew and I would go back and show the new edited scene to the class to see if there was improvement, These last few steps would continue to be repeated until the final product was created.

Conclusion

Overall, this project turned out to be beneficial in how to work with multiple people in a large film project. The film went on to being one of the official selections in the Penn State Blue & White Film Festival, and continued its success in various film festivals in New York City, Harrisburg, and Ohio. The official website for the film can be viewed at: http://stolenlifemovie.weebly.com/index.html