May 13, 2011 - Staying Focused

Last night, I previewed a short 5-10 minute section to someone, and I did not get the reaction I had hoped for.  When I am editing, I need to be sure that I edit as if I never went to China and don't know anything that happened.  That is where I had the problem, I made a section that I thought was funny earlier in the day, then after I had significantly less energy and less interest, I realized that the section was not really that funny.  It was too long, and it lost my attention.  So today's goal was to watch everything I had to see if I had similar problems.  I encountered a lot more of those situations than I should have.  I also will be narrating this film, so even though there is nothing absolutely key, or very entertaining/interesting to watch, there will be something said that could hook the interest of people.  Since the narration comes much later on in the post-production process, this imagination of what will be said needs to be written down, and timed up to save time, and truly see where this movie is going.  I am still going full speed and being very meticulous with my work, I just need to make sure I get things right the first time.  Getting closer and closer to the final screening means there is less time for redo's, so avoiding them completely will be my best bet at completing this project prior to the deadline (which is a necessity if I want to make a professional looking DVD for each of the 43 people that went on this trip).  I have edited for 22 hours so far this week, I logged in 4 hours and 10 minutes today.  Keep checking in to see where I am in the editing process of this monster project!