BY PAMELA JO BOWMAN, MESA ARIZONA — We are so close I can hardly sit still!
I began the week by going through the entire movie … again … and listing all of the things that just have to be fixed or changed. It’s all the nitty gritty stuff that makes the final film more finished, more polished. This is a tad frustrating because once again we have limited clips to pull the scenes from and we have even fewer scenes to create the transitions from one day to another, one locale to another.
Today, I learned some cool Adobe After Effects tricks. If you look at the photo above, you can see how I turned a clip that was shot at high noon and made it look like it was shot at night (I lightened the night shot up a little so you can see it). I learned how to add lights that were emanating from the houses and street lights reflecting on the buildings. One clip even has moving cars! Do you have any idea how hard it is to make a moving car all of a sudden have its headlights on while it is traveling down a darkened road? Well let me tell you, it is harder than I want it to be but a whole lot easier than flying back to Lusaka to get the shot at night! After Affects is amazing fun! Tomorrow, we remove objects (like tape or extension cords) from scenes that were not supposed to be there.
I have another exciting task for tomorrow. I start laying down the subtitles. Not really looking forward to that, but someone’s got to do it! My plan is to have them written by Friday. That is my plan and I am sticking to it!
We will be mailing this puppy out to three major festivals (including Cannes) in about a week. It is as ready as it can get! No time to sit still now! Good thing because I can’t.