“The Barrier” - Halfway There?

I didn’t accomplish much on “The Barrier” this week, but I did pass the halfway mark. Although, halfway done the initial version isn’t halfway to a completed movie.

I worked on one old scene and started three new ones.

Old Scene

The old scene was where Arthur tells Dennis about the transportation model review. This had been the longest scene I’d done so far at 2:49. For the most part the changes were to the camera angles. The original version had some very poor shots, where you couldn’t see the characters. I made some minor changes to the dialogue and I added about 3 seconds to the scene.

I’d like to go back later and add some more emotions and gestures. That said, it doesn’t look too bad as it is.

New Scenes

I created one very short scene (29 seconds) where Arthur sees a woman who smiles at him on the street. I plan to bring her back in some later scenes and make her part of a small subplot.

I created a scene between Arthur and Ishita that sets up a scene I did last week between them and Brandon. I’d skipped over it previously because I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to happen in the scene. An idea came to me this week and allowed me to get this done.

The last scene I worked on is actually part of a long scene that I broke up into three scenes to make it easier to handle. It is a scene where Arthur takes his barrier project to a public meeting. The first part of the scene is a conversation between Arthur and Ling, as they get set up for the meeting. Two of the three scenes come directly from the short story I wrote.

This “big scene” will be a technical challenge. I want there to be posters on the walls behind the characters, but Xtranormal can’t accommodate that with any of the sets I’ve checked. I have an idea about how to use Premiere Pro to work around that. It will involve a lot of green screen and compositing.

Movie Length

The total run time of the scenes I’ve done is 49 minutes and 49 seconds. I have completed versions of 31 of the 61 scenes I have planned. That puts me at 51 per cent complete.

The average scene length stands at 1:36. If I maintain that average scene length, the final run time will be 98 minutes. Of course, once I start to edit the scenes together, I expect I’ll lose some of that to transitions and trims.

My guess is that would be a reduction of between ten and fifteen per cent, which would give me an 85-minute movie. Titles and credits might add a bit, but I won’t need much in the way of credits for this movie.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog