Selecting Best Takes

After organizing all of our footage for The Boss's Shadow, the next step in the editing process was selecting the best takes for each scene. During the filming we recorded multiple versions of several shots to make sure we had options when editing. This is important because even if a take seemed good while filming, watching it later sometimes reveals small issues like shaky framing, background noise, or awkward pacing.

Going through every clip allowed us to compare the performances and decided which versions helped the story the most.

When selecting takes, one of the biggest things we looked at was the acting performances. Since our film relies on dialogue to establish the conflict between the characters, the delivery of each line needed to feel believable. 

For example, during the diner scene where Joey assigns the task to get rid of the body, we looked for the take where the conversation felt the most natural. Joey needed to appear confident and in control because he is the boss, while Jake and Lucas should seem more cautious.

This was the hardest part of recording because no one in our film crew are actors, and it was harder to stay serious in some situations due to all of our friendships. We tried our best to keep it professional and hold it together when shooting scenes, in some scenes you can see the little parts when the actors start to get unserious, luckily I think we are able to cut, or edit some of those parts out.

Another important factor when choosing takes was the quality of the camera movement. Since we filmed with a Sony a6400 and a gimbal, many of our shots were stable and smooth, but some takes were still better then others and we ran into some technical errors with the gimbal we had to resolve.

We focused on selecting clips where:

- The camera remained steady

- The framing clearly showed the characters

- Movement felt cinematic and natural.

Because dialogue is important in our opening sequence, we also paid attention to which clips had the clearest audio. Background nose from cars or wind could make a certain take harder to understand.

Whenever possible, we selected clips where the dialogue was easiest to hear so the audience could understand the story