“The Barrier” Version 0.6 Now On-line

I created a new version of “The Barrier” this week and posted it to YouTube. I made several changes to the first two scenes. Next week I plan to move on to a new project, or do some of the house work I’ve neglected.

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Scene 1

ArthurScared

I only made a few minor changes to the previous version of scene 1. I added some more cuts after the car passes the truck to give a more frenzied impression of what happens. Since I planned to use this version to replace part of the previous version of “The Barrier”, I used the same artificial voice from before, rather than my own voice. That voice is a little slower than mine, so I had to extend the background shot a bit.

I am sure that there is a lot more that I can do with this scene to make it better. However, I decided to call it done for now. I plan to redo the entire movie with real actors for the voices, and will have another chance to revisit the scene then. It is easier to see opportunities for improvement when you’ve had time to create some distance.

Scene 2

ArthurWalks

In the records I keep for the movie, I call the second scene 1.5. It is a fairly simple scene, so I decided that as long as I planned to revise the movie on-line, it would be an easy addition.

In the original version of the scene a woman passes Arthur on the street. She smiles at him, but he is caught up in his own thoughts and doesn’t notice her. Someone thought that she was a prostitute, which is not what I intended. I wanted to revise the scene so that people wouldn’t see it that way.

I had the woman sit at a table outside a coffee shop with a third character that I added. The two women are talking, although I don’t actually have them talk, just gesture at each other. When Arthur walks by, the woman glances at him, then turns back to smile at him. As in the original version, Arthur doesn’t notice her.

Version 0.6

When I uploaded version 0.5, it took something like 14 hours to finish! I didn’t want to do that this time, so I took advantage of YouTube’s on-line video editor. I combined the first two scenes and a short piece of the third scene, and uploaded the combined video. Then I used the editor to cut off the first two scenes from version 0.5 and add in the revised scenes.

I never used the on-line editor before and I found it difficult to work with. It didn’t seem to have precision I wanted, although, that could just be my inexperience. I wanted to cut at the end of the short piece of scene 3 that I uploaded.

I fiddled with the cut for a long time. I couldn’t see any way to test it, except to create the whole movie, which took many hours to generate. Fortunately it turned out OK. I can see a slight glitch a few seconds into the third scene, but I think most people wouldn’t notice it. If I had managed to cut out one or two frames more, it would have worked just fine.

I don’t plan to do much in the way of promotion for this version. I want to save that for the “final” version I plan to do. I will leave this project until the new version of Xtranormal becomes available.

I have a bunch of unfinished projects I could work on next. “My Most Difficult Case” has been hanging over me for far too long. I would like to get it out of the way, so I can move on to other things with a clear conscience.

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