TEXT MESSAGES - 3/21/23

      Over today and last night, I spent over six or seven hours just editing text messages. Now to the naked eye or at least what I thought that this would be, it should be about an hour of editing a couple of simple clips to make some cute text messages for my simple video. Oh, how I was wrong... I knew that this would be something difficult but I did not know that it would be this difficult. 

      Once I was about 3/4 of the way done editing my video I realized that it appeared a bit plain. Not plain as in black, white, and boring; but plain as in it just needed something more and I really liked the idea of these text messages.

      Now originally Taylor was going to pick up her phone and begin playing music in order to concentrate to do her project; however, I decided that the text messages would be a nice way to show how teenagers communicate nowadays, which also relates to my genre of coming of age. This genre generally surrounds teenagers and their addictions to technology.

      I went to YouTube to find a quick tutorial on how to do this. I found that the tutorial was about 3 to 4 minutes long so I assumed that it would be quite easy. NEWSFLASH to anybody reading this... It is NOT easy. Editing is NOT EASY. 

      As I was editing these text messages my dad continuously came out into the living room and repeatedly asked me why it was taking so long to edit, saying how I should be spending my spring break doing something else. You know... I kind of just wanted to do it, which is odd. But, never mind that.

STEP 1

      I began by importing two images. One image was a blue speech bubble, and the other image was a grey speech bubble. Now, in order to change the colors of the speech bubbles to the exact shade I wanted I had to search up the tint effect on Premiere and change the color. I ended up importing four speech bubbles in order to write four little sentences. 

STEP 2

      Three of the sentences were from a new character name Maddie. Now, we’re not going to physically see Maddie throughout the film. She’s simply a character that is friends with Taylor and is annoyed that Taylor yet again is taking forever to complete her assignment. She is concerned that since this is a group project, and she will get a bad grade if Taylor doesn’t pull through. But, just as we all know, Taylor always pulls through even if it is last minute. This may not always be convenient for other people, but sometimes teenagers are like that. 

STEP 3

      Once I changed the tint of the speech bubbles, I made sure that instead of having the clips "fit" on my screen, I change fit to either 100% or 200% just so that I can get the fine details of the text bubble. Next, I change the focus of the text bubble to the corner in which it’s coming from rather than the middle. This will help me with the transitions that I use in the future. 

STEP 4

      My next step is to add some more effects to the bubbles by creating three different keyframes in which the bubble goes from zero which means we can’t see it and then at the end to a said number like 100 and then the middle keyframe would be a number like 105 so that it has the effect that a text message word when it comes in pops into your phone. For the middle keyframe, I also right-clicked and selected "ease in."

STEP 5

      Next, on the text placed within that speech bubble, I add the cross-dissolve effect. Then I add another piece of text, which goes above the message which states who is coming from (in this case Maddie) along with the day of the week, which is Tuesday, and the time. There are three different times because Maddie texted Taylor at three different points of the day and Taylor clearly does not respond until right now. 

STEP 6

      I repeat this process until I’ve done all four of the speech bubbles now at the end of the speech bubbles timeframe, I make them all have the transitioning out with the effect "push." Once I add in the sound, this transition will occur once she sends the message almost like she sent a message out of the frame, which she quite literally is.

I’ll talk to you guys later. Signing off!

- Amanda Margulies