HtH126 – Video Editing With Piaccta and House
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Piaccta and House discuss video editing together.
"Hmm hmm! How's this for a thought? >The real Coretta Kelly has not appeared since the invasion of Super Earth! The ones we are seeing on Super-TV now are replacements! #NotMyCorettaKelly!"
Piaccta and House are seating in front of an array of yellow-tinted computer screens. The girls were loaded with an excess of livestream footage, and they were using this time to sort them out. House's hands move with swiftness from one floating keyboard to the next, dragging unedited clips from one timeline and snapping them to the next.
By contrast, Piaccta is editing the clips on her side much slower. She is looking over the all the clips taken while on the planet Seasse with intense concentration; as if even going through a single clip took immense strain on her.
Still, she looks through them with great diligence while her Hxlldiving friend yaps behind her,
"And there's another thing! The whole DSS movement thing is a gigantic Dxad Spacx reference! Nxcromorphs aboard MY gigantic space station?!?! It's more likely than you think!"
Piaccta barely understands half of what the purple-haired girl is saying. Perhaps that was for the best. House bandies about the newly acquired helmet from finishing the major order above her head, moving about in a circle around her head it was a part of some strange summoning ritual.
Piaccta can barely tell one explosive effect from another, much less if it were good. It seems that House is just lapsidically pulling in clips of portable Hellbombs exploding, a FRV taking a tiny bump into a tree and resulting in a gigantic explosion, and then right back to her emoting with the SEAF at extraction. By contrast, Piaccta struggles to find 'interesting' clips. They all seem to resemble each other with little pull for her to drag one into the timeline. When she does, she almost immediately deletes it, and the search starts up again.
"Ehhh...!" House shakes Piaccta's shoulders from behind, "You're looping at the beginning again!"
Piaccta leans back in her chair to face her,
(pausing) "That sounds like a good thing, Miss. Incognito. Can I ask you something?"
"But my name is House!"
Piaccta blinks, but does not flinch.
She knows she is right.
"I’ve been thinking, and I want to know, why are you helping me with the video editing?"
"Why, you ask?" House tosses the helmet behind her, landing on a small mountain of empty ammo boxes. "Because you are the first person I met on this continent who actually plays this game! The blue-hair doesn't count, she's not even from here! She's not Vespanol, like us!"
Piaccta's mind lingers a little on the 'blue-hair' remark, but she remembers. Minara has pulled them into many Hxlldivxr lobbies across the galaxy. It was something that was difficult to forget--- the image of Minara flying through the air whenever an explosion lands near her.
The image makes her smile, and become a little sad at the same time.
There is long silence, then,
As if to distract herself from those thoughts, she moves her eyes to the unfinished work before her. It seems like such a daunting task, putting together a coherent story from bits and fragments of nothing. While she had experienced a lot while Hxlldiving, she wasn't sure if it all was interesting at all, or could even form a coherent plot that this video editing task demanded--- much less one that was impactful.
House's earlier advice of 'just put in whatever makes you happy' didn't seem to apply much here.
(thinking) "I’m a little doubtful about myself. I don’t know if I can do this."
"The editing? No problem, no problem, I'll let you copy MY homework if you want!"
"--- Piaccta wants to try for herself." She interrupts House immediately. "There's just too much to take in at once, motivations, plot, feeling, impact, vividness, obstacles, conflicts, resolutions, tone, mood, characters..."
Piaccta starts listing off a whole list of things she understands about storymaking, but for some reason, she cannot feel. However, she still stops short of telling House that. It is not something that House can understand.
And perhaps, it was this very perceivable gap that makes the mischievous girl cackle so much, holding her stomach.
"Well, Piaccta, I DO know you wanted to become a 'galactical warrior'! But what are the things that this galactical warrior values?"
"Sacrifice, duty, sacrifice."
"Ehehehe! You said sacrifice twice! So that must be important to our galactical warrior!"
Piaccta nods, House draws up a new editing timeline in the air. Words start spilling out of her mouth once more, "War is hard. I want the warrior to be conflicted about their actions and the cost of their mission."
"I think I know where this goes! Lookee here, a clip of you laying anti-personal mines while running away! We gotta get a shot of M1 stepping on those mines because she REFUSES to use a Warp Pack like the rest of us normal divers!"
(nodding) "Yes, that’s exactly how I’d like it to be. I want the warrior to be a complex character, both in terms of their inner turmoil and their motivations."
House appends another clip of M1 running up a slope while catching the stray end of Rover's laser.
Piaccta observes as House pulls up clips from recent missions with seemingly perfect memory. The clips snap in place perfectly, the girl now scrolling through a list of filters, looking for something eye-catching for that sweet retention ratio;
"Anything else, Piaccta?"
(thinking) "I can’t think of anything specific, but I’ll do my best to weave a story that resonates with the warrior in me. But, Miss House, can you also guide me on how to handle the emotions and motivations that come with being a warrior?"
House leans back in the chair, its spine bending like a winded catapult.
Looking to Piaccta, from an upside down position,"Ehhhh, what do you mean by that?"
"Maybe I can’t quite imagine what it’s like to be in your shoes, but I know there are times when it’s hard not to feel something."
"Not feel something? Hmm, but I DO think you all do feel something, but somehow you have convinced yourselves not to!" House spins around in her chair while leaned back, "Otherwise, how are you having this conversation with me? Do these doubts come out of nowhere, ehehehe?"
Piaccta does not reply for a couple of spins.
Righting herself, House continues,
"You all say that, but I don't believe it! Final touch for this clip! If you overcame all your doubts, what is your motivation for being a galactical warrior??"
Almost immediately, Piaccta replies without hesitating,
"I’m not just here to learn how to fight and protect. I want to prove that I can do this."
House nods, understanding.
When Piaccta says those lines, it is as if she understood something about herself as well.
Piaccta takes in a deep breath, feeling a renewed sense of confidence.
A small spark had returned to the girl,
"I believe in myself, and I’m ready to prove it."
The girl replays the clip-in-progress in full. Then, she makes one tiny change, herself.
We are trying something different! This is a simul-posting at the same time as the Scribblehub release! Go check out the entire series at this link!
