Behind the Scenes: Belladonna Cove | Episode 9.2

Geoff looking pretty stoic after kissing Katy.

I haven't mentioned this before, occasionally there's a weird glitch in my footage. The game audio and my narration (recorded in separate files) are fine, but the video lags and stutters. It's so bad I immediately toss the footage. Luckily, I record footage in small files, so if a file is lagging and stuttering, I don't lose practically the whole episode. I'm mentioning this because I lost footage in this episode.

It happened when Geoff started flirting with Chastity - I queued three flirtatious actions. Chastity accepted the first action, developed a crush on Geoff, and then it was with the second action (I think it was the second) that Chastity rejected Geoff's advances. And lost her crush. Of course, I cackled and stated that that was the shortest crush ever in the history of Belladonna Cove. But I was determined to have some progress and immediately fixed the relationship. Geoff initiated an innocent conversation, made her laugh, and then it was all good! 

Chastity losing her crush …

Chastity quickly regaining her crush ...

Now, I've discussed the editing process before, mostly in the blog post for episode 2.3. Lately, I ended up with just over an hour of footage for every episode, which takes me from early morning to late afternoon to edit. For this episode, I had about an hour and forty minutes of footage to work through, and that took me more than a day to finalise. It does eventually get tiring, both for my head (staring at a computer screen for too long makes me feel weird) and my eyes (I wear glasses). Also, when I'm near the end of editing, I just want it all to be done!

This episode was originally going to be 43 minutes long, though I honestly prefer the length of an episode to sit at about 30 minutes. I removed unimportant moments like Connor chatting online with Lana Christensen (he has one bolt of chemistry with her, but also, she's a redhead and I really want him to meet a lovely dark-haired lady - it's what he wants!) and Geoff entertaining Isabel Baldwin after he made his purchases. 

Connor after speaking to Lana Christensen for the first time …

Geoff and Isabel Baldwin in Freya's Raiments.

I do like little moments. Unexpected moments. Quiet moments. But sometimes certain moments aren't important and so they're tossed.