Behind the Scenes: Belladonna Cove | Season 2, Episode 1.3

Jessica taking her sausages to the grill.

When I edit an episode, I have to decide what's important and what isn't. Sometimes, I only have to remove the trivial moments - like a sim moving from floor to floor and I have nothing important to say - and then the episode is pretty much done. This only happens when I'm playing with a household that consists of one or two sims. A small household will produce about 40 minutes of footage (this is for 2 sim days), which makes editing so much more easier because I'm always aiming for a final video length of 30 minutes.

When I have more than an hour of footage, it takes much longer for me to edit everything. I do a rough edit. Then clean up the episode - better transitions, removing unnecessary moments, making everything tighter. Then I render the episode and I ask myself questions: is this important, is that important? I had to do exactly that when I was editing the hour long footage of this episode. After I cleaned up the episode, I had 32 minutes of footage, but I felt I could trim it even more.

Initially, I kept a moment concerning 1) Tara and then a moment about 2) the first fall of snow. 

1. Jessica and Carlos went to the park. Tara was there. She walked up to the stage, but soon turned around and walked away. She acknowledged Jessica and Carlos as she left.
2. Later, back at Jessica's mobile home, I realised that it was snowing. I mentioned that the snow was pretty and that I have a default replacement for the snow.

Tara DeBateau acknowledging Jessica and Carlos ...

The first snowfall for the series ...

But I removed both moments. They were short, they were trivial, so they were tossed.

The first anniversary of this Belladonna Cove series is coming up. I've looked at some of the older episodes and I feel that my editing choices and playing style has changed. The type of transitions that I use, when I use the transitions, how I film footage, how often I pause in the game, and soon and so forth. The list goes on. I only hope that I've improved, and that I continue to make the right choices. Belladonna Cove is my baby and I hope I'll treat it right.