The ham's big. It's the movie that got small.

To kick off our Three-Minute Masterpiece digital movie contest, we asked Brangien Davis to create her own short movie. This is the second of three installments in her filmmaking saga.

Last week, the first installment of my adventures in moviemaking ended with the disappointing news that after capturing a smorgasbord of exciting ham footage, I was unable to extract it from the camera.

On the off chance that you find the phrase "smorgasbord of exciting ham footage" perplexing, let me back up a bit. I was asked to film a sample movie for The Seattle Times' "Three Minute Masterpiece" contest and write about my experience as a novice (and clueless) filmmaker.

The topic I chose was ham. More specifically, I chose to document the struggles of a long-term vegetarian who suddenly feels an intense yen for ham. It's a true story, based on my own recent longing for salty pink delicious and nothing-like-tofu ham. To avoid spoilers, that's all I'll say here, but I trust you can already sense the cinematic tour de force in the works.

Now, back to that cliffhanger ending. Everyone can heave a sigh of relief knowing that the priceless footage was finally saved, though not without an epic struggle.

(Note to Mac users: Avoid the Canon DC10 camcorder! Though it comes with a Macintosh installation CD, it is in no way compatible with Macintosh. Run away! Run away! Or, as I was chided, "If you're working with a Mac, it's Sony, Sony, Sony.")

What about the lowest level?

Luckily, I had Sandy Cioffi on my side. A documentary filmmaker and professor in the Film/Video program at Seattle Central Community College, Cioffi is also an A/V genius. After begging for assistance, I went to her office, where she spent a great deal of time plugging and unplugging important-looking cords into important-looking sockets, employing a mysterious box called a converter deck and cursing my cute but useless camcorder.

My role was to stand nearby and ask, every 15 minutes or so, "Should I start crying yet?"

Crisis (and crying) eventually averted, my footage was loaded into Apple's iMovie, and I was ready to begin editing. I had procured a few editing tips from Cioffi, one of which was, "At the highest level of proficiency, anything can go wrong." (Thinking of my own proficiency, I wondered, "What about at the lowest level?")

Other amateur filmmakers had warned that the editing process takes a long time. These folks often repeated the admonition ("No, I mean really, a long time") as if I hadn't been paying sufficient attention. I also noticed that when recalling the editing process, these faces assumed the blinking-and-dumbstruck aura of someone who's just stumbled out of the DMV and back into daylight.

Editing wonderland

Brushing these cautionary tales aside, I dove into editing with gusto. After all, as with most directors, I was counting on the editing to save my movie. At different points during the filming process, my cinematographer or I would say, "That'll get fixed in editing." We said it a lot, especially for two people who had never done a scrap of film editing between them. It was as if "editing" were the name of some enchanted wonderland, where all errors disappear and sins are absolved and the tax forms are made of chocolate.

But it turns out the magical land of editing can't do squat with jiggly camera takes, obscuring shadows, a director who is acting though she has no business doing so or, perhaps most notably, a poorly thought-through storyline. (In other breaking news, that whole Tooth Fairy thing is a sham.)

It was obvious that as the climax, the supersized ham sandwich needed to be at the ending. But other than that, I didn't have many organizing principles. As I sat at my computer, contemplating whether to put the shot of the rows of deli hams before the ham art, or after the trashing of the hummus, I thought, it sure would be cool if I had written something down beforehand — some document in which I sketched out how I thought this movie should proceed. Something that would guide the shooting and ensure I filmed only relevant footage. Something like, maybe, a board, with the story on it.

A storyboard. Certainly, I'd heard this word bandied about in artsy circles. I even talked about making one back at the beginning of the project, but I did so mostly in jest, saying, "Yeah, sure, I'll put it in the storyboard," and using my fingers to make exaggerated and ironic air quotes around the word "storyboard."

This was stupid. And editing couldn't fix it. So I decided to take a little break from working on the meat of the ham movie and instead finalize my title sequence. I figured that still counted as editing. Didn't it?

IMovie has all sorts of cool fonts for titles and credits — there are typeface letters, elegant letters, fat letters, funny letters and many more. On top of that, the words can fade into the frame softly, spin in like thrown newspapers or swoop in like crazed birds of prey. I began trying all possible combinations to see what looked best.

One hour later, I was still searching for the title treatment that most resembled words falling onto the screen like thick slices of ham onto a plate. For some reason that wasn't included in the software, but I had no intention of giving up, because that meant I'd have to get back to my storyboard-less editing. Perhaps this was the "really long time" the other filmmakers had referenced? I wasn't sure, but I knew I still had to create my credit reel, and there were miles of fonts to go.

Tune in next Sunday to see if the editing ever stops! And to see the final product!

Brangien Davis: brangiendavis@yahoo.com