Final idea for editing

After meeting with the producer/director for the documentary and discussing my initial ideas there have been some changes to the final idea of how to edit the documentary. I wasn't sure about the opening of the film as I felt it didn't get the audiences attention straight away and I needed a second opinion to confirm this. I also wasn't sure whether to have the two interviewee's separately shown one after each other or to mix them up, but we have made the decision to use one main interviewee as the focus of the documentary but use the other to back up or contrast on what the main interviewee says.
The producer/director also wanted to add a cardboard feature for the film with statistics written on them about homeless people, I think this is a great idea as it will add more depth to the documentary and I will also use them as a base of what the two interviewee's are going to talk about. 

Inspiration for editing

Another inspiration I have come across is another James Marsh documentary "Project Nim" (2011)

after watching the film I felt that it was a very moving and wonderful piece of work, the editing again like "Man on Wire" (2008) was very simple and easy to watch, but yet affective at capturing mine and the audiences attention. The editing was in control of your emotions as it affectively made you happy, sad and made you laugh at the appropriate times of the documentary. It used still pictures very well in the documentary also. This is what I aim for when editing my documentary, I aim to make it simple and easy on the eye whilst trying to get the audience to engage with the documentary emotionally. 

The original idea - Editing

My initial idea is to open the film with shots of various alleyways, empty streets and busy streets etc and keeping the original atmosphere sounds with them. This is to show to the audience what the living conditions are like for homeless people, I then want to introduce both the interviewee's and have one telling their stories and experiences and then show the other telling theirs. I want to end it on a sad but yet important message or story as it will make the audience realise how lucky they are and how hard it is for the homeless.

Ideas and inspirations for editing

Ideas and inspirations for editing

I haven't had a lot of inspirations from watching several documentaries as I already have a rough idea of how I want it to look, but after watching  "Man on Wire (2008) - James Marsh"

the editing really stuck to me. It was smooth and easy on the eye and didn't complicate anything, which made it very simple for me to understand the documentary's story. This is what I intend to do for my edit of the documentary. 

 

Ediitng screen grabs

Drama project - Editing

Editing the project went well but I came across some difficulties. I am very used to using Finalcut Pro but sometimes it would change,move or even delete some of the shots without me even doing anything, this became very frustrating but I worked around it and had to be precise at wat i was editing. Editing parts of the sound trying to make it work with the video was tedious but eventually it worked out fine. I feel very pleased overall with the final editied drama. But if were to do it again I would have spent more time to make the sounds work better with what the audience are watching.

On the day of the filming we used my house as the location for the main character's house. As I was the editor I gave my opinions and thoughts on where and what the shots could be placed or even look like. I thought it was quite important for me to know and be there when the shots were being filmed as being the editor I had my own ideas for the drama. I also thought that my location for the some of the shots of the drama worked really well with the drama as there are some nice places to film.

Liverpool Documentary - Editing

Here are some screen grabs whilst in the process of editing.

Liverpool Documentary - Images

Here are some images of the locations we visited and filmed in Liverpool on our shoot that Rob took.

This is an abandoned school we found opposite Strawberry Fields.

This was near the beach with Antony Gormley's art on.

This of one of Antony Gormley's many statues.

Another of the beach with Antony Gormley's art.

This is of Bansky's street art.

A view of Liverpool

Another view of Liverpool.

The original script was about a man strgging to live with his OCD. The audience see his everyday dull life until he meets a girl which changes his aspect in life. It was an emotional journey for the main protoganist.

Drama Project - The start.

The initall script was created and I felt that it was a good enough script to work with. It involved the main character struggling to live with OCD. The narrative followed his everday life and showed the struggles he had in his boring everyday life, until he meets a girl which changes his aspect on life. It was originally meant to be an emotional joureny for the main protgonaist.

Documentary: Recording List

Here are all the usable recordings from our shoot in Leverpool. There are the the length of each sound file to make it easier whilst editing. There are also recordings for our backing track.

Beach atmos - 02:17

Distant shouts - 01:37

Road/birds - 00:37

Road/birds 2 - 00:37

Strawbs atmos - 01:39

Traffic - 01:39

Tunnel - 00:37

Tunnel 1 - 01:19

Bird/siren - 01:15

Bird strawb - 00:37

Drone - 01:49

Duck - 01:56

Heater - 00:28

Water atmos - 02:17

Plane/birds - 00:59

Traffic strawb - 00:57

Vox - 06:55

Vox 1 - 02:29

Water :02:28

-Interview

Part1 - 00:16

Part2 - 00:26

Part3 - 00:39

Part4 - 00:20

Part5 - 00:21

Part6 - 00:13

Part7 - 00:13

Sound Design:

 MusicAmbience 1 - 03:13

Ambience 2 - 05:24

Ambience 3 - 03:10

Liverpool Documentary

Filming in Liverpool went very well and was a great place to visit. My role was Sound recorder, I used a Marantz 660 with a omni-directional and shotgun Microphone to record the atmos sounds in the places we visited. I also used a Boom pole connected to the shotgun mic to capture the Vox-pops with. I feel at the time of recording the sounds that it went very well and had no problems recording them, after hearing them back in editing, the vox-pops weren't as clear as they could have been. This was because of two things, one was the fact that because we were on a beach whilst recording, it was therefore quite windy and we could here that in the background, the other was that I didn't hold the microphone close enough to the interviewee's so we had to edit it in soundtrack pro to make the recordings of the vox pops more clear.

Sound Plan - Documentary

Here is the sound plan used for our Liverpool shoot.

Beach Atmos (03:00)

Waves (01:00)

Seagulls (01:00)

Vox Pop Interviews (02:00)

- TunnelsTunnel Atmos (03:00)

Breathing (01:00)

Footsteps (01:00)

Outside Tunnel Atmos (03:00)

Birds (01:00)

- Strawberry FieldField Atmos (03:00)

Traffic (01:00)

- CityCity Atmos (03:00)

Traffic Noise (03:00)

Street Rush (02:00)

Siren (01:00)

Drama project - filming

On the day of the filming we used my house as the location for the main character's house. As I was the editor I gave my opinions and thoughts on where and what the shots could be placed or even look like. I thought it was quite important for me to know and be there when the shots were being filmed as being the editor I had my own ideas for the drama. I also thought that my location for the some of the shots of the drama worked really well with the drama as there are some nice places to film.

Experimental Film

We have changed the initial idea of our Experimental film a few times along the way of creating our film. We initially intended to have the main character having flashbacks of his break up with his partner, and at the time we thought it was a good idea. But as the shooting of the film progressed we decided to change the narrative. We decided to make the film about the character trying to live life without his partner who has died, and have the character visiting all the places that he shared with his partner. Whilst having his partner in the film with him in some scenes to show his struggle to move on, it could be interpreted as his sub conscious is projecting her in his life. We also have flashbacks of when he is with his partner and we have fast cuts back to the present to show the character still thinking he is with his partner. We wanted to create an emotional film where the audience could relate to in a way of loosing someone they have loved or even a partner they miss. Throughout the film the character does not speak as we use music and a poem which Will found to create emotion. The poem is perfect for our piece as it highlights the main aim we are trying to portray in our film. The poem is read by the characters lost partner and it is placed throughout the film in certain places we think makes it more effective, for instance the ending scene which is one of my favourite shot's in the film, is a shot of the flowers the main character has laid down in memory of his lost partner, and the poem relates and quotes about the flowers. Another shot in our film that I really like and think works well is the long shot of the character walking up the flight of stairs on the amphitheatre. I generally like this shot as I think it is well placed and the framing is very nice, I think it works very well when the character's partner walks along and sit's next to him, it is also well lit and when the main character does walk into frame the shadow fits really well with the shot.
The music in our film is another aspect I think works very well, Will and Leon played around with Garage band to create the strange, slow and sad piece of music and I felt it worked well, but the more I listened to it the more I felt it needed something else to add to it. I fiddled around with it to try and add another layer but it just didn't work out and couldn't create another layer that matched the tone of the background music. If I had planned better and took control of the background music I could have created a more effective piece of music, I still think the music that we have works well but I have experience in creating music as It is a hobby of mine and I am very well known to Garage band and other music software's. Another thing I would change is adding more ideas to the project. I feel that I could have taken more time on this project to really think long and hard about what ideas I could give to our film, although I did add some ideas I felt I could have taken the time to really get involved and at times take control of some aspects of the film, for instance the background music.
Overall I think the film that we have created works very well and our aims and intentions are put across, Technically I think we have all improved in filming and as a group we work very well.

Moan - Love

Although this is a very short Experimental film and it is not a well known piece of work, I feel it is very influential for making our Experimental film. The film start's with a still shot of a park mixed with a piece of music which is basic but affective, it then simply has flash images of two couples walking through the park which fade in and out, the couple are placed throughout the park walking and play fighting, constantly fading on screen then out. I felt it outlined the memories you have when you are in love and it gave me ideas for our film too. As we could use a similar technique to create the same kind of effect.