8/2/22 - Editing

Assembly:

Today I worked on editing my film, putting the scenes together in an order that I think works well, and also working on the audio. I will spend tomorrow correcting colour and grading work, but I want the assembly of clips and audio to be as good as it can be before I start doing that.

Because I want the main focus of this film to be the narrative, it is important that the order and tempo of my film is perfect, so I spent a long time trying to work out the best way to create the effect I wanted.

My film works with both slow shots of my character, and still shots of his house. This way, when the still shots come up it can give my audience a time to reflect on what they have already watched, and focus on up close details of the post-it notes around his house.

The assembly of the clips I didn’t find that difficult, as I already had my storyboard so I knew how I wanted the final product to roughly look, However I did play around with different lengths of clips/rearrangements, to see how that could effect the audience.

As you can see from the screenshot below, I have used a slow, long clip in-between two shots of stills from his house.

Screenshot of the editing behind my film.

The biggest trouble I have come across with trying to make the order of these clips right, is how I’m going to portray my character repeating the orders on the post-it notes. I need it to be understood well that he keeps reading the “drink more water” post-it note and doesn’t realise he has already done it.

Screenshot of the editing behind my film.

I have decided to put it at the very end, as I want the audience to watch my film thinking that these post-it notes are giving him order in his life, and are a good thing, but only at the end realise they are actually more of an inconvenience than helpful. Putting it at the end also means that my audience are left thinking about the effects of dementia and AD, meaning it has a longer lasting impact.

I have also included a pause before these scenes, to emphasise that this is an important thing to realise. It is also to allow the audience to think about the last clip of him laughing at the TV, and then cut to him keep repeating things. By doing this I think it makes more of an effect, which is the main goal.

Audio:

Audio has always been something that I have found hardest to get right when editing films, and because my film has no dialogue, the audio is just as important for telling he story. I wanted to have the same idea as The Father, which features classical operatic music that Anthony himself is listening to in the film.

I had a look through lots of different audios on royalty free websites and came across a few that I thought could be used. So I played them in the background while watching my film back, and I realised that maybe the operatic audio was a bit too upbeat and powerful for my clips.

However, there was one audio in particular that I thought could be effective. I want the film to be sad, but not slow-piano-crying-your-eyes-out type sad, more just telling a story of an old man living his life.

I had to turn down the volume of the audio a bit, as i also wanted you to be able to hear the original audio in the videos, and not have it completely drowned out by the soundtrack.

Screen shot of the audio in my film

The audio plays throughout the whole film, but stops just before the pause where my character starts to repeat himself.

This was more of a lucky accident as the audio was too short to fit my whole film, but I think it creates a really nice effect, as the audience will no longer have their attention focused on the audio, so will be drawn to the story told through the clips. This will add a realness to the end of the film, and will hopefully connect with the audience more.

Overall I am happy so far with the way my film looks, and I think I am ready to move onto editing the colour.

(Below are links to the audios I thought would work well, the bottom one being my final choice that i ended up using.)

References:

Meydän, Chosic, Story 03:18, Available at: https://www.chosic.com/download-audio/30336/ (Accessed 8/2/22)

Monplaisir, Chosic, Action 03:10, Available at: https://www.chosic.com/download-audio/24303/ (Accessed 8/2/22)

Rodgers, L, Chosic, On Questions of Responsibility (Act II), Available at: https://www.chosic.com/download-audio/24845/ (Accessed 8/2/22)