Editing

In the last week of term we filmed the shots of the video in the woods (see last post) and have attempted to edit them to the audio. (It is strange how I consider the track to be audio rather than 'music') It took us an entire day to 'log and capture' the footage because the computer was being updated, (this time it WAS the technology that held us up, in comparison to when we seemed to waste/spend alot of time trying to find our around Logic. I am still considering whether Carla and I (especially I, having experience with that type of software) are plain stupid or the Logic interface indeed does suck (And it comes with a manual!?)). The following day we were to start editing, unfortuneatly poor Carla was ill but I intended to make a start, after sorting out things like ISP forms and cups of tea I made a start.

Naturally I dived straight in to editing my favourite parts (the hovering legs) then moved around to the sections surrounding the verses. I was hesitant to start editing the dancing sections as I quessed that Carla would have a more valuable aesthetic judgment to editing the dance than me with my mere sound technician background.

The middle 8 shows us in the grandmothers bedroom with wolfy. I am looking forward to seeing what effects (juddery and flickery) would work with this as, (1) the lighting (despite the candles) is bland and, (2) the one camera angle is also bland. The actual scene, beyond these aesthetics, I like- It is pointless and strange, we have no purpose in crawling around the wolf bed and doing strange actions- not even a mischevious one, which is what is expected from the bemused but determined look on our faces (this was not intented when filming, we just found what we were doing amusing but were determined to finish the scene without laughing). The audio just after the middle 8 appears strange when listening back- probably because it just sits there and doesn't modulate or suggest that anything is about to happen (because of this is it a section on its own?) - the middle 8 finishes almost randomly (to no rhythm) and this little section could be said to finish when the sound that increases in frequency comes in. This particular sound we have used in order to link sections together- using the modulating frequency quality of the sounds to suggest modulation from one section to another? (this would be an unconcious judgment and the reason it was chosen was because it sounded good/worked with our intentions). Back to the little static section between this sound and the middle 8, I observed that when editing footage to it there were tiny points that seemed to fit cuts and certain shots that worked with particular sounds (it is my experience that these observations are only made (1) by accident (2) intuition or (3) experience- in editing a previous project or seeing it done in other works) One example I will make is the moving of mine and carla heads when sat together on the bed with the pebbles- from to right the to left, from a previous project I knew that if I put this movement on top of a certain sound that had similar movement (pitch/timbre to time) the viewer would assume one was because of the other/linked. This 'worked' because the sound and image were harmonised. In my opinion, attention to the exact point of cut and the movement of the image to the sound needs further attention in the final edit. I feel that the video looks amateurish because of this disjointed feeling it has- another suggestion I would make to help this problem would be to change the aural landscape between the grandmothers bedroom and the woods, however as it is meant to be a pop video rather than a film this is not appropriate.

The editing I did solo I felt was uninspired , there where a few reasons for this-

• because there were gaps in the timeline there was no sense of continuity I failed to see the 'whole picture' I found that when the sound carried on but the image went to green frustrating
• The aesthetics of the footage I was not pleased with, therefore it was frustrating to edit
• Carla was not there and I hadn't the confidence to make a final edit before she saw it.

The scenes in the wood were dark, the light from the torches produced the brown of the tree trunks and the earth, the reddy orange of our cloaks and the blackness of our surroundings. The result was indeed mysterious and sinister and this completely contrasted to any smiling, like when we leaped into shot after the hovering - smiling looked really bizarre and I liked that. Going back to that shot of us jumping- interestingly it was incredibly important to me that we jumped on the beat, for reasons I do not know! I don't think Carla approved but I had to insist.

The next day Carla was feeling better and we edited the dancing sections. We had alot to choose from in the first verse, we disagreed sometimes and by the end I was completely fed up, mainly because the shots weren't as good as we'd hoped and the experience of filming them was awful in the first place. There were as few shots where there was a huge shadow in the background and we were pleased with them- the shadows created atmosphere and looked effective.

This is only a short review of the editing and I intend to have another (objective) look at the film after the break.

Rushes

Carla and I have completed our filming apart from one shot and are now at the editing stage. The filming went ok- we had a few problems, mainly with lighting. If I was to do the shoots again I would involve more preparation. Like visiting the location and taking a few snaps to get a better idea of whats involved- maybe doing a few test shots at the location, at the correct time of day and in costume just to check the shot worked and to experiment with different lighting effects.




We did one shot at carlas place, and used her bedroom to be the set of the grandmothers house. We had huge lamps to light the room but they were too bright and we wanted it quite dark and shadowy- instead we got all of the candles that carla owns and lit them to form shadows on the bed. We decided to use a trick carla had seen used by david lynch were we would film ourselves doing a scene backwards then reverse it in post-production so that we looked abit strange, we also did quite alot of stop-frame animation, which took hours but the end result worked really well- very juddermanesc!

The second shoot was set in the woods, Carla knew of some woods near her place so we collected all our equipment and costumes to set off. We intended to use the lamps again to light the shoot but were short of a generator, I mustered all of the torches I could find and took about 4 in of which only two would work!!!! Disaster! We set the iris on the camera to the lowest value (F1.6), the shutter speed to as long as we could get away with and the gain to the highest possible setting, anything to let more light in! none the less it was really too dark- the woods were pitch black and the torches formed rings where they shone. In addition our CD player decided to give out in the freezing cold so we had to quess the timings when dancing and mouthing the lyrics. Better preparation should have been done really in the case of the lights and a back up for the CD player should have been brought along. Lesson for next time. The rushes weren't so bad considering and they looked suitably silly as intended.



There is one shot left, which carla is intending to shoot at sunset in the woods so there is enough light to see the landscape (hopefully when there is a full moon! 24th dec), (will form the initial shot which establishes where the film/video is set).

Tomorrow we are going to have a go at editing- we have to choose which takes are the best and where suitable places to cut are. Once the film is edited we still need master the audio and we will perhaps experiment with a performance element to the project (if there is time) in order to do in Jonathons performance with technology elective.