EDITING THE SEQUENCE: PART 1

 Editing the Sequence: Part 1.

The first thing we did was review the footage we shot, naming the files that we wanted to use by their angle and action. This was to make the process smoother for us so that we could easily access what we needed to later on. Overall, this was relatively smooth; we were extremely happy with our footage and there were no continuity errors (that couldn't be hidden). Each shot was beautiful and the pans were smooth which made it rather difficult to choose between the takes!

After that, I began to book in slots in the editing suite outside of class as we still had a lot of work left to do with only 6 lessons left to do it in. For the first couple of slots, I was the main editor due to the nature of my timetable; in these slots I picked out the last of the footage and finished off cutting the clips and placing them in narrative order on the timeline. Out of all the different editing processes, this was arguably the longest one as I had to decide between takes based upon the smallest detail (such as where Ezra holds his hand when he is walking towards the woman, or where his eyes flick to when holding up the beaker to the camera), watching them over and over again to look out for what provided more substance to our sequence.

In regard to the fixable continuity issues mentioned earlier, we noticed two things: firstly, in the shot from within the storage cupboard of Ezra walking in, a fire escape sign could be seen above the door. To fix this, I simply cropped the video. Secondly and similarly, in the shot of the belt against Susannah's neck, her arm could be seen pulling it behind her. Again, to fix this, I cropped the video.

We also later added a black letterbox to our sequence, and again adjusted the clips by cropping/positioning accordingly. 

Throughout our lessons, Lila and I also browsed possible soundtracks; we all agreed that we wanted a cello solo classical piece. To find this, I went through pieces that I knew (as I have a classical musical background) and different playlists on Spotify. We eventually settled on Bach's Cello Suite No.5 in C Minor, BWV 1011: V. Gavotte. This was because it was melodic yet sinister, and wasn't too distracting from the sequence. To test it out before downloading it, we played it whilst watching over our cut. For the sound effects/soundscaping for the woman's reveal, we reversed a piano glissando, downloaded fizzing/drone sound effects off the internet and I recorded pouring water into a funnel into my mouth through voice notes at home (including some choking!) Luckily, Matthew is a music technology student so he had a software installed to mix the sounds together, and he also added heavy beats in time to the scene changes. We imported all of this from Matthew's laptop with his USB stick.

Below are the voice notes that I recorded (WARNING THAT THERE ARE REAL CHOKING/GAGGING SOUNDS). Though comedic when listening to them, we did in fact use the second take as it was as realistic as it was going to get. I did struggle to film these as I had not intended to choke on anything and had underestimated how quickly the liquid would go into my mouth. However, I am glad that I did this as it solved a big problem we had when finding audio clips.

Overall, though our narrative structure did not change, we did make some alterations to the intention that we had in mind when filming. The first major change was continuity; once we had placed all the cut clips together, we realised that we were 2 minutes over the time limit. To fix this, we did not focus on continuity (we could afford to do this as our sequence was revolved around titles) and instead cut out unnecessary clips that we had for continuity reasons (such as the shot from the doll's head, and the panning of all the berries after being cut). We also cut out the beginning and end of shots to get as close to the time limit as possible. This gave our sequence a montage effect, which worked quite well with the sound track. 

To still retain tension, we left the extreme close up of the fizzing within the beaker as the longest shot as we wanted to allow time for our pleonastic non diegetic sound effect of acid and for more titles to appear to cut out the music. This, in our eyes, crafted the sense that something was about to go wrong due to the sudden shift in tone, and added suspension as it would hopefully leave the viewer wondering as to why there is an interruption and what the liquid actually is.

Another key choice we made to create tension was having small interjections of the man's face, revealing him through short, intimate bursts to match that of the thriller genre convention. This not only provided contrast in our sequence, but also kept the man a mystery, encouraging the viewer to continue watching.