In this week’s class Chloe and I showed our work in progress for the second time round. Because we are working on one documentary together, we split all the footage into different sections in which we are completing separately, then a few days before the documentary is due we will put all of our parts together and edit it. So in today’s class we showed all of our parts that we have done so far.
The general reaction from the class was good which we were happy about. Obviously what we showed was very rough so there are a lot of improvements that need to be made.
Kim made a comment which was to pretty much eliminate all the B-roll footage that was not shot on a tri-pod because on the big screen the shakiness becomes incredibly obvious. After the class I did so and already noticed how much more professional the entire documentary looks once we removed and replaced any shaky footage. In the end, this will just make our documentary look a whole lot more sleek which also reflects the vibe and aesthetic that we are hoping to achieve. I am very glad that we did not hold back on shooting all of the art twice, as this problem was easily fixed.
Moreover, Kim also mentioned that our opening sequence should be replaced with the sequence of the curator giving a walking tour of the exhibition. She said this worked well because Ivan firstly introduces the artists and then goes on to a more in-depth explanation about the importance of political art and how these artists portray this topic. What we initially chose as our opening sequence was “too close too soon,” and for a short documentary is a bit hard to do. Ivan’s sequence gives a good and engaging overview, so I think we will definitely make that our opening. Overall, Kim said we need to rearrange the structure and also think about structuring it in a way that does not recognise that Tony has not been interviewed, for example, including more head shots of Tony and more explanation about specifically Tony’s work.
Someone also asked if we planned on having title-cards which we are, which will also help to structure the entire video without leaving any other the viewers confused as to who is who and how and why they relate to the exhibition.
Another comment made by one of the students was that there was a moment where the lighting changes in the interview with Mark as we moves slightly. However, when Chloe and I went down to the editing suits after class we fixed this by making the previous shot slightly longer so that the shot where the lighting changes was cut out. What I learnt from this comment was that it is very important to look at the project on a number of different screens and to watch the project a few times whilst concentrating on one thing at a time with each viewing. It is these smaller things that when fixed, sharped up the entire documentary and will get us those extra marks.
Furthermore, Jeremy made some remarks about the B-roll and said that some shots worked better than other’s and that there was a bit of repetition. He also said we need the B-roll to reflect what the artists are saying as some of the B-roll is a bit random. I definitely agreed with this after realising that Chloe and I were using similar shots, however this is easy to fix as we have more than enough footage. Obviously we do not want to have overlapping shots as we want to make our documentary dynamic and unique throughout, whilst showing off our cinematography skills. In addition, Jeremey also said our entire video is too abrupt and doesn’t look very harmonious. That is very fair to say as this stage of our process, however after balancing the audio and fixing loose ends, hopefully our video will have a cohesive structure which makes sense however is not too noticeable.
We had some very constructive feedback so this process was very helpful and hopefully after another week of editing our film will flow seamlessly, have a good structure, be punchier and generally more engaging.