For my final project, I finally have the interview footage which I shot this Monday and numerous shots of the store which was taken from three different days that I was there. I tried to shoot as much store scenes as possible so I have a lot of materials to work with, but with the interview it was really just a one-time thing. The interview footage was to be honest not the best in terms of framing and sound. I should’ve done a better job at composing the frame of the shot, however the subject was really busy so I felt really rushed and didn’t spend more time trying to make it perfect. The place was also quite noisy, despite it was their break time. We filmed the interview at their quietest spot but since the rooms are not fully enclosed, we can still hear cooking noise and chatters from the other parts of the building.

With editing, since I was most concerned with the quality of the audio, I tried to fix it as much as I could. I watched numerous tutorials on how to remove background noise and finally experimented on Adobe Audition as well as on Premiere. Because the background noise was much worse and varied than a simple monotonous buzz or hum, editing could only remove so much noise, however it did sound much better and the vocal was clearer.

The interview footage was also pretty long, there was a total of 20 minutes of her talking so I had to cut it down a lot, nitpicking points that should be included into a 4-5 minutes video. That’s a lot of re-watching the video, lol. Anyhow, Kim suggested to really squeeze it down to about 3 minutes, and implement other visuals and scenes (eg. split-screen montage) rather than having the film completely dominated by the person talking. I did plan to include some observational shots in between the talking, but I definitely didn’t think of implementing creative and fun things into the film like Kim suggested which I find will be interesting to try.

At this stage, I have cut down most of the interviewing. What’s left to do is definitely to have a look at the shots that I have shot and choose what to include, look for music that will complement the film, find relevant archival footage. I think editing is really exciting as it is such an unpredictable process yet one that I have the most control of, so I hope to just experiment in assembling all the pieces into one coherent and polished piece.