Reaction

So I finished the edit last week and my first viewer was David. I wanted him to see it first, I suppose, for a little security. He has really been involved in the whole project but at the same time has always been able to stand back and see the larger picture. Quite the feat. So I wanted to test the new edit with him first, so that I could make some changes.
This was my first view of the edit now complete, with some shape.
I was still struggling with the club/bar scene. I just could not make this work, no matter how many tricks I tried. David thought I was trying too hard, that what I had achieved was competence primarily because I was trying to make it into something at odds with my own sensibility. I had to admit that whereas it has always been a struggle to find my voice during this project I was at least always singing alone. Now I had all the worlds music videos crowding into my thoughts - how do you escape? So, taking his advice, I simplified, reminded myself what I was trying to achieve with this scene, a mood, and re-cut on the weekend.
I have been thinking of the shape of the film. It has been broken into three segments purely for practical reasons. Now I realised that there other more natural structures arising. The first part of the film ends just when Claire decides to leave Paul. She has been offered Natalie's flat, her sister has just left, she climbs the stairs and comes to the doorway of the bedroom and observes the sleeping Paul.
From this stage a on of the structural piers of the film begins: we move into a realm of singular sound, that is there is no dialogue, Claire has no conversations with anyone, she does, acts, and in each of these acts there is a singular sound, one sound that stands or the scene. She washes the sheets, the sound of the washing machine, she rearranges the closet, the sound of the hangers moving about, she walks into Natalie's living room, the sound of the train across the street. This section ends when she goes out into Natalie's neighbourhood, enters the park, and looks into this void again. That is she has found that void has follower her here too. This structure happened by accident or not. I can't really remember, I only know now that I have to go back to Roland and begin finding quality sounds for this section, as currently these scenes use crude bits and pieces I found in the edit or off free sound fx websites. The quality of the sounds will be everything in this.
This section ends with the void, a blackout, the non-music underneath, and then a sequence of scenes, mostly with dialogue, where Claire has taken on this life. This is less contemplative, less reflective, Claire just does, and this continues until Sophie comes calling Claire, reminds her that she is living a lie.
The next pier now begins where she enters the forest and faces that void. Here now this is not about singular sounds. Is this section I started to play with layers of actual music. This is just temp track stuff, things I could never use, but I wanted to see how they would play out.
David thought that while a crescendo might be true here, it would not be made with melody and I think I knew that before we even sat down and watched it. But you want to certain of the wrong direction, and watching I was certain. Instead I re-edited, working on layering of sounds instead, that is non-music, non-melodic sounds, sound effects, and other incidental and natural sounds, the crescendo achieved instead by the layering of all these sounds.
Finally the question of the overall pace, now that it was running at just 93 minutes? He thought that now it was well within the limits of tolerance, so no longer of the long-take variety. Was this right direction? I don't know yet, as I didn't realise I was going here.
So last night it was the turn of my flatmate, Jerry, and his girlfriend Maria. Now, the showing was ruined somewhat my problems with the sound mix. I was trying with FinalCutPro to mix the sound so decided to try SoundtrackPro. A nightmare. The sound in the second segment was a mess, and with my film it made hard to gauge their reaction.
Still, I would say that I don't think the liked it, but they understood it. I think I succeeded in fixing the club/bar scene and overall the pace was not too long, actually sometimes it was too fast. I think I need to go back to certain scenes and extend them.
Two issues. They seem to find their answers to the questions I posed, for the most part. I had succeeded in making the questions clear, but for one part, in the girl's night-in, where Sarah brings out the book of family photographs. Due to the way it is handled, it seemed to have more significance than it warranted and caused some confusion, as they expected to find out more about this.
And lastly, Maria found the first part of the Norway sequence to be repetitive, but when I asked if it was too slow they said no. So how to solve that problem?
I start the new edit later this week. I am trying to arrange new viewings between Christmas and New Years. More on that.