Finished assembling/first cut of the opening scene.
It holds together very well. And lo and behold the ‘original’ cut assembly wasn’t all wasted – I ended up using large chunks of it and modifying other parts of it to fit into the new whole.
“Leap and the net will appear.”Julia Cameron
I’ve been editing the opening sequence over the week-end. So, yes, I’ve started editing the second last day of the shoot (not counting day 6 since that was a ‘repeat’ of the shoot). Nearly there…Very nervous – this is it – this is how the film opens – I hadn’t watched the scene since we had shot it.
Some amazing stuff – Danielle cries on cue - all in close up – even at low resolution you can see several tears welling in her eyes and cascading down her cheeks – this was one take –I worked the whole sequence around it.
Her panic and tears are dramatically countered by Luke’s and Chris’ cold and Zen-like manner. Hot and cold. Shocking and arresting. Love it.
For a writer/director, it doesn’t get any better than this; this was the way I wrote it – this is the way it was performed and shot – this is how it plays in the edit. I got to enjoy it three times.
So I cut - remember we’ve got ten cameras – cut - shot angles – cut - many takes – cut- reaction shots –cut – shouts – cut – screams –cut –ECU - cut– soundscape – cut etc etc…
And I made a complete mess of things… not just a little mess but huge utter custard of images and sounds – you’d think I had just got the program out of the box and started editing that day. I’ve been doing this now for over three months – on any other scene I can drive that thing like a F1 car. Usually, I’ve been working with vision from a minimum of five cameras to handling up to 8 to 10 video tracks – I’m a high performance machine.
[As an aside – I do not refer to my script as I edit – so the continuity is all in my head and based on the good take.]
This should be a cinch yet the beautiful designer baby had turned out into a monster…
How could this be?What happen I think is that as I worked around the performance I lost track of the logic of the scene – my mind couldn’t recall what happened when and where and…disaster.
I looked at it – I’ve been working on this scene the longest of all – tweaking every nuance. Fourteen hours over three days of solid work.
My eyes were stinging – my mind was numb. My heart was – well - bleeding lifelessly on the floor...
Late Sunday night - I started back from scratch. Yes – threw it all out.
Still not there yet – but as is the case, I’m rediscovering the scene and I can tell you that there are more great moments…it rocks.
[yet to edit the closing sequence – I will have to watch my step there too.]
Nearly there boys and girl – nearly there – I hope I can surprise you all with the finished product.
Will keep all posted…
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