Notes on the third cut

All right, so I'm missing a post over spring break because my life was SXSW for break and Michelle's was work and so our project sat on the hard drive, lonely. However, now that I've shown the third cut to the class, truly finished only hours before hand, allow me to offer some notes of reflection on the work I briefly did before the break and after:

So as it happens I'm really happy with the project! It has taken a form that oddly seems more faithful to the reason I find religion so interesting in the first place, and while I really would love to follow up with a sister project that explores nostalgia, of which I now have many interviews to back up, I think the project holds water on its own.

I think my instinct to draw out the pace has worked well, and now I'm just thinking about restructuring the visuals in the beginning to allow for a clear aesthetical progression. Throughout the editing process, I've been trying to establish a visual flow while still reinforcing the dialogue with some kind of motivated thematic contrast/fellowship. It goes like this:

Part 1:
Eerie lights (w/feelings of nostalgia)
Water
Water Forest
Forest
Forest/Empty man made constructs
Light and Darkness

I'm not sure if I'll like it, but I'm thinking about starting the film off with more water, so that we stay on that "movement" as it were for a longer period of time.

I mean, really, the parts could just break down into water, forest (and by forest I mean trees, roots, earth, a feeling of being grounded), light/dark. That might be better. And I might try Andre's suggestion of the composition, putting some forest or vines over the white strip of the cameraless, which would keep it within the 3 part flow but would disrupt my purity of images. And I'm already punctuating with cameraless through the segmentation quotes so I kind of like having it pop in there. It's going to be something I'll have to meditate on.

Also on sound: there will be sound adjustments here, level tweaks, etc. Fun times.

Part 2 I'm happy with this visually, though I need to tweak some things. I still like the cameraless popping in. I don't know, I might have to go against that one. Like it pops in for the first part, anticipating a greater rhythmic punctuation in the second.

I like the sound too. The sound design here was all me, which I'm proud of because I got Michelle's stamp of approval (and she really has a great talent for odd/bizarre/beautiful sound designs).

Part 3 I think I might be happy with this visually too. This was all Michelle, and it's interesting because it's so stripped down in comparison to the other segments, but at the same time we are stripping the film down from a context of all the living, to all the dead, to just me. So it fits, strangely enough.

I tweaked the sound, so it's different from what we should in class. Just transition stuff. Although, when we should it to the class, some aspects of the sound design didn't bug me like they did when I sat down to listen on FCP. Particularly the end. I cut the class sounds short and blended it with the piano, but Michelle might have had it right the first time. I didn't even notice the wavering that she did, making the sounds of kids almost sound like it was a warbling in and out. I might even want to accentuate that.

Anyway, these are all my thoughts over the last cut. Sorry if they're rambling/grammatically incorrect. I'm insanely sleep deprived. I'll try to remember to go through and fix embarrassing typos later on.