On the way to a draft - April 17, 2018.

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This past Friday I submitted a new draft of the first few minutes of my thesis film project. This cut involves some substantial updates since the draft I handed in a few weeks ago. I wanted to use this journal as a way to detail the process of adding, cutting, reconsidering, and re-approaching the storytelling from the outset of the piece.

The first (and, perhaps, most substantial) addition is the new, scripted voice over. I had initially tried to avoid using narration but as I was putting this timeline together I realized that, as a viewer, it would be too difficult to build a coherent story without some guidance. This is not meant to be an abstract "art piece," so the aesthetic choice of adding the VO was not detrimental to the work. I also think the VO helps to rein in the runtime. I'm not quite sure yet where the piece will come in but I think keeping the introduction concise will help the project overall and keep it from ambling. 

I spent a considerable amount of time shooting this week, too. I added a few more interviews for variety and I have a long shoot day planned for this Saturday to get much of what needs to be replaced in the opening minutes. For example, there is a shot of a man proposing marriage, in silhouette, on a beach. I don't think this fits the piece tonally and want to get some "fly-on-the-wall" style shots while walking my neighborhood in NYC. If the weather holds, I should be able to replace the slo-mo stock crowd shot from the piece with a substitute I shoot on the High Line. The goal is to get the voice of the piece to be consistent throughout and for that voice to be reflective of my own. There will be, for sure, some stock shots in the finished piece but, as I've noted before, I'd prefer them to be limited and short.

Another change is in the length of the introduction. With the VO doing some of the conceptual heavy lifting, I was able to do away with much of the fat that was meant to illustrate the idea. Now, the viewer won't have to work so hard to understand where we're going from the outset of the piece and can just sit back and absorb what comes. 

In order to re-approach the introduction I killed two birds with one stone by using the storyboard exercise from Lina's class to guide the script into a cut. As I detailed in my blog post for that submission, I took single frame screen shots from each video clip and organized them in a timeline with the scratch VO I recorded beneath them. Using this method, I constructed the narration with the single screencaps and then tightened the edit once the VO/picture relationship was established and I laid the full video clips in. I think it saved me quite a bit of time and actually helped strengthen the draft.

I am now working on a new piece of music to replace the track that is in the draft. In fact, while I finish typing this, the music software is loading in the background and I'm getting ready for an evening of music composition. I hope it goes smoothly as I'm used to the temp music (Massive Attack) and I don't want to replace it with something underdeveloped. 

Finally, the week was a bit of a struggle in terms of the workload. With all the work I needed to do to get the draft ready for submission and all the paper work to do -- IRB, writing and critiquing for my elective class, creating storyboards for Lina, keeping up with the reading/writing on the topic, dealing with the considerable amount of work I have in front of me as far as scheduling interviews goes, paying my taxes, renewing my passport for Salzburg -- and on and on, I'm shocked that I managed to work it into the shape it's in now. I'm looking forward to getting this semester completed so I can do the long final run without too much distraction. Below are some more screen shots from the draft and some of the storyboards I created.

One of several animations I want to keep in for the fial piece.

One of several animations I want to keep in for the fial piece.

A coule of different shots laid on top of each other for the section of the intro where there is fast, overlapping voice narration.

A coule of different shots laid on top of each other for the section of the intro where there is fast, overlapping voice narration.

The first six shots of the introduction in storyboard form with the script laid in beneath the screencaps.

The first six shots of the introduction in storyboard form with the script laid in beneath the screencaps.

The working script.

The working script.

Neil Perry