In this session Chris reviewed the rough cuts of all the groups in our class.
This was really useful as I picked up ideas of things that work, such as cuts and transitions between clips, and he also picked out things that didn't work so well. This is really helpful while Alex and I are working on our final cut.
I made some notes to remind me of things to try, and things to avoid.
Group 1:
Make sure we follow procedure: assembly - rough cut - final cut. Alex and I have done this and it has worked really well for us. We have experimented with things like a black and white sequence and different running orders for the scenes. We have changed our minds on a few things and it has worked well for us to have the rough cut and assembly to refer back to.
Make sure timeline time code is set to 10 hours. We have done this, time code is changed in the settings option.
First time we see someone on screen make sure that we come in on an interesting speech. Don't let first appearance on screen be the subject going "erm". Also, having the subject saying "erm" a lot makes him look / sound as though he's lying and buying time, or not such an expert in his field. Knock out the "erms" and hesitations to make him sound more authoritive. I have done this with his Stanage Edge intro speech. I took out the "erm" in his sentence and he sounds a lot more sure of himself. Like he knows what he's talking about.
Use the inner blue guide line in wire frame which shows what is 'title safe' for TV screening. Titles should be kept within this line so that they fit in the screen. The outer line is the 'domestic cut off' which gives a guide to TV surround. Anything outside this line may be lost in transmission.
If subject refers to something: show it. Viewer wants to be fed the information visually. If the climber says "Stanage Edge" show Stanage Edge.
If he's talking about the state of his hands, show the state of his hands.
If saying "hands are numb" that's a good place to show him falling off. Also, when he mentions "injury" it worked well to show him on the rock shaking his hands.
"Fucking agony" speech was a good, strong, interesting speech to come out into out of the montage.
If showing bedroom, use it as him training, eg, if "three or four months off" show him training.
Alex and I have decided that the training clips should be used in our film before the actual climbs. This is a change from what we had in our rough cut where we used a black and white bedroom training sequence to break up the climbs.
Group 2:
Come into picture with something of interest, consider every cut.
Good link between bedroom and outdoors shot.
Gets to top of climbing wall and then appears in shot showing him coming over the top of cliff
When showing titles give time for the viewer to read them out loud twice.
When climber talks about "hard moves" show hard moves.
Eliminate any repeat words, and any 'dead air'.
Group 3a:
Don't speed up climbing footage. Not least because climber sometimes actually goes back down a bit, or across, before ascending further.
Music gets 'samey'. This is a problem that Alex and I have at the moment. We need to find a separate piece that is similar to, but not as annoying as our intro music.
Don't let music flood voice over.
Falling off, and struggling, scenes are good to create a sequence to "hundreds of times... I've fallen off hundreds of times".
Lose the line "It's famous abroad as well" when talking about Stanage Edge. Not necessary. Not interesting.
Group 3b:
Lots of climber in vision talking. If he's talking about something we should show it.
When he talks about a climbing area, show the climb not a wide shot of the landscape. I think Alex and I did that originally in our assembly.
We will consider the above notes in conjunction with our feedback from the previous week.
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