Comedy Edit: Rough Cut and Idea Development

In light of Chris's comments about concentrating on the relationship between Jane and Alf  and how David just pouring himself wine was supposed to be a joke, I revised my idea for the scene. 

I knew this would mean extra work for me, but I have never been precious about work, and am always flexible to new ideas and developments.  If something can be improved, even if it means scrapping everything and starting again, I would rather do that.

I didn't have to scrap everything, just the last half of the assembly that I had produced.  And because I have labelled all my clips so well, it was an easy process to get the new footage that I needed.  

I looked through the rushes again to find footage of Jane and Alf, at first being 'off' with each other, then them becoming allies when Alf says he doesn't eat beef and Sandra says to Jane that she hadn't told her.  This scene, from when Sandra enters with the beef is the first time that they are working together, as Jane can't say she didn't know (because Alf is supposed to be her partner) and they can't just pretend he eats beef and make Alf go ahead, as it is a moral principle of Alf's that stops him eating beef and Jane respects it.    

Later in the scene there is an obvious sign that Jane and Alf are warming to each other when their hands touch when they are serving their chicken.  There are some nice glances and smiles between them in the rushes that I decided to use.

I also managed to make some nice moments of camaraderie between them whilst approaching the issue of David's selfish drinking.  For the second half of the scene I decided to show the dinner party in full flow, with nice smooth cuts between the characters.  I made it so that David pours his wine, Sandra starts helping herself to vegetables, then waits, hands folded, as though waiting for her glass to be filled, cut back to David savouring his wine, sniffing it's bouquet, then back to Sandra, still waiting, David swills his wine, notices Sandra waiting, thinks she is waiting for the beef so puts his glass down and starts to calve.  This makes Alf and Sandra laugh as everyone by now has noticed that David is oblivious to the fact that they are all waiting for wine, and after playfully telling Alf to 'stop it' when he laughs, Jane also finds it amusing and joins in.  This provides a couple more nice moments of Alf and Jane being nice with each other and the whole dinner party atmosphere is relaxed and fun.  Albeit, at David's expense.

I could visualise all this in my head, and knew exactly how I wanted it to flow, and that I wanted dinner party classical music for the dinner scene and the scene to end with Alf and Jane looking lovingly at each other in slow motion, fade to black.  Then I wanted them sat on the milk float after the evening had ended, Alf drinking milk as they had had no wine, and Jane wiping his milk moustache and kissing him.  In the end the footage didn't fit that milk float idea.  Alf and Jane just looked annoyed with each other.  So I used a nice shot of the two of them looking into each others eyes as the end image.  But now I'm not so sure that it is necessary as the last look between them at the dinner table might have been enough.