Last night I spent hours trying to work on the final piece of the sequence JAME’S_CUT_1. I wanted to conquer it so the group could move on with the VAN_CUT_1. I had been spending hours on this piece, scrubbing through back and forth… it still looked rubbish. What could I do. I had a shot of Jame’s when the van doors open, a reaction shot from the characters in the van, then him walking to the van, as he is walking to the van one of the characters grab the gun and aim it at him, which she is quickly stopped from shooting, then he gets to the van gives them eye contact, get a reaction shot from them, then he takes the briefcase and walks away. It looked crap. So after spending a few hours starring my soul intro the piece, it clicked. And this is what editing is… problem solving. After years of not properly editing, it came to me, this is why I loved it so much, because you problem solve.
What I would have now is the shot of Jame’s when the van doors open, a reaction shot from the characters in the van, then him walking to the van and then he reaches for the briefcase, Zell grabs the gun and aims it at him, which she is quickly stopped from shooting, then he stars at them and he then continues by walking off with the briefcase. Taking away that one extra reaction shot changed everything. It suddenly worked. It was all falling into place.
In the session today with the group, I decided rather than just Alen and I edit the project, while Haydon and Dasha peer behind us, they could be writing the script for the beginning black screen and the voiceover for the freeze frames. So I delegated the tasks out. While Alen and I continued on refining the cut. I asked him if he could finish off the van scene for a kind of rough cut, which I would help him complete in our next session together and I would finish Jame’s scene. We have a lot more work to go, even though I had a break through with that scene earlier we are far from done and as the deadline creeps closer and closer, we really need to get our act together.