Throughout the editing process, the group has been a bit more split up during this stage, so that the visual and sound Editors (Saul and Oliver) and Director (Noah) could really work on the film that they wanted to make, without the edit suite being too crowded. We all kept in contact online and met up after lectures and seminars during the week, as well as reviewed the film several times at different points throughout the edit. I feel like our organisation and communication as a team has been a strong area which has been quite consistent on this project and has helped the edit to get put together in good time.
We did face some initial sound problems during the first rough cut edit of our documentary, so to take the workload of Oliver, myself and Alex Potter went around Sheffield city centre, gathering various different sounds that captured 'city' and 'street' environments and atmospheres, such as close up audio recordings of trying to put a beat together by focusing in on small items such as cans, railings and plastic signs. This was due to us unfortunately not having gathered enough street based sounds whilst in Liverpool, and therefore parts of the edit not quite matching up to the visuals, or being what we had originally intended the sound design to be.However, there were some useable sounds that we gathered such as sounds of the fairground rides in the city centre, that Oliver added into the final edit which seemed to work well alongside the beat track he had already spent a lot of time working on.
Another issue during post production was at one point the group splitting up into two groups - audio and visuals. Although initially this worked out well as it enabled each person to focus on their job role area, towards the final edit being finished, I suggested that we held a group meeting as I felt like the sound was becoming a separated piece, and that the video editors had separate ideas for what they imagined the sound track to consist of than the sound editors. After discussing this as a group and comparing notes and ideas, this sorted out the problem of the two elements to the film feeling disconnected, and the project seemed to be moving a lot quicker after this meeting.
The final film is one that we are all pleased with, however we hope to add to it and use the feedback that we get to work upon creating an updated, longer version which has been given the opportunity to be shown at the International Festival For Business in Liverpool in June. I think for the purpose of the 5 minute hand in, we all feel like the finished piece does have a celebratory feel to it, which is the main thing that we wanted to achieve. It also explores Liverpool as a city and connects this to our subject matter, which fits well within the 'Liverpool Stories' brief that we were set. However, if we were to change some elements to the film, personally I think it would have been better to have included a bit more of a structured introduction to the piece (e.g. with the contributors introducing themselves), as well as try and focus on getting across the documentary style more consistently throughout, as there are times when we as a group all feel that our film has more of a promotional look to it from a viewers perspective. This could have been due to us gathering such a large amount of interview footage, with some interviewees talking for long amounts of time about subject matters that were really relevant and insightful to our documentary and would have added to it by making it a stronger piece, however within us having to stick to the 5 minute timing restriction for the running length of the piece, unfortunately a lot of this had to be cut out. Nonetheless, we are all pleased with our finished piece; we particularly like how it ends on such a light note and feel this gets our positive mood and message as well as tone of the film across well, and we are all looking forward to gaining some feedback and working upon this to create an extended version of our documentary.
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