Editing Diary

In the first week of filming we managed to shoot two seperate scenes for the film and edit them.

On Wednesday 10th November we shot the footage we needed for the 'meeting' scene at Costa coffee shop We took our own advice that we developed last year, which was to shoot longer footage than we would need in order to have a more broad selection to use when it came to editing, and we found this worked in our favour. We wanted to make sure that, when it came to editing, we could find a balance between not cutting each shot too short so it gave a fast paced effect but instead a calmer one to suit and enhance the romantic theme, as well as not letting them drag on so the film lost the audience's interest. We also made an immediate decision to use fades as the transactions between each scene in order to support the idea that the images were the thoughts of the main protagonist, Renaud, as he reflects on the past.

We next filmed at Renaud's House to shoot the illness scene. Originally, the shot of Renaud entering the room was going to cut straight to Charli in the bed, however when editing we found we had two shots that went well but the start of one and end of one were the best. We then made the decision to cut it into two seperate shots so we eventually had the sequence of Renaud entering the room and looking ahead at her, then a shot of Charli in the bed, and then Renaud looking down sadly before we seem him walking over to her from behind and felt the results were much more effective. Then was the argument scene which consisted of four over the shoulder shots for each piece of dialogue. However when editing we decided that each of the shots were very quick because the lines were short and sharp. In order to resolve this we decided to edit the exchange so that Renaud would say his line and the camera stayed on him as Charli began her line and so on. This was a very careful process as it involved matching the exact syllable of the words so that they matched the next shot exactly but we were very pleased with the result of this.

The next scene to edit was of the couple at South Wield  which we had collected a lot of footage for which we felt was a good decision as we could condense it down to the parts which were the best. We also had some trouble with the wind and as the tripod was being balanced on uneven ground for most of the shots there were some shakes which we were able to easily cut out. We also filmed a kissing scene here which had to be edited effectively so that it was believable and realistic. In order to do this we filmed the entire sequence from Renaud's dialogue "I like it here" to the couple looking back out to the lake as a long shot and close up so we had flexibilty when it came to editing. Our final decision was to use the start and finish of the sequence as long shots and the middle as a close up, we felt this was effective but had to be careful in matching up exactly how close the couple were to eachother when we cut to a different shot. However, because of this we had trouble with hearing Renaud's dialogue from further away and had to edit the sound so that the clip was louder when he spoke and then went silent again so the focus was on the romantic music and any blowing wind caught on tape could be removed.

Whilst editing the scenes filmed at Shoeburyness of the couple on the beach we were happy with our shots as they were scenic and romantic as we had hoped, it was for this reason that we wanted to use longer footage for each shot to create a very calm atmosphere for the audience. We felt that this would help us to achieve our aim of inviting the audience to relate to the couple as it would add to the characters' iscolation from the rest of the world, and also making their relationship seem more sincere and believable which was important to us. On the day we decided to shoot a variety of shots so that we could choose which were best to use, however when it came to editing the footage we found that all of the shots could be used and compliment eachother. For example we were able to develop a sequence from a shot the couple walking over to a rock, a close up/low angle shot of them sitting on it, and then a shot of them from behind which we assumed would be used instead of the previous could be used as Renaud leans in to kiss her on the cheek in both and enables us to link the two.

We then shot Renaud in a graveyard at St Mary's church. We decided to shoot him opening and closing his eyes (which would be used to seperate his memories) as one sequence and we then cut the parts we wanted and used them throughout. When editing the sequence of Renaud at Brentwood Train Station we had to deal with a mistake that was made on the day. As the train was coming towards the platform Renaud took a step back into the frame by accident and we thought we were going to have to reshoot the shot, however when editing we realised that we could cut the shot before he stepped backwards because it was possibly better to not wait for the train to come past the camera as the shot would be too long and take away the intensity that we were hoping to achieve for the cliffhanger of whether he did jump in front of the train or not. We therefore used a fade to cut to the titles and were happy with the results.