Another problem I found when watching through the DVD that I made yesterday was that those shots that were filmed in wide-screen seemed to have a white line across the top of the screen. Bex showed me how to put the picture-in-picture effect onto the clip and stretch the image to just slightly wider than the screen. This is something to keep in mind when filming future shots; always shoot just slightly wide of the shot you want, you can always stretch and re-position the shot in post-production.

When I took the DVD home last night, I watched it through to make notes on any final adjustments I felt needed to be made:
-Need to re-colour correct some shots as they lost the effect when the sequence was changed to add credits at the end.
-Need to raise the audio levels of Jordan’s clips and Mitch’s ‘down and out’ clip.
-I thought it would be a good idea to raise the music level after the last audio clip, so that the audience know that it’s the end of the film.

After I made these adjustments, I also lowered some of Mitch and Jonny’s clips as they stood out a little more after lowering some of the other clips.

I then made a digital cut after rendering all the new effects and gave the tape to Bex. She uploaded the video onto premiere on her own computer, importing it as a wide-screen project. This added a consistent wide-screen band throughout the DVD. I was so relieved to see the film as a perfected final product.

Just before handing in, I noticed that, unfortunately, our DVD cover had a spelling mistake in the blurb. When watching the film through, I also noticed that the film is actually 6 minutes, as opposed to 7 as we suggested on our DVD case. This was because the time-line we had been working on in Avid had been set to start from 1.00min. Because we had no time restraint on our film for this module, it didn’t matter to us that the film was slightly shorter than we anticipated. However, on future works where clients could specify a time limit for a creative piece, this would have caused a problem and a severe delay in getting a final cut. This is something I need to become aware of for any future pieces I take on.

In conclusion, I am extremely happy with our final film. I feel the time and effort Ross and I have put into the project is clearly reflected in the final product. We both work really well together due to our similarities in taste and although we do sometimes disagree on smaller factors, we are able to work it through in a professional manner. I am looking forward to continuing this professional relationship outside of the course, and we are already considering film festivals to submit our documentary to.

This module has been a crucial turning point for me in the way that I organise myself and the amount of effort I put into each step of the production process. My future career path is to become a freelance editor, and I think that editing this film has helped me to develop my skills further. It has also highlighted points to consider for future productions and how to overcome some of the obstacles that can occur during editing. I truly feel that I am now comfortable in considering myself as a professional in the media industry and I am ready to move on to my next professional project.

Whilst going through each individual clip, I began to realise that for a smoother fade to occur, some of the clips would need some added hiss to the start and end. This way when fading the audio in and out, it is the hiss levels that are affected as opposed to some of the spoken words being affected. The clips I had to add hiss to were:

Due to the fact that some of these clips were only a few seconds long, when the 4 frame transition was added to all clips, some were so short that avid automatically extended the clips to fit. This meant that some of the clips had unwanted extra audio added to the end. After the transitions were taken away, the clips were set back to their original cut.

One problem that I came across whilst trying to edit the audio was that one of the lecturer’s kept coming in every now and then with large teaching groups, all of whom were extremely loud. Obviously this is not a professional environment to be in, as the editing of the audio required complete concentration. This was unobtainable whilst the students were being so loud. Obviously, after I leave University and begin to work at a more professional level, I will have better control over the environment in which I chose to work in. Therefore I will not have to deal with such interruptions.I felt quite frustrated at the lecturer, as there was an empty avid suite down the hall that would have been a more appropriate environment for them to work in. He is in fact one of the lecturers who will be marking our work, which begs the question: how can he mark our work based on its professionalism when he himself is acting in an unprofessional manner by creating such an atmosphere for those of us at critical points in our editing process?

After they had left and I managed to finish fading the audio clips in and out, I decided that I should go about dipping the music levels at each of the audio clip positions. At first, I thought I should set the key frames for such dips at the same amount of frames before and after a clip throughout the whole piece. However, just as with the ‘blanket’ fade transition for the audio clips, this was too generic, and each audio clip required its own individual points for the music to dip at. I therefore had to go through the whole time-line again, dipping the music at positions I felt were most effective for each clip.

At this point I realised that it was 2 o’clock and our lecturer, Steve, came down to watch what we had done so far. He then took us into a quiet room to give us his feedback:

-He told us that he thought our documentary was beautiful. He loved the shots, and explained that it was refreshing to see a slower paced film created by younger people, as he usually sees lots of fast paced work.

-Although he loved the slow pace, he felt that in some places the audio clips were set at a juxtaposing staccato pace, and he felt it didn’t give him enough time to absorb what was being said before the next clip came along.

-When thinking about our critical analysis, Steve wants us to highlight our reasoning behind everything we do, and wants us to answer such questions as why the shots don’t match the material, why we used the three train shots and why we haven’t featured the homeless people themselves. As Steve has been kept up to date with our entire creative process, he knows why we have done a lot of these things, but he explained that he must play devils advocate to explain how people who have no idea about our film might react. For example, some viewers could think of our video as hypocritical; we wanted to bring the stories of these people into the limelight and to almost bring them out of hiding, yet in not showing the homeless people themselves, we have ourselves ‘hidden’ them.
Although I will justify each of these factors in more detail within my critical analysis, I feel that:
-I think that our visuals do match the audio content. Most of the visuals have representational elements which I feel compliment the audio very well. For example, when Dana is heard talking about her lowest point of being homeless, we chose to accompany the audio with our shot of an empty bench in a park. I feel that this shot highlights how isolated and alone Dana felt on her first few nights.
-The train clips were used in our film to give it a sense of narrative. Although the clips are grouped together by content and subject, their order is not that of a beginning, middle and end. I feel that by having the train visuals create this story-like format, the audience will be able to relate to what is being said as opposed to being confused by a completely random sequence of clips.
-I can see why some people might think of the absence of the homeless people themselves from the film as hypocritical, but from the very beginning of this production process Ross and I had always known that this was one of the main factors that would make our documentary different. We didn’t want anyone to make a judgement about the interviewees, and instead wanted the audience members to focus solely on what is being said. Any preconceptions made about the appearance of the homeless people may have lead to the audience not taking in the audio content as fully and this is the most important aspect of our film.

-Steve thought that our film starts at too slow a pace, and he thinks that having the credits at the beginning might lose our audience’s attention. He pointed out that Documentary producer Jon Blair stated that “you should grab your audience in the first 3 seconds”. In effect, to have credits at the beginning of our film is going to lose our audiences attention before we have even revealed the subject of our documentary.

-Our film reminded Steve of a documentary by Marcel Lozinski called “Anything can happen” and suggested that we watch and compare it to our own work. It also reminded him of the apology line.
It was great to hear Steve compare our work to the apology line as this has been one of the main films we have drawn inspiration from. This makes me feel confident that we have successfully created our work to the format and style that we had had in mind all along.

We felt that this was a really positive feedback session with Steve and has set our minds at rest as to whether or not we are working at a professional enough level. We decided that with regards to the staccato audio comment, we could remove a couple of clips from the more densely populated areas of the time-line. I suggested that we remove Cheryl’s ‘going out and getting drunk’ clip from the second train sequence. I felt it wasn’t as strong as the other clips, as they consisted of more unusal factors leading to someones homelessness. In fact, in hindsight, Cheryl’s clip  could work against the documentary format, in that it is a more ‘typical’ factor that an audience would think of for the reason someone might become homeless. With the same line of thinking, we also removed Cheryl’s ‘drink got brought into it’ clip from within the path visual sequence.

I decided that I would copy this cut of the film, and re-edit a new sequence, with the credits at the end of the documentary instead. This meant I had to dip the new music levels again, which was slightly soul destroying. However, when I become a freelance editor, I could be dealing with this sort of repetition on a regular basis if, for example, clients want the positions of clips moved around. We felt that the new sequence worked much better in this order, and so I began to work on the finishing touches to the film: The credits and titles.

We decided that we should still have the titles appear after Joyce’s ‘suicide’ clip as it would intrigue the audience as to the subject of the film, and hopefully intrigue them to watch on after it has been revealed. At the end of the documentary we decided to keep the credits simple so as not to distract the audience from taking in and contextualising what they have seen and heard in the film:
-Directed and produced by Ross Rawlings and Jessica Redman
-Music composed by Matthew Morton
-With special thanks to: Lawrence house residents, Dave Steer, Jane Bunting, Rugby H.A.R.P., Andy Mason, Kim Daniel and Dana and Joyce.
-We faded in our newley created production group logo (courtesy of Ross)
We chose a basic white writing on black background theme for our credits, and changed the font to Palatino Linotype.

I had one last run through of the whole film to see if there was anything that needed adjusting before I could begin exporting to DVD. The only thing that stood out to me was the fact that the train sound effect was only coming out of the left side of the headphones. After I doubled the clip up to make it stereo as opposed to mono, I felt pleased that this was the final cut. 

I marked the time-line in and out, rendered all the effects and made a digital cut to mini DV tape. I then imported the final cut onto Nero to burn onto DVD. I just wanted this DVD as a rough copy to make sure I was correctly exporting all aspects of the film (audio, visual etc), and as I watched it through I found there was a significant problem. Some of the shots were being played as wide screen, and others weren’t. It was so frustrating to think that we were so close to finishing, only to find we had another large obstacle to overcome. But this is a common factor of editing, if you want to perfect the work, there is a lot of repetition and re-adjusting to do. As we need Bex’s help to continue, I decided that there was nothing more I could do for the day. Itexted Bex to ask her to help us in the morning, explaining the situation and she said she would help the best she can.

While most of these clips worked well together, Vicky’s clip about following basic rules didn’t seem to fit. However, we found another of her clips about realising what’s important that worked much better. We put the audio to the pigeon on the roof clip and it really worked. We changed the order to Cheryl’s clip, Vicky’s clip, Joyce’s clip and Jordan’s clip. The movement of the birds flying across the screen are timed to coincide with Jordan’s words “it’s changed my life”, which I think help to bring a sense of movement and rhythm to what is being said. This just adds a little more depth for the audience, creating a stronger link between what they are hearing and what they are seeing.

When watching the new bird sequence, I felt that the clips were slightly too close together. Ross disagreed with me, but I suggested that I would lay around with the clips and the speed for him to see what I meant. I first tried removing Joyce’s ‘opened my eyes’ clip, but this then left too much of a gap between all the audio clips. Therefore I decided to slightly lengthen the visual clip to fit with a slightly longer audio sequence. This worked well, as it didn’t noticeably alter the speed of the pigeons or the flow of the whole sequence.

We decided to look through the rest of our unused clips, and thought about putting a group together about the negative views of other people. Some clips that seemed like they could work well together were:
-Jonny’s ‘it gets frustrating’ clip
-Mitch’s ‘they said you’ll become a down and out’ clip
-Dana’s ‘way the world works’ clip
-Joyce’s ‘Things got tough’ or ‘sometimes we stayed in a bnb’ clip

We decided that Joyce’s ‘things got tough’ clip was more powerful to use in this group, so we went on to try and decide an order to put the audio in. Ross and I had a disagreement over the order, as he wanted Jonny first, then Mitch, Dana and Joyce, whereas I wanted Jonny, Mitch, Joyce and Dana last. I felt that Dana’s clip rounded off what Joyce was saying about how tough it got to find food and shelter, by adding some insight into how those who aren’t homeless don’t have to worry about things like finding food. After discussing it, Ross left the decision to me to make, as he felt it was more my role as the editor. I would agree with this, as it is my job as an editor to keep the flow and continuity of the film consistent. However, I feel that as we are such a small production group, we should still make the majority of decisions together where possible. On that note, Ross and I chose the visual to accompany the audio group together; the park skyline. For some reason this shot turned out looking yellow so I had to colour correct it back to blue.

We came to another clash of artistic differences when we looked back through the work we had done so far. I didn’t like the use of the Norfolk coast clip. I suggested that as most of the other clips had a lot of movement within them, suddenly having a completely still shot would look out of place. Ross liked this, and when I suggested it broke the continuity he commented that he didn’t mind about keeping to continuity. Although I see his point (in that it might be artistic to mix and match random clips and ignore the ‘rules’ of continuity) I feel that it this is an all or nothing rule. So far our documentary has a rhythm, and very basic narrative. We have tried to make sure visual and audio clips work together. If we were to ignore continuity, it would have to have been something we applied throughout the whole piece. I decided that, as a compromise, I would swap the Norfolk coast shot to the stranded boat shot. Although this is also a still image, I feel it is a busy enough shot to distract from this and keep the audience interested. This is an example of how well Ross and I work together. Although we have had a couple of clashes, for a whole project that is an extremely good record. I feel that as, overall, we have the same artistic goal and similar tastes and thoughts, we are able to work without conflict and with ease.

Moving onto the next part of the documentary, I thought that to compliment the blue sky shot, and to counteract the negative audio that went with it, we could have a more hopeful set of clips to follow. This way we would help the audience to feel a bit more uplifted. If we just used negative and depressing audio clips, some of the audience might switch off. By adding a hopefulness and positivity I feel the audience will cling on to the narrative. Some of the clips I suggested for this section were:
-Joyce’s ‘my baby kept me going clip’
-Jordan’s ‘stand on my own two feet’ clip
-Dana’s ‘this ain’t gonna break me’ clip.

One shot that really stood out for me that would work well with this audio group was of the birds flying out of a field. I think that symbolically it would represent the idea that out nothingness comes hope and freedom. I suggested this clip to Ross and he agreed that it worked well with the audio. My favourite part about this grouping is that the second bird flies across the screen after Joyce has said that her baby was what kept her going. I felt that this was a really beautiful touch, and accentuates the power of what she is saying.

To juxtapose the more positive sequence that we had just added to the time-line, Ross and I thought it could work well to revert back to more negative audio clips for the next part of our film. This would work nicely considering that the last few clips will be positive, so the audience will hopefully feel a slight roller coaster of emotions and thoughts about the topic. This will hopefully stimulate them to think a little deeper about the points raised throughout the film, and come a little closer to having a better understanding of the subject.

Some of the clips left over that we thought might work well together were:
-Ross’s ‘depressed on medication’ clip
-Joyce’s ‘living under a bridge’ clip
-Cheryl’s ‘Drink got brought into it’ clip
-Dana’s ‘violence’ clip
-Ross’ ‘lack of communication’ clip
-Jonny’s ‘a few negatives’ clip

I wanted to add the visual clip of the path in the park to this sequence, but Ross was a bit unsure as to whether it would work or not. After we watched the video through, including the path shot, we both felt happy with the look of the basic outline. We felt positive that we are headed in the right direction, all there is left now is tidying up of audio and transitions.

Ross then received an email from Jane from Hinckley Hostel. Ross had tried to arrange a screening with the hostel for next Tuesday so everyone could see the finished product. However, in her reply it was clear to see that Jane was frustrated with the fact they so far hadn’t been given editorial approval. This was something that we had promised to them earlier on in the production process, and was in fact written into each of their consent forms. I was disappointed that we had both forgotten about this important factor, as I felt that our professional appearance became tarnished. This is a very important factor to consider for future works, as the relationship built with clients could be at steak. Ross emailed Jane a .wav version of the documentary as we were unable to create a small enough movie file to send in an email. Due to the limited time we have left to finish the documentary we are unable to take the trip up to Hinckley to show them the work so far. This was explained in Ross’s email.

At this point, Ross had to leave the editing suite due to an appointment for his photography. I decided that I would look through the film from the start again, making notes on what I needed to change or touch up:

- The train sound effect is slightly too loud and fades out too soon before Joyce’s clip fades in.
- Need to cut down the end of the smoking chimney shot as the camera moves slightly.
- Gareth’s ‘scumbags’ clip ends too abruptly and the music fades in too fast afterwards.
- Bench shot needs colour correcting as the tree and the bench have a slight red tinge to them.
- Jonny’s living alone clip needs re-editing, you can year a sharp inward breath towards the end.
- The pause between Joyce’s ‘things got tough’ clip and Dana’s ‘way the world works’ clip is too long.
- Cheryl’s ‘drink got brought into it’ clip needs editing in audacity, a slight inhale can be heard at the end.
- Longer pauses are needed between all the audio clips that accompany the path shot.
- The audio clips to accompany the final train shot need to come in sooner.

The first thing I decided to do before anything else on the list was to edit any audio clips that needed doing so in audacity. This way I will know I have all the correct material on the time-line, and that any editing I do will be towards the final cut as opposed to a rough cut.

As many of the clips in the time-line had been moved and/or adjusted, I thought it would be beneficial to put in fresh, unedited version of the music track. This was because the music dips were now out of time with all the audio clips. I will leave the music dipping till the very last so that I am satisfied I have all the audio in the correct position.

I then worked through the list, making sure that after each adjustment I watched the whole documentary again. This was to see if the changes fitted to the whole piece, and would also bring to my attention any other changes needed.

I then added a blanket transition of a 4 frame fade in and out to all the audio clips, as I thought it might save time instead of having to go through each clip adding manual fades. I also lengthened the final train clips fade out, from 30 to 75 frames. I felt this would create a smoother finish to the film, and also give the audience a chance to think about what they have seen and, most importantly, heard.

I asked a fellow student, Pavlos, to view the edit that we have so far so that I could have his feedback on transitions and audio. He said that he really liked the film, but he thought the visual pause between the pigeons on the roof shot and the cloud shot was too long. He suggested that we should only have 2 or 3 seconds maximum between all the visuals. I cut the pause down to 1 second and 12 frames, as 2 seconds still seemed too long in comparison to the rest of the film.

I went on the extend the length of the triangular roof shot, as there wasn’t enough visual ‘overhang’ left for the audience to be able to absorb the audio clip underneath.

When editing the train sound effect, I decided that I should make the audio fade out at a shallower gradient so it wasn’t such a harsh transition. This, however, in turn meant that I had to fade the visual out at a higher frame rate so as to compliment the audio. I changed the visual fade out to 50 frames, and this seemed to work nicely with the audio fade.

After colour correcting the path shot, I decided that the cloud shot could be a little less blue, to make it seem more realistic. As I went through each visual clip in colour correction, I decided that the train shots are very dull in comparison to most of the others. I therefore adjusted the clip in such a way that the clouds became slightly bluer and the train carriages were slightly brighter.

As my time in the editing suite was coming to an end I watched through the film so far and made notes on what I still had left to do tomorrow:
- Some of the audio clip levels, although they all have a blanket fade, need manually adjusting. They vary in so many ways that the blanket fade in and out works differently for each one. Some clips aren’t even affected by the fade as it is at too small a frame rate
- As I watched through the film, paying particular attention to the colour of each shot, I had the idea that I could adjust the colour correction of the train shots to start dull in the first clip and get brighter in the next two. This, to me, would be a symbolism of the future appearing brighter for the interviewees and would especially compliment the final shot audio clips, as they consist of future hopes and dreams.
- As we are coming towards the final stages of our documentary I feel that we should begin to add the titles and credits to get a feel for what the final product will look like.

As Ross had downloaded the correct train sound effect, we decided to put it in the place of the old clip, and play the sequence through to see how it worked so far. The new train clip levels naturally dip at a position slightly earlier than when Joyce’s clip fades in, so we decided to move it to fit in together. At one point in the train audio there is a click which I decided to dip the audio levels at. As it occurs after the train clip has been faded down for Joyce’s clip to sound more prominent, the dip in the levels isn’t noticeable.

Another thing I noticed when watching the documentary again was that there wasn’t a long enough pause between Dana and Gareth’s audio clips that accompany the tree visual. Although it was easy to add a few frames between the audio clips, this meant I had to re-adjust the length of the visual. Each slight change in the audio timing directly affects the visuals, and vica-verca. I decided that I should work on perfecting the audio levels and timings, as it is easier to adjust the visuals around them.

The next visual that we tried to add into the sequence was the Norfolk boat shot. However, it seemed very out of place, and we felt that it might be a stronger shot towards the end of the documentary. Ross and I discussed using it as our final shot, but then we realised that we are supposed to have the final section of the train clip as our final shot. I think that we should stick to the train shot as our ending as it keeps a narrative flow throughout the documentary.

We imported a visual clip of a block of flats with trees around it that Ross had shot for a documentary last year. He thought it would work really well with our visuals and it fit in perfectly as the next clip in our sequence. We tried to find audio clips that would compliment it:

We decided that out of Lewis’ clip and Ross’ clip, the latter worked better with the visuals and in progressing the narrative along. Although we don’t have a specific narrative to stick to, I feel it’s important that we try to keep some sort of structure as opposed to any clip in any place. This way we wont lose our audience by confusing them with random clips that don’t seem to have any relationship.

After listening to Ross’ clip suggesting that people become homeless for real reasons, I had the idea that the next part of our documentary could consist of a group of audio clips explaining some of the reasons that our interviewees became homeless themselves. Ross agreed that this would work well, so we searched through the clips to find appropriate content. We decided on Mitch’s clip about his parents moving to Spain, Jonny’s clip explaining how his accident caused him to lose his job, Jordan’s clip about having a sad event in her life, Joyce’s abusive husband clip, Gareth’s clip about his Dad making it clear he didn’t want him around and finishing with Dana’s clip explaining how it hurt to know her family didn’t want her. The idea of the documentary is to portray homeless people in a better light than more preconceptions would allow for. Most people think people become homeless because they get into drugs or become alcoholics, and I think these clips will help educate our audience as to more realistic reasons. I think they will also point out that it doesn’t take that much for someone to become homeless. It could literally happen to anyone.

We decided that as this was quite an important sequence in the documentary, and as it moved the narrative along so strongly, we should use our middle train clip visual to accompany the audio. When we tried all the tracks, Jordan’s ‘sad event’ clip didn’t work, as I felt it was too vague to get a strong enough point across. All the other clips contained specifics, and I feel that the only people Jordan’s story is strong enough to is Ross and myself, as we know what the sad event was. Dana’s clip also broke up the flow of the narrative and didn’t seem to fit with the other clips. The final order we chose was: -Mitch ‘parents in Spain’, Joyce’s ‘abusive husband’, Jonny’s ‘bike accident’ and Gareth’s ‘Dad didn’t want me’.

When editing the music levels for this section of the documentary, I first of tried fading down the song throughout the whole sequence. I felt, however, that the music was too quiet between the clips, and it sounded a lot more consistent to fade up the music between clips as well.

The next visual to be added to the time-line was the ‘pigeons on the roof’ clip. Ross suggested that perhaps at this point we could move onto clips about what our interviewees think ‘normal’ people think about the homeless. Some of the clips we looked at were:

We tried adding the audio clips to the visual, but there was too much being said. The visual clip itself is very busy with quite a lot of movement so I think too much audio will overload the audience. They wont be able to concentrate hard enough on what’s being said, which is too important a factor of our documentary to sacrifice. Therefore we tried using just Cheryl’s and Lewis’ clip. At first I thought Dana’s clip was too short and sharp to fit with the other clips. However, after slowing down the tempo in audacity, and then the pitch to bring her voice up higher again, the clip seemed to fit in a bit better. Unfortunately, this audio group still didn’t seem to work with the visuals so we put them all in a separate bin to come back to later.

Ross then suggested that perhaps we could use clips containing the interviewees hopes for the future. I thought that we should keep these clips till the end of the documentary, but we added the audio anyway just to see what they sounded like together. We chose Ross’s clip about wanting to join the army, Mitch’s clip about getting a job and his own flat, and Dana’s clip about standing on her own two feet. This order sounded really strong, especially with Dana’s clip at the end. We both decided that this would be the perfect note to end the documentary on, so we put the group into another bin until we got to the ending.

We were starting to run low on ideas and inspiration for the next section of the documentary so we both took a break to listen through the remaining strong clips, and trying to group them or think of positions and visuals to put them with:
-We wanted to make sure we used Dana’s clip where she described her lowest point. We felt this was a strong enough clip to stand on its own with a strong visual.
- We thought that Joyce’s ‘living under a bridge’ clip, Dana’s ‘nightmares’/'violence on the streets’ clips, Ross’ ‘depressed and angry’ clip, Gareth’s ‘overdoses’ clip and Lewis’ ‘sofa surfing’ clip could all work together as a sequence about where they were living and the negative side of being homeless.
- We created a sequence about where different interviewees lived, this included Lewis’s ‘there wasn’t a permanent place for me’ clip, Mitch’s ‘couldn’t live with my sister’ clip and Jonny’s ‘lived on my own since I was sixteen’ clip.
- For a more negative sequence, we grouped together Dana’s ‘this ain’t gonna break me it’s gonna make me’ clip and Jordan’s ‘I decided I had to stand on my own two feet’ clip would work well. Especially after a slightly more negative or depressing part of the documentary.
- The leftover clips that we wanted to make sure we include somewhere in the documentary were: Jordan’s ‘it’s changed my life’ and ‘I want a family at the end’ clips, Mitch’s ‘down and out’ clip, Jonny’s ‘I don’t let it get to me’ clip, Vicky’s ‘It’s helped me think about things that are important’ clip, Jonny’s ‘frustrating’ clip, Dana’s ‘way world works’ clip and Joyce’s ‘things got tough’ and ‘b’n'b’ clips. 
We created a word document with these groupings on, in which we will highlight each group/individual clip we use so we could keep track of what we’ve done and what we can use.

Moving onto the next clip, Ross and I found that Dana’s clip about her lowest point could make a nice transition between why some of the interviewees became homeless and some of the struggles they had to go through. I really liked the bench visual clip to accompany this audio, as it is isolated and lonely looking. I had to colour correct this shot as it was quite dull. Although we want most of the clips to be dull, I think that adding a bit of colour here and there will spark the interest of any viewers who start to switch off.

The next group of audio we added to the time-line was that of Lewis, Jonny and Mitch describing their different housing or living situations. When searching through the remaining visual clips, Ross liked the Norfolk coast clip. This seemed to work next to the less ‘industrial’ bench clip previous to it. At this point we had run out of time in the Avid suite and had to leave the rest of the editing until tomorrow.

Before I began editing, we decided to try and think of a name for our production group. Some suggestions included Vertigo, Sub-productions and Red ball. In the end, after thinking of a colour and an object (a rather intellectual procedure for creating a name I think you will agree), we came up with Blue Mouse Productions. We both took a shine to this name, and so it was on with the editing.

To begin with, I added the new music track to the time-line. It really did work so well, and I think that the composer really captured the feeling of the documentary very well. Ross had also downloaded some train sound effects to play under our first shot. Unfortunately the ones he had downloaded sounded completely different to the ones he had received. I decided to keep one of the clips in the time-line for the time being so I could have a general feel for what the final sequence will sound like. It did work well in showing us how much more depth the sound effect would add to the shot as, with just the music track underneath, it had seemed quite flat and obscure.

When playing the opening sequence to Ross, he suggested that I should re-position Joyce’s clip so that when she says “it’s not fair”, it’s in the same position as the natural  dip in the music levels. This would make he statement seem highlighted, and it seemed to work really well. I think I have also come round to the idea of using Joyce’s suicide clip here. It is a powerful clip, and hopefully it’ll grab our audiences attention immediately.

We have decided to leave a black gap in the time-line for the titles to come up after the train clip. I think if we leave the audience wondering what the documentary is for too much longer they wont be able to take in the context of what is being said to it’s full potential. I decided that when we put in the titles we will have a slow fade so that after hearing Joyce’s clip they will have to time to ponder for themselves what she is talking about.

Moving onto the next clip, we needed to decide on the audio clip that would accompany it:

We decided to use Cheryl’s ‘Ashamed’ clip as, even though it would come after the titles, we both thought that it still had some anonymity as to the topic of what was being said. It was also a nice contrast to have a younger, childlike voice after having heard Joyce’s more mature audio clip.

I added a film fade over 25 frames to the beginning and end of the clip, and it worked well. It wasn’t too harsh a cut, but it didn’t drag out like the establishing shot to avoid boring the audience by having too slow a pace.

I next added the visual clip of the Herbert gallery’s triangle roof, and Ross agreed that it worked well. It was again, a building shot, but with a little more added beauty due to the abstract shape, and the way the light casts shadows. As this visual is very short, (4 seconds to be precise!) I decided to find a short audio clip from a male. This was because we had had two females’ clips prior, and I thought the sequence so far needed a bit of change. As we had both liked Mitch’s ‘I’m just a normal person’ clip as a candidate for the previous shot, I tested it with this new visual and it worked very well. The only problem was that the visual was still a little too short. However, I had remembered from previous Avid projects that there was a method whereby you can make clip fit into a specific marked section on your time-line. I tried to remember the exact method, but unfortunately couldn’t. I decided to move onto the next clip, until I could get hold of our technician Bex to show me how to create the effect I wanted.

The next visual clip we decided would fit into the sequence we have so far was of a tree with the clouds moving behind it. This linked well with the previous clips ‘sped-up cloud’ theme and I felt would help ease us into the more natural shots we have yet to use.

When trying to figure out which next audio clip would be a suitable match, we looked at some of Dana’s clips, as she had some very strong content from her interview. We looked at her ‘doors slammed in my face’ clip, but we felt it was too soon in the documentary to have something this intense. Her clip ‘I moved about a lot’ seemed like a strong potential candidate, but it was too short to be used alone in the clip. We therefore decided that we could have two shorter audio clips to play under the long visual clip. We thought that perhaps a male voice would accompany Dana’s clip well. I tried Ross’s clip ‘some people respect that you can become homeless for real reasons’, but it was far too long. Gareth’s ‘they think we’re just scumbags’ clip, however, worked really well next to Dana. I had to re-edit this selection from the raw clip that we had cut down from each interview, as it was one of the clips that had been lost.

We came across a problem, luckily towards the end of our session in the Avid suite, whereby the server we have been allocated to started to run out of memory. This meant that we were no loner able to render effects on our time-line, and Ross couldn’t save a copy of the graphic he made of our logo. This was frustrating, but I feel that in a more professional environment this would not be the sort of problem I would come across. The reason the memory was running low was because after the Avid system had crashed, all the students had to wait until the same day to upload all their work. The technicians hadn’t thought about this in advance and so all the memory was used up. In my own career, I will hope to use my own editing system and memory space, and I therefore would be more aware and in control of my leftover memory.

Today has gone a lot better than when we first started to edit. I am frustrated that our editing has been cut short for today due to lack of memory, but this cannot be helped. The documentary is starting to take a form which makes me feel more confident that the whole concept is going to work well overall.

We have decided to try and keep our video down to 6 mins, as there will be clips we don’t use and we think that if were to become any longer we may end up losing our audience to boredom. Setting this limit will help us to keep to the point and to chose the strongest audio.

We then began the process of creating a visual sequence. I began by inserting the train clip that we had decided on all along, and went on to try and work out which audio clip would fit best underneath the opening clip. When we were cutting down and editing Dana’s audio, Ross and I had both talked about how we thought her nightmares clip might be a great one to open with, as it doesn’t give away the subject of the film, and is an intriguing clip. However, when added to the time-line, it was far shorter than the visual clip and it didn’t work as well with the imagery as we had thought.
Therefore I decided to try out all the longest clips we have, including:
-Joyce’s ‘suicidal’ clip – To me this clip didn’t seem to work with the ‘industrial’ visual clip.
-Joyce’s ‘things got tough’ clip – Although this was one of the longer clips, it was still too short to combine with the
                                                                 visual.
-Joyce’s ‘so low’ clip – Similarly, this clip was still too short.
-Joyce’s ‘quilt’ clip – This clip was not only too short but also gives away the subject of the film too early.
-Joyce’s ‘bnb’ clip – This clip could have worked well as it doesn’t give away the film subject but it’s not the strongest of
                                        the bunch
-Joyce’s ‘partner was so strong’ clip – This, to me, is an extremely strong candidate for the first clip.
-Lewis’ ‘Hostel’s your home’ clip – This clip goes against our original idea of keeping the subject from the audience, but
                                                                     could work very well with the visual clip if we decided to change our approach.
-Dana’s ‘lowest point’ – This clip gives the subject away almost immediately.
-Dana’s ‘attacked’ – This clip, whilst being one of the longer audio tracks, is still too short for the length of the visual.
                                       She also mentions a place-name which Ross and I feel would be too distracting to the audience for 
                                       them to take in what is being said.

One prospect for potential audio came about by accident as I lined up clips altogether on windows media player:
-Joyce’s ‘ get so low’ and ‘got tough’ – These two clips worked together really well, and I think could be our strongest 
                                                                           opening possibility.

After playing each of the possibilities to Ross, he actually preferred Joyce’s suicide clip for the opening. As I preferred the idea of using the two clips of Joyce’s together, we decided to try and move on to the next part of the film and come to a conclusion or compromise later on.

When we were trying to add the imported audio clips to our time-line, they weren’t playing. We decided to ask a fellow student, Leo, if he could help us out, and although he couldn’t help us out, he did point out that our audio was recorded in mono and that we would need to double up all our clips so that it becomes stereo. We then got help from another student, Matt, who showed us that we had set the sample rate for the audio at 4400 when audacity was playing at a rate of 4800. These are the basic little things that can have a big effect on our final product, so it’s good to have them pointed out to us so we can be more aware for our next project and for my future career as an editor.

I moved on to adding a fade in transition to the opening clip. I started by adding a fade over 10 frames, but this seemed far too short. Over 40 frames was much better, but I still felt it could do with stretching out a little longer, so I bumped it up to 50 frames. I feel that for the very first shot there should be a slower fade in as this will give the audience the time to take in everything they see in the establishing shot. I would like a slow fade on the final visual too, as I feel it would give a smoother ending to the film.

Next, I wanted to add some music to the film to see how it would fit in with the audio and the visuals. We decided that until we had our music, we would use a track Ross had already imported last year for his documentary. It didn’t really fit with our film, but it had a lovely wind sound effect in the intro that we thought could work quite well. I decided to fade the music in and out when Joyce’s clip came into play so that what she was saying was more poignant and so it stands out from the music. We don’t want the music to overpower what is being said by our interviewees as the whole point of this documentary is for the audience to be able to listen and take in what is being said.

To fade the audio clips in and out I was shown how to change the time-line settings so that the audio auto gain was visible. This produced a clear line showing the audio clip level. It was then just a case of adding key-frames to adjust the levels. To raise or lower the audio of the whole clip, a single key-frame was to be added to the very start of the clip, which would then make it possible to move the whole level up and down. To fade music in and out, several key-frames were to be added, making it possible to lower the audio at specific positions and slowly raise them back up again if need be. As we were still undecided as to which of Joyce’s clips to use, I decided to leave her ‘suicide’ clip in, just to get on with the next step of editing. We will come back to this section and re-discuss our options.

The next clip Ross and I decided on was the shot with the smoking chimney in the foreground and the block of flats in the background. We thought it would be a nice blend with the train shot as it also has a similar ’industrial’ feel to it. We played the time-line through without adding a transition to the next visual, but we felt that a clear cut to the next shot was too harsh. We want to ease our audience into each shot, if we distract them with such sharp cuts it may take away from the audio, which would completely take away from our whole goal. We decided that a transition between the two would be more suitable, and when added I decided to leave some black between the two. This will give the audience a little more time to think over what has been said in each clip, and will slowly ease them into each new shot. I decided that a 20 frame fade in would work well as although the establishing shot has a slower fade to introduce the whole documentary to the audience, we may start to lose their interest and attention if each shot were to have such a slow fade.

We then came to a creative roadblock. We couldn’t really chose the next audio clip until we have decided on the first one as we want it flow and work together. Another problem is that we feel we cant decide on the first clip, until we have the correct music and train sound effect so that we had a proper representation of what the documentary will turn out like. We decided that we would have a break and spend the evening in the library choosing music from free music websites:

The first website we visited was soundclick.com. We had both come to the agreement that we would like to use a soft acoustic tune to accompany our audio and visuals. As previously stated, the most important part of our documentary are the audio clips from the homeless people themselves, so if we were to use a heavy or complicated music track, we thought this might distract away from what is being said in the audio clips.

After searching through 10 pages of audio tracks, the only 4 that actually stood out were:
-Close your eyes – Scott Wilder: Although the acoustic tune was great, unfortunately it had singing in which  we definitely don’t want. It would make the documentary too busy and take away from what the homeless people are saying.
-Main Section #2 – Mike Morgan instrumentals: This is a nice track, but ideally we would look for something with a bit more substance to it.
-Track 11_00 – Happynightmare: This tune is better than Mike Morgan’s, it is more sombre which we feel would work well with the documentary. Unfortunately we cannot download this one.
-Track 7_22 -Happynightmare: Another song that we feel would work extremely well with our documentary, however, again, we can’t download this track!

I e-mailed the user ‘happynightmare’ from the website to ask if we could possibly use either of the two tracks in our documentary, and he is yet to get back to me.

Whilst searching through the website, Ross mentioned that a fellow student had had an audio track composed for their work and suggested that this might be a better prospect for us. He emailed him and had a reply within a few minutes. The student, Matt Morton, was more than happy to compose something for us, so we decided we would wait until he had sent something before we continued editing. Although I am happy that we are going to have something composed specifically for us, I feel nervous of the fact that we are relying on him to create the mood for our whole documentary. However, we sent him a link to the film ‘Vagrant king’ to give him an example of the sort of feel we want the music to create, so he should be able to come up with something that will work well.

All in all I am slightly disappointed with the turn today has taken. I was in the right mindset and ready to edit. However, these important aspects of our documentary need to be just right, so waiting a few days for the right music track is a worthwhile sacrifice. In hindsight, I feel that we should have thought about the music a bit earlier on in the planning process of the whole documentary and on my next project I will be sure to organise things like music and sound effects a bit further in advance.

When we arrived at the hostel, we were greeted by Kim, who took us into her office. We saw two new faces in the office, one was that of a girl who looked just a bit younger than me, and one who was quite obviously the girls mother. The youngster was playing with a baby in a pram, and by the powers of deduction we assumed that the girl must be Joyce. Imagine our surprise then, when Kim introduces us to the older woman as Joyce! Trying my hardest not to reveal my surprise, I introduced and excused ourselves, as we needed to set up the equipment in the next room.

Once we had checked that the microphone was working and that the Marantz was recording, we brought Joyce through and began the interview. As Joyce is a lady, I was conducting the interview as Ross checked the levels, and I felt that due to the fact we already had a lot of strong audio under our belt, I could be more bold and probing with my questions. For example, when she mentioned that she had considered taking her own life, I pushed further by asking if she had ever made any attempts. Ross admitted to me on the way back from Rugby that he had been shocked that I had asked such a personal question, and although this may be the case, I have learnt from interviewing process so far that if you don’t ask, you don’t get. For example, I wish I had asked Jordan what the ‘sad event’ in her life was, as this could have led to another really strong audio clip to include in our film.

The interview went really well, and I felt positive that the content we had obtained from Joyce could only make our documentary stronger. I am just frustrated that we cant go straight down into the Avid basement to begin the editing already. However, we have been told that it will be up and running by tomorrow so Ross and I have agreed to meet tomorrow at 9 to begin the editing process…finally!

This is extremely disruptive to our schedule as we will not only miss our hand-in deadlines, but we are now at the stage in our production where all that we can do is editing. The lecturers have confirmed that we will be eligible an extension, and we have both decided that we should ask for the full two weeks. Whilst some fellow students are only applying for one week, this is because they still have shooting to do.We, however, have been ready to edit for the past 2 weeks, so the system crash has directly affected us since day 1.

We have re-arranged our schedule for the new deadline and we are ready and waiting to begin the editing process.

3_sleep_park_benches.wav – This clip could have been a possibility, however in the backgroud there is a ticking clock that I am unable to edit out without affecting Dana’s audio levels.

4_sister_job.wav – The content in this clip contains specific details of where and when Dana moved about. Because this could be too distracting to the audience, I decided not to edit this clip.

5_step_father.wav – This clip contains content along similar lines to quite a few of the other clips I have already edited, and as Dana’s version isn’t particularly strong I decided not to edit this clip.

6_him_over_me.wav – I faded this clip in using the envelope tool and cut out the ‘so’ at the end.

7_sister_moved.wav – The content of this clip wouldn’t fit in with the rest of the documentary audio,and the ticking clock is still audible. I therefore decided not to edit this clip. 

8_her_dad.wav – As with the previous clip, the content here is irrelevant to the documentary narrative and so I decided not to edit this clip.

9_homelessness.wav – I wanted to use this clip as another one of my back-ups (in case the documentaries format doesn’t work), however, the mic has picked up a man speaking in another room which is un-editable without affecting Dana’s levels.

9_2_people_streets.wav- As with the previous clip, there is a lot of background noise noticeable in this clip which I a unable to edit without affecting Dana’s audio levels.

10_hard_winters.wav- The content in this clip could have been very strong. After spending a lot of time trying to edit out the clock ticking in the background, I found I was unable to do so without affecting the quality of the overall clip and its content.

11_­cant_understand.wav – This clip contains content that is quite similar to another, stronger clip from Dana, and as the clock is still prominent in this clip I decided not to edit it.

12_bridges_park_benches.wav – I feel that the content of this clip was not strong enough to fit in with the rest of the documentary audio so I decided not to edit it.

13_violence.wav – I faded this clip in and out using the envelope tool.

14_situations_likes.wav – I faded this clip in using the envelope tool and cut out the inhale that is audible at the end of the clip.

15_way_world_works.wav – I had to cut out the stuttering before ‘next meal’ and fade the clip out using the envelope tool.

16_attacked.wav – I cut out ‘up in Clifton’ so as not to distract the audience from what is being said. I cut out the inhale that is audible at the end of the clip, and faded it out using the envelope tool.

17_hospital_bed.wav – I cut the laughing out that was after ‘needless to say’ and ‘bed for the night’. This meant that the pitch of the end section of the clip had to be lowered to create a more natural sounding clip.

18_reject_unfamiliar.wav – I faded this clip in and out using the envelope tool.

19_change_places.wav – Luckily the content of this clipwas quite weak, as a car passing by in the background renders it un-editable.

20_away_from_people.wav – I faded this clip in and out using the envelope tool.

21_used_to_pain.wav – I cut the clothes rustling and Dana’s inhale from the end of the clip and faded it in using the envelope tool.

22_cold_sleep.wav – This clip wouldn’t work on it’s own within the documentary as it would be out of context, therefore I decided not to edit this clip.

23_no_heating.wav- This clip was borderline for me as to whether or not to edit it, so I decided to edit it just in case. I had to cut out the background noise from the beginning and end of the clip and then fade it in and out using the envelope tool.

24_lowest_point.wav – I cut out ‘because I felt really rejected…and there was no one that could take me in’. This not only fused together the most important points in this clip, but also managed to get rid of the soundof a car going past in the background.

25_stronger.wav – There was too much rustling andmovement in this clip causing background noise to consider using it for the documentary. The content itself is also too weak.

26_make_me.wav – I faded in the audio using the envelope tool and cut the rustling sound at the end of the clip.

27_two_find_sleep.wav – The content in this clip is too weak to consider using for our documentary, and there are people talking in the room above which is clearly audible throughout the clip.

28_slammed_in_face.wav – This clip’s content is very weak compared to some of the others I have been editing, mainly because Dana mixes up and stumbles on words which makes the sentence incoherent.

29_takes_toll.wav – Dana talks about her weight decreasing due to her living situation, and I feel that this content is inappropriate and slightly less relevant than I would like to be used in our documentary.

30_find_group.wav – I cut out ‘there are several people that are homeless and’, so that the clip could start at stronger point in the audio. I cut out ‘so’ from before ‘sometimes you slept in numbers’ to make the clip flow more smoothly, and I cut the ‘and’ from the end.

31_cold_damp.wav – I tried extracting several different points from this clip, but none of them seemed to work without each other. The whole clip was too long and, at some points, veered off topic to the extent that I was unable to consider for use in the documentary.

32_nightmares.wav – I faded this clip in and out using the envelope tool.

33_get_you.wav – This clip is obviously the beginning of a sentence, which doesn’t allow it to work on its own without the end to contextualise what is being said.

34_find_me.wav -  Compared to some of the other audio clips I have been editing, this one is quite weak in content, and I therefore decided not to edit it.

35_hopes_future.wav – Cut down the edit to start at ‘live on my own two feet’. I cut out the ‘and’ that followed, and faded out the ending using the envelope tool.

2_selfish.wav – Vicky stutters quite a bit in this clip and it makes the sentence seem incoherent, so I decided not to edit this clip.

3_dad_argued.wav – I cut out the rest of the audio so the clip consisted of ‘me and my dad just used to constantly argue’. I then faded it in and out using the envelope tool.

4_decided_together.wav – This clip would make no sense on its own in the documentary as the audience wouldn’t know what it was Vicky and her dad decided together. Therefore I decided not to edit this clip.

5_moved_out.wav – This clip is a weaker versionof others we have obtained with the same content, so I decided not to edit it.

6_no_one_agree_with_anyone_homeless.wav – I faded this clip in using the envelope tool and cut out the ‘I’ from the end.

7_different_opinions.wav- As with the previous clip, all I needed to do was fade the audio in and out using the envelope tool.

8_could_give_a_chance.wav – I cut out ‘well other people could think well’ and added a fade to the start and end of the clip using the envelope tool.

9_do_and_dont_want_to.wav – I cut out ‘like’ from between ‘got a good’ and ‘relationship going’. I also cut out the repeated ‘go back to’ and then faded the clip out using the envelope tool.

10_trial_going_home.wav – All this clip needed was for me to fade it in and out, which I did so using the envelope tool.

11_whats_important.wav – I cut out ‘because I’ve lived on my own’ from the start of the clip.I tried to edit down a click in the background using the envelope tool, but as it was over Vicky speaking, I was unable to do so without reducing her audio levels as well.

12_basic_rules.wav – I faded this clip in and out using the envelope tool, and cut out the ‘and’ off the end.

13_helped_out.wav – I cut out the ’cause’ from the start of the clip and the so between ‘and that’s what I’ve learnt’ and ‘It’s helped me out a lot’.