Scene 34 & 37

We were given rushes for two scenes 34 and 37 to edit. The first scene i worked on editing was scene 34.
The first thing i did before even opening a timeline on final cut was to read through the script pages for both scenes a number of times. This was in order to get an understanding and a clear perception of the scenes in my mind in order to visualise an edit layout in head. The next step i went about doing was looking through each parts of the footage carefully, noting down the best takes and creating a rough edit decision list. I did this for both of the edits so i would make it easier for my self when editing the footage together.


I started with my initial rough cut, focusing on getting the shots together making sure the pace between shots was there and that the narrative flowed.

I made sure when editing both scene 34 and 37 that my edits applied to the rule of six.
Now this is the six forms of criteria that editing is broken down into.

This can be found in The Conversations and the art of editing film by Walter Murch & Michael Ondaatje

The edit is broken down into six pieces

Emotion 51%  - the cut is true to the emotion of the moment
Story 23%  - The cut advances the story
Rhythm/pace 10% - The cut maintains a rhythm
Eye Trace 7%  - What the audience should be focusing on
2D Plane 5% - So we know where we are looking, 180 degree rule
3D space 4%  - Continuity of the actual space

Persevere the emotion of the scene. If you have to sacrifice any of the rules, go from the bottom up.


So with the rule of six in mind i applied this to both my edits



First Scene 34.

Emotion. Within the scene we can see that the female is there to spy on a couple, using the male as a decoy so she remains unknown. What we see by the emotion within the scene is from the connection between both the male and female character, and their dialogue between one and other. I kept in certain facial expression to show reactions to dialogue which is said. For example when the male says the line "I'm a shoulder to cry on" the female tilts her head and raising her eyebrows suggesting that she might need his shoulder to cry on. This then sparks the next piece of dialogue, purely from her facial reaction, "Not you, i hardly know you", progression of emotion adds to the progression of character development and story.


Story. The story to this film is that the female who is a private investigator is hired to spy on a couple by her employer. In this scene we can see that the male and female characters are at the beach because the couple is there.  Now this also links in with eye trace. When the female gets her camera out, due to spotting the couple, she begins took take pictures of what would look like, to surrounding people, of the male.

We can clearly see in the audiences perspective that she is focusing on the couple. This is set up in 3 parts. The first wide shot establishing that the couple are in the back ground and that our characters in the foreground have spotted them.






The next shot we can see that she is clearly taking pictures with the camera aimed in the direction of the couple.










 Finally is the revealing shot which we then see her camera is focusing on the couple. Allowing the audience to focus on what is happening within the story in order to advance it.







The pace is set in this sequence between the exchange of dialogue of  both the characters.
This allows time to show the impact of the conversation on both the characters, by seeing little micro expressions and reactions to what has been said, advancing character development adding to the story.

Second Scene 37





Scene 37 takes place later on in the story. So by this point we know that the P.I. is still following the couple.

The following shots show both a progression of story and emotion between the characters.

 We can see here that the P.I. is in this location not by coincidence but for spying. We can see this by her eye line, that she is looking right at the direction of the couple while remaining inconspicuous.
The emotion the derives from this sequence is when we see the woman spot the P.I. and she recognises her face.  This is tension begins to raise in the scene as we as a viewer see that she begins to suspect who the P.I. is, therefore engaging the audience.

The tension rises between them until the P.I. gets herself out of danger by spotting a friend of hers. This is where the tension builds more as we now know the she suspects her.


Later on in the scene we can see that the P.I. is being closely watched in the distance while in the diversion. This is where the eye trace comes into play.

This first shot extends the tension as we see that she knows that she is being watched.

We then cut to the second shot showing the women behind her pretending to look away. This allows the audience to follow her eye line from the first shot into the second in order to know why she is glancing behind her.







Now during both of these edits i came across an issue which was the audio. Because of the quality of the audio it added more time to the editing, perfecting it in order for the video to be to at a standard that the audience would except. Now the issue was that the audio in scene 34 was poor, this was from the microphone being knocked creating a rumble noise, the intensity of the wind on the microphone made the dialogue hard to hear and the audio levels fluctuated between each shot.

The audio for the dialogue in scene 37 was a lot better as it was a lot clearer and the audio levels flowed.

If i had the chance to do both these edits again i would spend a lot more time in soundtrack pro, fixing the audio making sure that it flowed between each shot. The dialogue from the audio counts towards the percentage of the emotion as it is an audible embodiment to the visuals.