My submitted edit is quite rough and also incomplete – I was hoping to shoot some extra extreme close-ups, but I didn’t manage to do so. Consequently, there are parts that look a little loose, and there’s also a part that I left blank in the hope of inserting an ECU of a cigarette being tapped and ashes falling off it.
It’s safe to say that this is an Aronofsky/Libatique-inspired scene, because (1) it doesn’t have the technical prowess and (2) I ended up slightly deviating from some signature techniques. But I think that this deviation makes the overall investigation more interesting. Rather than copying the Aronofsky/Libatique style, I used it to influence my coverage choices and then tried to tailor these techniques to work with the material that I had.
Like the Anderson-Yeoman edit, sound played a big part in bringing elements together. There’s still a disconnect, but it’s not as large as what it was.
The constant ambient track is kind of yucky though – shots which recorded quiet dialogue against a louder ambient background were difficult to level out with those shots which had louder dialogue and low levels of ambient noise. So, changes in ambience are noticeable. But I tried.
The whacky sound effects associated with the ECUs were great fun to implement. I didn’t go all out whacky with the sound effects though, because I had to consider the dialogue also playing. I still wish that I’d shot more ECUs and cut them together much faster. The montage moment(s) feels a bit off – a bit too slow maybe. But then again, I have the dialogue playing during the montage as well. I’m not sure how well this combination of whacky sound effects as well as dialogue works with the ECU montage. The sound effects might be too distracting from the dialogue. I think it’s a bit messy, and I think this is because I was trying to coordinate two different rhythms. The dialogue alone would work best with a slower cut ECU montage, while the sound effects alone would work best with a rapidly cut ECU montage. And I was trying to find some middle ground with these requirements.
The beginning of the scene is awkward. Mostly because of the dialogue that I pretend Bobby is saying during the over the shoulder shot (his chin clearly isn’t moving). Originally, I had a montage in mind as a possibility for the opening, but that montage ended up being a lengthy ECU shot of Bobby’s fingers and then cut to the OTS shot of his fingers and then cut out to the wide. I don’t know. I didn’t think it through very well.
I did a bit of colour grading with this edit. I enhanced the green tones slightly and tried to balance the colouring among shots. I also attempted to balance the brightness and contrast levels among shots. Unfortunately, lots of these shots still don’t match. Again, it’s messy. But there are some shots which, individually, look really nice. Really, really nice. Which I like.
So, I’ve already discussed the discontinuous lighting and colour grading within the scene, but there were plenty more continuity issues – things like eye-line, performance continuity, shot angle matching (for shot-reverse-shot) are all over the place. Live and learn, eh?
I found a simple technique to reduce the disconnect among elements in the scene and have shots flow better. Cutting during dialogue, especially for a shot-reverse-shot sequence, helps so much to bring everything together. I think this is because it’s the sort of cut that doesn’t draw attention to itself, since it’s not the focus of what’s happening. Instead, the cut hides behind dialogue. This is opposed to having shot of a character delivering dialogue, then cutting during the gap to the other character’s response. The gap is a pause / a moment of quiet, so the cut is far more striking. This disconnect that occurs when cutting during the dialogue switch gap is also just about the general unnaturalness of characters ‘having turns’ at talking. But cutting on dialogue is definitely a technique that I’ll hang onto for future reference. I think I only implemented it once or twice in the shot-reverse-shot section of this scene, but those tiny changes make all of the difference in how that sequence flows.
I think shooting this scene was a super valuable component of my investigation though. It has a completely different feel from the Anderson-Yeoman scene and the Lubezki scene.