editing prac from Ellie Jamonts on Vimeo.

Le temps de l’amour performed by Françoise Hardy
Lucien Morisse/André Salvet/Jacques Dutronc
©1962 Vogue

Editing isn’t easy. This is my first real go at it (which I think is fairly obvious) and while I did find it satisfying to tie all those little segments together, even this took its time. I can only imagine how painstaking it would be to edit film by hand. It’s based around the theme of COLOUR so I went for a pretty standard approach: the gulf between the conservative elements of the 1950s and liberation of the 60s.

 

As I was going along, I realised how valuable paying attention to cues in the music can be. Watching my first cut something felt a little off and I realised that by swapping two clips there was a much better sense of flow. Transitions made a difference, too, and made it clearer that this vision of the 60s was literally a vision being had by the man driving the car. I did feel limited by the title — I think it looks kind of 2007 Windows Movie Maker — but it got the point across.

 

If I did this again there are a few changes I’d want to make. I’d prefer the colour clips to be more along the lines of the lady in red and perhaps change the song to something a little, well, less polite. I also would have liked to include a reaction shot of the black and white man before the car crashes to make it more explicit that he was reacting to the premonition of the 60s.

 

In doing this I learnt a valuable bonus lesson about saving my drafts, since I hit refresh and lost everything the first time I wrote this post.