I’m trying to edit the bowls club piece which was aptly titled by the actress Justine “boys in love at the bowls club” and I’m having a hard time. Emotionally I am struggling to edit because the shoot doesn’t much look like it would have if I had directed it. The footage is hard to edit with eleven takes from the same angle and half of the footage devoted to an unscripted scene that didn’t translate well with the actress. The location was so brilliant, the cast were great, it just didn’t come together how I pictured and emotionally I’m struggling to edit.

needing more varied angles, reverse shots, crowd reactions etc

I was hoping to work as an interchangeable group where we would all look at the monitor and scope out ideas and give criticisms as a team. I don’t think this is how the rest of the team works and in my pitch I should have made it clearer that I wanted to work in collaborative roles where we would all have a say in the shooting style. I think next time if there’s a pitch included I will put a priority into expressing the ways I would like to work, as I totally left this out of my presentation in the weeks earlier. Thus my reflection on collaboration would be that I think need to learn to speak up more and assert myself if I know I have an idea that will work well on screen. Also I know how to use the cameras and need to stop doubting myself as a more hands on role during filming would have been great.

Looking at the footage, there aren’t enough different shots to make this easy to edit. There are no closeups or details, and nearly every shot is a wide angle. I feel as if theres a distance between the viewer and the characters.  We were truly short on time, as the host of the club wanted us out at 9.45 and our actors didn’t arrive until 7. I was pushing for us to squeeze in as many closeups and detail shots as possible; so much of the story is in the characters hands. I would have loved some closeups of the beers they were holding, nervous tapping, the shoes dancing etc.  I made a list of what I would have liked to include:

A objective MS shot of Chris (glasses) with the chair in the foreground. Mark would walk into the shot and we see his hand on the chair.
A reverse shot of Mark from Chris’s perspective, giving a glance down at Chris not flirtatiously, but more in a sense that the time has come where we dance – I never wrote the script to be flirtatious, more abstract attraction, as if dancing together was something they knew they had to do, and were happy to? I don’t know if that makes sense.
Chris smiling back at him, probably from a side angle, no longer in their perspectives bur from our own, and then a closeup of those hands clasping, preferably with a short depth of field, the camera following the clasped hands onto the dancefloor.
A shot of the couple dancing from the singers perspective (symmetrical dirty o/s… so more dirty overhead?)
Then there would be closeups and ECU’s of their heads resting on each other’s shoulders.

I understand the actors were doing us a favour and weren’t 100% comfortable with acting and holding each other this way but sometimes you have to push. It was really rewarding working with actors again. People are generous with their time and efforts and I want this to look good for them. Colour grading post will be next.