I’m gonna be perfectly honest here: my edited video is quite awful. This might come down to the lack of separately recorded audio: I was unable to work out how to retrieve my or anyone else’s audio from Google Drive. I played around a bit with the audio that was attached to the video, but opted to simply remove a few tracks and replace them with atmospheric sounds from one of the clips. It’s not particularly adventurous, but I figured it’s due today and I don’t have the time to get it done to the level that I’d prefer. Oh well.

I’m not a great judge of whether the message is clear, or even if there really is one. I used the footage captured by the other members of my documentary group, Tiana and Ella, which seemed to have an environmental motif, with torn-up leaves, throwing stuff into the rubbish bin and littering. It was pretty easy to cut them together with a pro-environment, pro-responsible disposal message, though it’s still pretty abstract.

It was pretty time-consuming to edit the leaf-tearing sequence, which I cut up so that it gets faster and more frenetic. I’m pretty new at editing so hopefully it does evoke some kind of discomfort. I also decided to keep the sound in, mostly because the sound of the leaf crinkling was pretty, but also because the screeching of the tram in the distance seemed to add a layer of unpleasantness, which I liked.

All in all, though, I’m not overly impressed, and that’s entirely my fault. I haven’t really left myself with the time or resources to do this properly, so this is what an hour or so of work will do. Sorry.

I’m not great at creating abstract meaning, it mostly confuses me, but Ella and Tiana’s decision to record what they did seemed to help make a path obvious. I thought putting the rubbish bin at the end made the statement clear, being that ‘throwing stuff away is good, environment needs our help’ etc.

The recordings themselves are great, though I can’t claim any responsibility for that. Had I used my own set of recordings for the audio, I would have most liked to use the sound of the really squeaky door, I love that sound. Of all of them, that was the one that came through clearest to me, alongside the sounds of the traffic signals, which I also enjoy.