When I was going through the archival footage for SBP for Humanity, I came across an observational footage showing a housing complex during the road trip. At first, I thought that they weren’t that useful nor were they relevant to the documentary. But in the words of Frederick Wiseman (2018) on shooting observational footage, “I come across this thing as a chance … then my job as an editor is to decide what it is saying … and where I’m going to place it.” With that in mind, I decided to include it, as well as footage of the neighbourhood to show the contrast in terms of the quality of infrastructure between both areas. I also ended up putting in the diegetic audio from those shots but taking it down a notch, in order to make it even more realistic.
I also noticed that most of the shots taken, like the one above, were candids. The students seem very focused on their task and this shows that they took the job seriously by focusing on their work and aren’t distracted by the fact that they’re being filmed. I also didn’t do any colour grading for the shots, since most of them seem to be similar, if not the same, in terms of colour and I didn’t want to alter that. I also didn’t want to colour grade the footage to create a particular vibe, as I felt that it isn’t really relevant to the narration.
I decided to include an audio-only interview that is delivered in a narrative tone, like the example Heart of A Dog (2015) given in class. I decided to choose Ms Cherry as my subject because she is the teacher in charge of the project, and she was also involved in the house renovation process during the very first year. Therefore, I wanted to highlight her personal experience and perspective based on all these years that the project has been going on. In terms of the background audio, I deliberately included the diegetic audio for several shots when the students were working, as well as added specific sound effects to emphasize essential sounds that were happening in the background. Towards the end of the documentary, I also left in the audio when Ms Cherry was saying her closing remarks to wrap up the day, and we can hear the students cheering on, which correlates with her voiceover narration saying that she’s proud and satisfied with the work that the students did.
