I collected the recent footages in a new sequence and see how each scenes works on its own. Each scenes were best at portraying the emotions that I wanted the audience to feel. When I had the scenes lined up next to each other it was too long and draggy. To make it more compact I cut each scenes at a different timing where the shots are the same. For example, I have a few wide shots of the character walking so to make it look like a continuous scene I cut each scene at a different timing when she walks. The different pacing of her walking from one scene to the other becomes continuous. After that I lined up my scenes according to the timing. From the brighter scenes to the darker scenes so that it will look like she started her journey at a certain timing and ending it at night. Most of the scenes comprises of her walking aimlessly and alone. It may not be a complete film but this is still part of the story.
Once I finalised the scenes and the duration, I then proceed in finding the music. Finding a sad and gloomy music was easy. I had a few choices and I tried playing each music while playing the whole sequence at the same time. I choose the music that evoke a more subtle but leaves you with a deep emotion. At first, I used the music to play throughout the sequence but it gave a really pessimistic and sappy kind of mood. It may also sound boring overtime. I then used the music at the beginning and at the end of the film. The music at the beginning slowly fades out to the background sound from the actual footage. The actual background sound from each scenes uses a fade in and out so that the background sound, sounds continuous throughout every scene. It was hard to get it right as I kept making changes to the fade in and out. I kept changing the key frames until I reached to a certain pattern that works smoothly. I also added faint footsteps sound. It was difficult to find a footsteps sound effect similar to the character since most of it were footsteps on wooden flooring or heavy thud footsteps. I found one that was similar to the character and in certain scenes I reused the footsteps sound from the actual footage. At the end, I started the music a bit early in the second last scene as the music slowly and faintly starts to build up. It then creates a slow climax and tension but then it ends. Even though the whole film is short it ends nicely with the character walking into the crowd and how the music ends subtly too.
The initial idea had a VO scripted where the character reflect during her redefining moment. After lining up the scenes I felt that there isn’t a need for VO because it will disrupt the momentum. Also, I feel that the audience will not have the time to absorb what is really going on screen thus if there’s a VO they might not catch what the character is saying. The film itself with the music and raw background sounds help to build up and convey the right emotions to the audience.
