Rough Cut - Night Journey

The screen grabs below are from our current rough cut, I'll analyse them and discus the techniques we plan to utilize in order to justify the cuts.

First and foremost I thought that if any narrative was to be found in the piece, the narration needed to be the driving factor as its this that will give the images meaning and context. Here is a screen grab of all the clips cut, organised and labeled so as I may quickly select the one I need. As I understand the importance of leaving plenty of space within the narration i.e. pause for thought, I decided to go through and select only what I considered to be the most valuable. 

In order to create better cuts we plan to use a number of sound bridges to carry some of the edits. The screen grab below illustrates one such sound bridge, we've decided to cut just before the door closes and carry the sound onto the following shot to make sure the audience understand the fact these two shots happen chronologically. With the footage we've been given there are enevitably going to be certain cuts that seem to jump and at times may seem jarring. I like the way in which the camera pans up to the character who then lights his cigarette however because of this seemingly unnecessary camera movement it may seem like time has passed, by using a sound bridge it will be clear that it is a continuation of the scene and not a jump cut. 

The other sound bridge will occur just before the fast paced montage of the high speed train. I wish to slowly raise the volume of a train speeding on tracks just before making the cut, then on the cut raise the volume considerably emphasising the speed and power of the train. My reasoning behind this bridge is that while I like the montage, to launch into it without any prior warning of whats to come might seem, like before, too jarring. By introducing the sound of a moving train I hope to suggest to the audience what they are about to see before it happens, carrying the cut and smoothing out the transition. 

Another way in which I hope to smooth the transition between the rapid cutting and back to a static, internal shot is through letting the train leave frame during the final clip of the sequence. By doing this while syncronising the fading sound of the train I hope the intensity of the previous shots dies with the sound of the train, allowing me to cut to a static shot inside the train. The reason behind allowing a few seconds before the internal shot begins to pan toward the character is that I find that when editing from a shot with movement to a static one, the cut becomes very noticeable. These few seconds of still will hopefully hide the cut and make the transition feel more natural.  

 Below is a screen grab of the fast paced close ups of trains. For the rough cut I made them all the same length and arranged them in an order I felt flowed the best. Starting with shots of the tracks and progressing to shots of the carriages as the sequence moves forward.

As part of my invented narrative, I wanted to include a surreal dream sequence that would seem to be the spring board for the characters paranoia. I'm not entirely happy with it so far however the form its taken is something close to what I have in mind. To establish his dream state I chose to use the only shot of the passenger asleep, then, in quick succession, flash a few frames of the supposed cannibal revealing his true nature. While I don't fully appreciate the string that can be seen in this shot, I thought by cutting it very quickly the method by which the case opens isn't overly clear allowing me to use the clip.

To further suggest his panicked sleep, I cut out single frames of over exposure and used them in the frames between the edits of him asleep and those of what he's dreaming. The result are instant flashes of light, disorientating to the audience and representational of his distorted dream. Another method I used to suggest the fact its a dream is by putting motion into the shot. Using key frames I make the camera zoom in on the characters face very slowly, progressing closer and closer each time it cuts back to this shot. I like the result as it evokes the idea that we are seeing deeper and deeper into his mind.

Here is the before and after of the use of a zoom

For the opening of the film I used a standard establishing shot of the train station but following this I didn't want to use the somewhat boring, static shots of the character walking around, finding his train. What I did like however were the unusual point of view shots of a character walking through the busy station, I thought they were a more interesting and dynamic way of starting the film. I tried using one on its own and it felt very out of place stuck between two tripod shots so instead I used three, cutting them in reflectively quick succession in an attempt to establish some pace. In order to prevent the cuts from feeling too garish I made sure to cut during a moment when a member of the public blocked a substantial amount of the frame, this way the audience is distracted from the fact there's an edit by something large looming into frame. This being said, its still obvious when the cuts take place, I used this method only to try and disguise them as best I knew how.    

In order to cut from these POV shots back to a static one was somewhat of a problem, as I've already said, I find that cutting from a moving shot to a still one causes quite a jump. I tried to get around this by attempting some match on action. In the shot below there is a man with a green coat in the foreground, this cuts to a shot on a tripod where in a man in a similar coloured coat also walks into frame. By timing the cut, I tried to see if I could pass them off as the same person, using them to carry the cut.