New Footage

I have now begun adding new footage recently acquired for our short documentary in FST 497, Soul Resident. The footage is great and has a lot of the content we were looking for. A struggle I am currently having is finding where to include the new footage. Our former cut was so tightly put together that I am now having difficulty loosening it to find room for what's new. Making a small change in one spot often means changes that trickle all the way down the timeline.

The new footage includes interviews from two individuals: Joel DelRio Sr. and his son, Joel DelRio Jr. There is B-roll of them practicing parkour on a playground as well. This newly acquired footage included within it topics that I was able to subclip and add to the "topics" folder in our bin. These topics include: struggles of parkour, fears about parkour, and how parkour ties into family. There is particularly good content in the "fears about parkour" topic. The child indicates that he sometimes feels afraid to perform the moves associated with parkour. This sounds like exactly that kind of opposition we have been looking for, someone to express their fears and the real potential dangers that exist with practicing parkour. I think placing that piece of the interview directly after the montage of parkour fails will fit very nicely. The child also leaves a bit of silence before and after his dialogue, which, in editing, allows us to emphasize the impact of his statement. The B-roll includes shots of him that seem very reflective, as well, almost as if he is in deep thought about something. Juxtaposing these with his lines about fears will look good, in my opinion.

The father provides some good detailed answers, as well. He expands quite nicely on topics; however, he says many "Uhh"s and "Umm"s that unnecessarily prolong his answers. This makes the duration of the documentary spike significantly. Thus, I've been working on cutting out those pieces of dialogue and masking them with B-roll. This often means many cuts, which, in turn, means difficulty finding fresh B-roll that makes sense. Despite this, his answers are very good and so need to be included, I think. There is also some good B-roll of them practicing parkour together, while in the same shot. These fit nicely when he is talking about how parkour has helped bring his family closer together.

Today we present on our color grading assignment. What we tried to do in our assignment was emphasize the many vibrant colors of the gyms by boosting saturation. We did not, however, want to do anything too drastic.