3rd editing session- Benoit's post- Alterations to shots

3rd Editing Session

Within this session, my goal was to approach the sequence with the teacher's feedbacks as a main target to meet with the new draft of 'Oblivious'; by focusing my full attention towards the last portion of the sequence that is taken within a school.

My main issue was figuring out how I can trim the shot of our actor walking toward the door without much impact on the timing of the project.This was because during the screening,our teachers had a huge complaint with the lighting within the frame but also with the overall necessity to include it; asking us does it add anything? What is the reason for this shot? Our group then collectively realised that there was no real reason to include it.

'Shot of the actor approaching the class door'

Later on I have decided to keep it in the sequence for the sake of this new draft, as our group have not entirely agreed on how we'll make up for the 7 seconds spared if the shot is removed. I then simply focused on replacing the classroom footage with the updated shots. The updated shots consist of a wide view of the class instead of the camera pushing away; as seen in the first and second draft.

This decision was made because the wide shot is far more simple and has the more view within it's frame allowing the action of Joseph walking to his desk and sitting down a lot cleaner and smoother.

Another new alteration made to the edit is changing a shot during the bomb assembly sequence; this close-up shot was of our actor's mouth saying a line of dialogue but due to the poor framing made it difficult for audiences to see what is in the frame, therefore effecting the viewing experience and taking the audience out of the experience.

'Original shot used in the previous drafts'

In this original shot, the subject moved too much and then lead to his mouth appearing out of frame where the audience can't see. This made the clarity of the scene ineffective and drawing the attention of the audience away from the scene.

'Replacement shot of the actor'

During the various shooting sections of the 'bomb assembly' sequence, we had taken many takes of the same shot which in this case was a huge benefactor as we had a range of replacement shots to choose from. Eventually we had chosen to use this shot as the subject's mouth is placed where we wanted it to be; whilst the lighting is still partially lit but just enough for audiences to see without it being a distraction. 

My thoughts:

I agree that we needed to get rid of the pan shot of Aayush walking to his classroom, I realise now it wasn't really needed. It is much more effective to just cut straight to Aayush opening the door handle, because the previous shot was him picking up the bomb. This makes the audience feel more implicit as it suggests the main reason he made the bomb was to do something related to his school, making our video more thrilling and tense. 

Also I really like the new shot, of Aayush delivering his lines when assembling the bomb. Last time the framing was done in a way that when he said his lines, half of his face was off the screen to the delivery of the lines looked poor. Now we re-shot this particular bit, it looks a lot better as you can see his mouth saying the lines; but not his whole face, to keep the tone of the video more mysterious and bleek.

I am happy with the new changes to the editing and camerawork, it is more suitable and the fact that we took out the pan shot of Aayush walking to the classroom, saved us 7 seconds to extend other shots that were more significant, such as the shot of me and Aayush talking. This made the last bit of the video much more eerie, as the stare Aayush does to me gets extended and makes his character seem even more unsettling because the way he acts in school is very unusual.