Putting Together a First Cut

I already knew the film was going to be too long but for the first cut I figured I’d just put everything together as if I wasn’t making it to be under five minutes and take things out later.

The opening scenes were simple enough. Without worrying if they flowed into each other too well I put together the door exchange, the gaming scene and the one in the kitchen. With the constant movement in the kitchen and the positioning of the door it could only be done in shot reverse shot so with this in mind I kept the video games scene in a two shot to uphold the idea that Michael and Joe had a close, comfortable relationship.

 

I used ‘Norwegian Wood’ as planned to cover the transition between the kitchen scene and the party whilst playing about with the speed Michael writes at. This worked very well to convey the idea of jumping forward in time.

With Sarah’s scene already put together I merely slotted it in between the kitchen scene and the bedroom scene that followed which was very simple and just linked into the exchange with Natalie. The editing on Natalie’s scene I was particularly pleased with. I decided to use a simple two-shot for the first part of the scene rather than cutting between Joe and Michael as it kept with the idea of the two of them as a pair and the strength of their acting in that scene carried it as it was. The exchange with Natalie herself was harder because playing Natalie had prevented me from having complete control over the camera although every shot had been run by me before we pressed record. I went for a snappy shot-reverse-shot structure and then faded into the rejection montage- the expression on Joe’s face was perfect.

The montage was very tricky. I first picked out the best selection of Joe’s reactions and the girls then experimented mixing them together but it didn’t seem like another. I referred back to my original influence (the credits sequence in ‘A Hard Day’s Night’) and then picked out the best expressions to use as stills which I then mixed in alternating between black-and-white and colour. This effectively conveyed the passing of time but sound was still a problem. When I put Katie’s ukulele rendition of ‘Something’ to the images it quickly came apparent that it looked odd if it didn’t cut to the beat. This was very difficult. I had to listen to the track few a couple of times before putting markers on the timeline at appropriate steady intervals then I cut the shots in time with the marks. It worked as well as it could have. I was also adamant to use the shot of people taking Toblerone in time with the refrain in ‘Something’ this was trickier yet. I experimented with using clips of people taking them sped up and just stills of them gradually disappearing before settling on something.

The final scenes by contrast were quite simple. With the stairs scene it was simply a case of putting together the best actors performances and cutting out the parts where Matt forgot his lines (of which there were many) with the climax I wanted to really accentuate the feeling of unity and I think the steady sound of chatter in the background fading away worked really well with that. The shots of the different girls being compared to fish was a nice moment of comic relief from the tension building between the two characters. I cut between two shots and close-ups to also accentuate the feeling of division growing between them just before Michael initiates the twist ending.

The kiss was difficult. Although we had plenty of footage from many different angles the duration of the actual moment was far too short and ultimately anti-climatic. The music I had was not ideal- the chords from ‘Yes It Is’ the words would have worked well as it’s both romantic, melancholy and misunderstood but without them it just sounds odd. I put the footage all in slow-motion to semi-ironically mimic the classic romance film. In black and white and frozen it amuses me that the two appear to mimic the cover to ‘Double Fantasy’ but this is pretty irrelevant. It then fades to black with an animated drawing of a heart with ‘J+M’ written in it to bring the film full circle and sustain the visual style established in the opening scene.

The final shot it of Joe taking Michael’s hand which should leave the film on a high note and the ending satisfyingly ambiguous. It then fades to white which I hope will confirm the positive feel I’ve intended and I’ve put ‘Blackbird’ to the credits.