Wednesday 27 February 2013

Rough Cut (19/02/12)

After leaving our rough cut the other day after starting to lose concentration on it, Lewis edited a bit more of the film after the lesson on Thursday (21st February). He pieced together the first 50 seconds of the film and then e-mailed the project file to me so I could get on with a bit of the editing myself before sending the file back to Lewis.

Once I opened the file, I looked at what Lewis had done with the edit so far and then tired to think of where we could take the film. Lewis had edited the opening sequence for the film, with a small montage of the train going along the tracks and the victim getting on the train, so our storyline was still to be established.

I had another look through the script and read all of the voiceovers that we had been provided with to use and decided that I wanted to keep the story the same, having the cannibal talk to the victim, however, I wanted to show that the victim had been eaten by the end of the film. Doing this was going to be difficult because there weren't actually any shots of the cannibal eating the victim.

After looking through all of the footage and planning which shots would look good for an end sequence, I came up with a way of showing that the cannibal was eating the victim without actually seeing it happen. First, I wanted to use a shot of any empty seat where the cannibal was originally sat, to show that he had moved, and then cut to a shot of the victim asleep, telling the audience that something was going to happen to the victim as he was helpless whilst sleeping. After that, I used a shot of the cannibal pouring salt onto the victims hand, to show that he was adding 'spices' to make him taste better and finally a shot of the cannibal's mouth slowly grinning and opening to show that he was about to eat the victim, before slowly fading to black during the actual eating.

Then I decided to fade in from black to a shot of the cannibal looking out of the window, as we could see him in the reflection. This was used to show that he was getting ready to leave the train, before cutting to a close up shot of the alarm chain broken as it had been pulled. In the same shot, the camera tilted down to show three characters coming and looking into the compartment where the two men were sat, before cutting to a shot showing the empty compartment, both men missing. I then cut back to the three characters looking puzzled at who pulled the alarm, before once again fading to black and fading back up from black to a shot of the cannibal walking away from the train and the reflection of the victim on the inside of the train. I wanted to use this reflection as a way of showing that the victim had been eaten and is now a ghost on the train, watching his murderer walk away happily.


After that, I decided that I wanted to introduce the majority of the three characters that appear at the end of the film early on in the film. When I looked through the footage earlier on, I noticed that there was only one shot of the man in the red robe throughout all of the footage. In the shot, the man asks the two passengers if either of them have a lighter, before leaving the compartment. I wanted to included this shot to show that the men weren't the only people on the train and so that at the end when we see this man, he wouldn't be a complete stranger. I included this shot shortly after a piece sequence of the two men in the compartment together where the victim was looking at the cannibal and then I cut to a two shot of the men looking at each other. The voiceover said "After 'That's how it is' he said nothing" and then I cut to a cutaway shot of the train running along the trains to show time passing and then after that shot I included the shot of the man in his robe.


I then cut back to the conversation between the two men, with the cannibal telling the man that he'll be asleep soon and then he'll do what he wants to with him, and then the victim wondering what the cannibal has in his suitcase. I then wanted to cut to a shot of the suitcase and the skull falling out and hitting the cannibal's foot to add a bit of shock to the film, showing that the cannibal carries around skulls with him of his victims, and the victim on the train's skull could be the next one in the cannibal's collection.



Following the part of the film with the skulls, I wanted to cut to another piece of conversation between the two men as the victim says that he isn't going to fall asleep and then the cannibal tells him that every falls into a deep sleep between three and four whilst he is casually pouring himself a drink of coffee and the victim is rubbing his eyes trying to stay awake. Then the cannibal tells the victim that they get shut into their compartments and nobody sees or hears anything, trying to worry the victim even more.


Because the cannibal tried to make the victim feel claustrophobic by telling him that they get shut into their compartments, I wanted to add a shot showing the victim trying to almost 'escape' the compartment by pulling back the curtain and looking outside, giving him a sense of freedom in the world outside of the compartment he was trapped in. Then I cut back to a shot of the cannibal offering him a cigarette before trying to close the curtains at the entrance of the room and the ticket man coming into the compartment to check both of the men on his list. This introduces the ticket man into the film as he will be seen at the end when the alarm is pulled. When the ticket man looks at the victim, I wanted to cut to a shot of the victim to show that he was starting to fall to sleep, and then cut back to the ticket man noting the victim down on his sheet and then leaving the room.




After I had finished that part of the scene, there was roughly a minute to fill in of the film. I thought I would now added the sound to the film and then send the project file to Lewis to see what he thought to the editing that I had done to the piece.

The sounds that I added were mainly sounds of the train as it was moving along the tracks, recorded from inside the train, to give it more of a realistic feeling with the actual atmosphere of a train. I added the voiceover as I added the visuals to the film earlier on because I came up with the ideas for the voiceovers as I was piecing together the visuals.

Overall, I am very happy with the rough cut so far and I'm looking forward to hearing what Lewis thinks to it and speaking through any ideas he has to fill in the extra minute we have available before the ending of the film.

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