Week 8

After an amazing trip zum Schwarzewald, where we collected enough footage to create our own documentary, we were back and ready to tackle a busy week.

As soon as I could on Tuesday I got an early start on the acoustic film. As a group we had discussed how we wanted the layout of the acoustic film to go. It was to be about our commute to class and I started laying up sound clips into the acoustic track in the order that we experience that. In order to make the most sense of it I compartmentalized what I was working on by laying in a portion of the daily routine and then only working on that part. I did this by making six segments, the first one was of the apartment. I took sound clips that Jessie and Jessica had shot in the apartment and first laid them all into the audio track and from there I had to figure out how to work with them. I had seen friends do video editing in high school and that turned out to be reaslly helpful because I hate reading instructions. I found the software to be somewhat intuitive and it was easy to learn it as I went along. I realized that the only way to make the sounds interesting was to leave them very quick and choppy. There are very few cross-fades in the first segment and I think it helps to emphasize urgency. I worked through each of these segments constantly learning how to deal with areas that required much more editing, segments like the U-bahn and bus.

Throughout the editing it became evident what sounds we needed or needed to recapture and Jon, and I were able to do that everyday on our way to class. The rest of my time was really dedicated to editing. It was a process that took the entire week, and much more time than I anticipated, even with what we discussed in class.

After sitting in front of the computer for hours listening to the sounds of our commute I thought it was really interesting then to go see Lola running through Berlin. I've seen the film before but this time when I watched it I couldn't stop focusing on the amount of motion that the film depicts. The film is nonstop motion through the city, and in a much different way of capturing motion, so is our acoustic project. Motion was definitely the aspect that I would relate strongest with our own project. As Lola runs through the city we see distinct images of Berlin, but images that are in many ways far from iconic.

As the reading discussed, Berlin film critics were unsatisfied with the locations that Tom Tykwer chose in that they were not distinctly iconic of the city. Tom Tykwer wasn't necessarily setting out to make a Berlin film. He wasn't trying to deal with issues of the city today. He was instead trying to focus on his plot, one that was reliant on Berlin as a location, which the text mentions. We on the other hand are trying to make a film about Berlin. A film that couldn't be translated to any other city so for this reason I think it is important to analyze what the film critics were saying. I think that iconic footage will play a definite role in our film. I also think that only showing iconic footage might come across as too much of an outsider's perspective. So for the imagery that we use I think some kind of balance will be required.

Speed is another element that was key in Run Lola Run and one that the subject of Tischtennis will really allow us to capitalize on, so in that way I think there are some definite lessons we can draw from the style of Tom Tykwer's film and also some of the criticism that surrounded it.

In order for us to shoot at the Serene Club as we had arranged the week before, Jon and I had to leave the screening of Run Lola Run a little early. It was rough taking time out of our busy editing schedule to work on the acoustic and for that reason we were a little upset that the turn out for the event wasn't what we had hoped for. At any rate we did get some usable footage, played some Tischtennis and did get an interview from the bartender.

As the week went on we were able to film in the gaps with newly collected footage for the acoustic film, I learned a lot about Adobe Premier, and the project really began coming together. Working on the project in a compartmentalized way was really effective, after I had a rough version worked out of the entire acoustic commute. Jessica, Jon and I sat down and went through the details of the entire project. We smoothed out transitions, adjusted volume levels, and cut the overall project down even more. The nature of working with one project of one computer is difficult without everyone having an good understanding of the software, the good thing about being the one most familiar with the editing and the footage we had collected, was that I got a ton of creative control, but I think that in the end sitting down as a group allowed us to really allow for the input of the collective.

At the end of the week I was happy with the way the acoustic video turned out, and now more than ever realize how much work will have to go into the editing of our final project.