Cut, Cut, Cut!

As I mentioned last post, this month will be a time of heavy editing. Long stretches of time spent in my room with the shades drawn working on the doc are starting to yield results. It's amazing what happens when you trim the fat. Today I successfully removed 10 minutes from a sequence, largely by cutting out clips of people saying "um..." The resulting sequence on culture is fairly tight, bouncing from Africans to Irish to food to language. Now that the interview clips are in order, I get to do the fun part: putting colorful b-roll on top to illustrate the points made.

May 1st

I've written on my giant calendar-which I plan my life on- that May 1st will be the day of the rough cut. This means that April is going to be a month of editing and picking up a few interviews/shots. Whatever comes out on May 1st will be a far cry from the final piece, but having a deadline is a good motivator. As I edit, I go from "how will this ever work" to "this stuff practically edits itself" and everything in between. I have a map in my brain of how to address everything with the footage that I have, and I need to make that come to life.

April

I've set a goal to have a first cut by the end of the month. I was invited to show the film at a Souther New Hampshire English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) meeting in June, which means I definitely need something by that time. This month will be some heavy editing and the collection of the final interviews. Hopefully, I will get more leads/interviews after the screenings start, and I can keep building this project all summer. Now I have to find a good place to show it...