Episode Three: 26 - Deciding on Final Cut Pro

It seems that there are several different options out there for editing video and film. The two dominant ones appear to be Final Cut Pro, and Adobe Premiere. I am much more familiar and comfortable with the Adobe suite, and their workflow, so it seemed like Premiere would be the ideal solution for this project. (My own research revealed that Premiere was the more professional solution, too, so that is one more reason that I would want to use it.) However, when using Premiere, it quickly became clear that the way audio was dealt with in Premiere caused all sorts of odd issues, especially in terms of timing, etc. This might have been caused by my computer hardware not being up-to-snuff; or it may have been that I just didn't know the work-arounds in solving these audio problems in Premiere. In fact, a bit of online research showed that many people had similar problems. In any case, this was reason enough to not use Premiere, and opt for Final Cut Pro: it just worked.

Another benefit that I had while working on this film was the fact that editing can be done on a laptop alone, without an additional mouse. (Perhaps an external mouse would have been a great help, but I still don't know because I only work on my laptop with the trackpad.) The reason I mention this is because this all means that I can do editing work on the subway train, while commuting to one place or another. In fact, most of the editing process for this film was conducted while commuting. To be sure, there are a lot of things that cannot be done without a mouse (such as animation), and those steps of the production must be done at home, or at a place where I could set out a mouse.

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Episode Three: 25 - Other Films First

By now, all the primary footage that I would need for this documentary was completed. This was August. But I didn't know what I would do with it, or how it would fit together, or even if I needed more footage of Toshi. In any case, history would decide for us. I went away for an end of summer holiday to Yellowstone. (link) I knew that while I was at Yellowstone I would try to document my trip, and make a nice video.

After a week of shooting that footage, I was depressed with what I had, and realized that I didn't know anything about filmmaking, or shooting footage. Part of this was because I didn't know how to use my camera; and part of this was because I didn't know how to frame shots very well.

I thus started the autumn a bit depressed about what I was doing, and how I was doing it. I didn't feel particularly motivated to do any of this. But a couple of dates were thrust upon me.

The first was that the second episode of Listen To The City Breathe had to be done by the middle of September. This was so the subject of that documentary might share the film with others in order to help gain funding, or... something. I rushed to finish episode 2, and it was ready to show to people. However, the subject of the film didn't feel it was suitable to be shown, and thus withdrew her permission to have it shown. Even though I thought it was a nice film, it was still a shocking development.

The next film that I had to finish was a music video for the HANDSCommunity Center, a church based group (link). This had to be completed by the end of September. Again, I was proud of the film, and I learned a lot. I gained some sort of artistic vision there, and even suggested to the musician to change the song slightly so that it could better fit my vision.

After finishing the HANDS music video, I entered a bit of a slump. I don't know what it was, but I wasn't really feeling satisfied with my film projects, and it seemed to me that getting better was probably never going to happen. I had a couple of short fictional narratives that I wanted to shoot, too, but I couldn't make it happen.

I didn't produce or even work on anything through October and November (despite having three docs worth of footage that I could work on). Then in December Ramon Catalan (link) reached out to me to make a very simple music video for his own Christmas song, ChristmasFantasy. His proposal was terribly simple, and I was completely unmotivated to work on it. However, It dawned on me that this might be my opportunity to create a short fictional narrative film. I told him that I would work on the film, but I needed to make it a proper music video, with a story and all. Even after several hiccups during that production, I produced the Christmas Fantasy music video to wide acclaim. Everyone, including myself, was happy with it, and having made such a nice film gave me the motivation that I had been lacking all autumn.

So in January, I decided to renew my energy on the Listen To The City Breathe series. I had three subjects to choose from, and I finally decided on Toshi, mostly at random.

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Episode Three: 24 - Third Interview, ii

The other big problem that occurred during this final interview has to do with the location: it was outside. That meant that there was all kinds of noise from people and cars and truck passing by and doing their everyday work. That was all recorded. Again, while editing the film, I had to work with what I had, so... (I will talk about this a lot more when I discuss editing.)

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Episode Three: 23 - Third Interview, i

After his dance session, Toshi had a break, so I wanted to get one last chance to get interview footage of him. More amateurish mistakes were made, but during editing, I think the footage was utilized nicely (I will talk about editing much later).

The main problem with this final interview was with audio. At first, I stupidly forgot to turn on the recorder, and thus the footage was useless. Because Toshi is very friendly, I confessed to him my mistake, and he allowed me to conduct the interview all over again.

This forced me to make a list of all the things that i must do when shooting an interview: 1) check lights, 2) check camera one, 3) check camera two, 4) check the audio, 5) check interview questions. (There's even more of the a checklist for when I leave my home for a shoot...) I'm sure that there's more to check, but for now that is enough for me. It reminded me why, even on interviews like this, a full crew is really necessary. In any case, I can't afford a full crew, so I just make sure that my checklist is all met, and try my best.

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Episode Three: 22 - The RIDE, ii

With my primary camera, the Sony a6000 on an Zhiyun Crane, I shot some footage of Toshi dancing. Because he was a very energetic dancer, I thought it would fit if I tried to shoot some more energetic camera movements. I am happy with it. I hope it worked for everyone else, too.

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Episode Three: 21 - The RIDE, i

While I never really go through any of the footage until I begin editing, I did conduct interviews, so through that process, I learn other things about Toshi. I was certain that I wanted to get footage of him while at his professional performances for the RIDE. We scheduled a meeting a week later, when his schedule was more firm.

He had a pretty solid program for the performance, and I was there for the first performance of the day. Just by coincidence, we ran into a friend of Toshi's, and (having learned to always bring a second camera with me during the last interview), I brought my second camera, which was an iPhone6 on an OSMO stabilizer. I gave my second camera to her, and just asked her to shoot whatever she wanted. I figured that no matter what she shot, additional footage would always be welcomed in the editing rooms, since you never knew what might be caught on camera.

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Ep.Three: 20 - Toshi's Archives

One significant reason that I had to go and shoot at Toshi's home is so that we could have access to his archive. One of the most significant things that I found over the course of the three episodes of Listen To The City Breathe is that archive footage is invaluable. For the first episode, I had a lot; for the second episode I had none. I am so grateful that Toshi had collected a very nice archive of his own work, and that I had access to it for this third episode. It made things a whole lot easier.

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Episode Three: 19 - Second Interview, iv

I don't know why, but I decided that I didn't need the second camera for b-roll footage. Since the a-roll was out-of-focus, this was clearly a mistake. I think my logic then was that carrying everything was getting too heavy, and on this hot day, I didn't want to over-exert myself. I will try not to make this mistake again; if I want to get good footage, I have to suffer a little bit. Since I only had one source of footage, this meant that in order to make the dialogue flow more smoothly, I simply used jump-cuts, instead of cutting to b-roll. Now that the doc is finished, I don't like using jump-cuts very much. But, I can only use what I have, so... (I'll talk about this a bit more later when I talk about editing.)

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Episode Three: 18 - Second Interview, iii

The final issue with this interview footage was the audio. It was in the dead of August, when it is disgustingly hot in New York. So Toshi asked if we should keep the fan on, or not. I knew it would be an audio issue, but I didn't think it would be such a big deal since he was on a lav mic, anyway. I could have asked him to turn off the fan, too, but making a subject uncomfortable during shooting had already cost me one episode. So we kept the fan on, and you could hear it in the audio. I've since learned that I should only stage interviews in a quiet place. (I'll talk about this a bit more later when I talk about editing.)

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Episode Three: 17 - Second Interview, ii

Another issue that using automatic camera settings introduced was with the quality of the footage. For one thing, because it was in the dead of August, the camera easily overheated, and that caused it to go wacky, especially in the automatic settings. Although I think this was worse because it was hot, I think that this is probably always an issue, and it might change the color settings, or brightness settings whenever it wants. This certainly creates problems with the consistency of the image. (I'll talk about this a bit more later when I talk about editing.)

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