Episode Three: 50 - Other Titles, ii

One way that I challenged myself (perhaps it was too much of a challenge) was to create my own stylized titles. This was because I wanted a lot more control over the textures of the text, and also the timing of the text, to better follow Toshi's speech. The big problem with this, however, was that it was all a bit more work than I initiated, but in the end it was worth it to have better looking titles.

The biggest challenge of all of this, however, was that I had to create all the titles and text in Photoshop, and then bring into Final Cut Pro each word individually, and time it and place it. This was tedious, but it gave me much more control over the titles than some of the built-in tools in Final Cut Pro would allow me to have.

One thing I had control over was the appearance of the text. I chose the font, but using Photoshop, then I was able to add not just color, but also a bit of texture to the color. Another factor of control I had was the layout, and size of the text. I really wanted to play with that in order to lend some notion of flavor to the titles, instead of just words on the screen.

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Episode Three: 49 - Other Titles, i

I had seen on some tv shows, and other documentaries that certain important phrases might be stressed by including additional, more energetic titles. So I decided to include such titles in this episode of Listen To The City Breathe. This served a two-fold purpose. The one I already stated was that I could emphasize important phrases that Toshi said.

The second purpose, however, was that it might help present Toshi's ideas more clearly. At some point in my life I learned that I have a certain talent for understanding people who have heavy non-American accents. (To be sure, sometimes, I still have challenges understanding some phrases.) That said, although I can understand Toshi reasonably well, I am aware that many people might not be able to understand him so clearly. In fact, there are plenty of shows (especially on news broadcasts) where people with heavy accents are subtitled, even though they are speaking English. I always found this practice offensive; but I have to try to understand the other perspective of those who can't so easily understand foreign accents. So while I decided against inluding English subtitles throughout, I felt like presenting certain phrases with extra titles might be a nice compromise. (To be honest, I have to admit that getting the viewer to understand Toshi was the most important goal, and so maybe I should have simply included English subtitles throughout. But I have a certain character flaw that sometimes I do what I want instead of what might be more important to the viewer. In any case, like I said, I think this solution was a nice compromise between my stubbornness, and viewer needs.)

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Episode Three: 48 - Subtitles

Because the subject of this episode of Listen To The City Breathe was Japanese, with a following in Japan, I hoped that including Japanese subtitles would help increase the viewership of this episode. Because I don't know Japanese very well at all, I transcribed the whole film of Toshi's dialogue, and sent it to him to translate into Japanese.

Perhaps there is an easier way to include subtitles in a film, but the only way I found to do this was by using one of Final Cut Pro's title-tools, and repeating the process every time for each line of subtitle. This was a bit more tedious than I supposed it should be, but I haven't found a better solution yet, so...

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Episode Three: 47 - Speaking of Audio

I had mentioned earlier that some of my interviews were conducted in less than ideal audio conditions (although I didn't realize this when I had originally conducted the interviews). During one interview we kept a fan blowing in the background, and another interview was conducted outside, very close to a busy street where lots of noise was happening. Because these interviews were done, and I had to work with what was there, I had to find a way to make the audio better. After fumbling about for a bit, I found out that Final Cut Pro actually had automated solutions for these kinds of issues. After clicking some audio button, I saw that there was a tool to decrease background noise. I don't believe that I did this perfectly, but that simple automation helped me a great deal, and made the final audio so much better than any manual tweaking I could have ever done. So finding that such tools were built into Final Cut Pro was an amazing revelation.

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Episode Three: 46 - Transitions, ii

However, in previous episodes of Listen To The City Breathe, I did not use many interesting transitions between shots. However, after working on the Christmas Fantasy music video, and watching tv and other documentaries more carefully since making the first episode, I learned that well placed transitions do contribute something special to a film. In this episode, I chose to use one specific kind of transition when we turned away from Toshi, and another specific kind of transition when we returned to him. After all, the transition needs to serve a purpose to tell the story, and I tried to maintain that idea when using transitions, and when choosing which transition to use.

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Episode Three: 45 - Transitions, i

There are two main kinds of transitions I used in this episode of Listen To The City Breathe. The first kind is a transition between shots; the second type is when transitioning between "chapters" in the film. Since the first episode, I started a style where the transition between chapters would be some shot of a subway train either passing by or passing through. For the most part, I kept that system in place for this episode. I still like the break that this kind of shot creates, and how it helps the viewer realize that we are now moving on to a different part of this film.

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Episode Three: 44 - Color

It is difficult to use any image straight from the camera. I remember that I used to believe that my camera was so great that any image that I took was great, as is. However, I quickly learned that many (or all) of my images would benefit a great deal with color correction. I never did this to a great deal in Final Cut Pro, and so this offered a certain learning curve challenge. For one thing, I was much more accustomed to the layout and workflow within Photoshop, and other Adobe products. But the color correction tools in Final Cut Pro are much different. If I was going to continue with Final Cut Pro (as I said earlier, I just couldn't get premiere to work), I would have to get used to working with the color tools that were present here. Certainly, at first, it was difficult, but by the end of the project, I felt like I learned a lot, and although I don't think I'm an expert, at least I understand a bit better how these things work. I feel confident that in future films, they will look better still.

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Episode Three: 43 - Editing with music

In the course of improving my own skills at documentary filmmaking (and filmmaking in general), I read several books about cinematography, lighting, directing, editing, etc. One topic that I haven't read a whole book about, yet, is music in film. However, most of the other books included at least a chapter on the subject. After making the music videos (link, link) I really like the methodology that I developed in that process. That is, the film follows the music.

The reason that I bring this up as a point is because every filmmaking book that I have claims that the music should be amongst the last things added, after the editing is already finished, and the film is locked-in. Perhaps they say this in reference to working with composers who are creating an original score for the film. But even then, I believe that music offers a more intrinsic rhythm, and thus the imagery would do well to follow that rhythm.

For that reason, I certainly didn't lock-in the film before adding music, but rather added music, and then re-edited what I might in order to make the film better fit the natural rhythm of the music. To be sure, this is, in fact, a back-and-forth sort of relationship. That is, sometimes the music dictates how the image has to change, and sometimes the image dictates that the music has to be rewritten, or change in some way or another.

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Episode Three: 42 - Music, ii

I had already had a couple pieces of music that I thought might work nicely. I recently created a more mellow dance piece for my Yellowstone video, and for an advertisement for a JapaneseLiterature course, I had created something a bit more upbeat. In fact, that commercial was another deal that had a specific deadline that slowed down the production of this piece. (But for that piece, I only created the music, and edited together a bunch of clips from classic (and not-so-classic) Japanese films; so I created none of the shots for that commercial.) In all, I created five new short pieces of music, that I hope to use and reuse again in the future.

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