Editing: Intro Structure

 

    Hey blog, how has it been going? This week, I'm on vacation for spring break with my family, and Sofia and I have a lot to do. Our checklist for this week looks like this:

• Film B-roll for first half-ish of 5-7 minutes (people looking "disconnecting", ex: on their phones while next to each other people, & people doing hobbies, ex: people playing tennis...)
• Making interview questions + actually filming interviews pf us asking people questions revolving how connected they feel to their communities.
• POST ON SOCIAL MEDIA!!!

    Those are our main priorities, with editing being possibly "intertwined" ;) In the process, whenever we have free time. To be completely honest, I don't expect us to edit too much this week, considering we want to try to get as much filming done so that we have everything/ most of what we need by next week to start dedicating almost all time to editing. I trust myself with editing, as in the past I've put stuff together fairly quickly, so a week will be more than enough time for my sister and me to get a final product that we feel represents our idea the most.

    Today, being that we went on a roadtrip to our vacation destination (4 hour car ride to be exact!), Sof and I are got time to clarify the aspect of structure for the entire "context" sequence, including all parts such as the intro and more. Let me clarify...

Establishing Context

    For the first half of the 5-7 minutes (around 2/ 2 and a half minutes), we are going to e stablish context for the purpose and reasoning for the entire docu-series. The way we are going to do this is by putting some different elements together to form a bigger picture for the audience, with a more explicit communication from my sister and I directly to the audience later in the sequence further clarifying for the audience. 

    We have had a rather blurry vision for the extreme specifics for a bit now, with us knowing pretty much what we want from it, being to establish context for the audience and introduce the "narrators" of the doc aka us, but not specifically how to get it through specific filming choices. On this 4-hour car ride, we started by dissecting what we wanted from the intro, specifically how it relates back to our purpose/ what we want the audience to know while watching the episodes. Being that this is the only episode that is going to include specific introductory context, we want to make sure we get all the necessary information to the audience. While we can also use social media and our print portion to establish further context for the audience, we want to have this sequence be the main source of context. Being that we were in the car, we wrote brainstorming notes on my Notes app. Here are our notes:

    Structure

    Here is the more readable context structure:

• Intro: Includes interviews of strangers where we ask questions that try to show society's state of connection, asking questions revolving around personal connection to community. This also includes a specific buildup in intensity that includes voiceovers of a psychotherapist interview that we have already filmed, as well as b-roll clips that we are filming this week.
• Introducing Narrators: After the psychotherapist references my sister and I off camera by asking "what do you think?" about everything she has just said about the current state of society in terms of connection/ nature of our communities, a whip-pan transition will lead to us in a different location talking directly to the camera (another part we still have to film). Here, we will establish our purpose with the docu-series in a personal, yet bigger-picture way that doesn't focus entirely on us, as we are simply a bridge for the audience to be able to be reminded of the potential for connection in their own communities (a more passionate bridge...)
• Episodic Intro: In this 30-second section, the episodic introduction video will play, being the conventional part of most series that last around 20- 50 seconds that the audience can usually choose to skip. For our series, we will integrate it into the episodes, making them mandatory to watch as it will have a direct link to the overall purpose of the documentary. We will get further into this introduction in the coming week.
• Type of connection intro: This part will be about 30 seconds, introducing the specific type of connection that will be focused on in the episode through the group. For our first episode for example, the specific type is connection in a community through a hobby (airplane group), so we will state how hobbies connect people with some b-roll of people being involved in a hobby. We already have some b-roll footage for this and plan on getting more this week while our family is involved in activities.
• Location/ Specific group establishment: In this last part before officially getting into the interviews, we will do a 30 second montage that introduces the episode specific group, establishing main location of their meetups. For our first episode, we will edit together clips from Markham Park, being that's where they meetup to connect on their shared hobby. This section is also where the episode title will show, as the ending of the section signals the official start of "getting into the episode".

    While the establishing of context (specifically the "Intro" and "Introducing Narrators") will only occur in the first episode, the remaining parts, including the "Episodic intro", "Type of connection intro", and "Specific group establishment" will be in every episode, as they're necessary to give the audience a formal, organized, and consistent understanding of the episode. While there could possibly be an additional beginning to every episode, those are the main parts that we know for sure would be consistent up until the last group's episode, being the group about  how being involved in a group activity purely for personal entertainment (no specific, more "professional" skill required) can connect people, with the episode specifically focusing on a group that plays cards.

    Reflections

    On this four hour car ride I think we were pretty productive, giving ourselves time to fully clarify what we wanted and how we are going to get there with the time and resources we have. This car ride allowed us to put all the choices we knew we wanted to make in our entire beginning sequence and secure them, with specific time limits indicated so that we can give ourselves time to use the interviews we have spent time gathering. Now that we have this whole section clarified, we can fully devote ourselves to finishing any filming (specifically b-roll, the interviews, introduction of narrators, and the episodic introduction) so that we can begin to edit! I will continue to update as progress is made, wish us luck!