HI All,

Just managed to get the Restrained Elegance July updates done, freeing up a few days to get started editing Slave Auction. The automated stuff getting the footage in is all done, looking through it all now. The first thing one always has to do when editing is to look through all the raw footage- which for Slave Auction runs to a couple of hours. I’m looking for the best takes, the best angles, beautiful shots but also for shots that didn’t really work.

Here’s an example- a lovely framing of Ariel in the mirror, about to get flogged:

As a standalone, this is a lovely shot- good enough to open the film with, I initially thought. Unfortunately, because the shot doesn’t show enough content of the room to reveal where Ariel actually is, when you cut to any of the rest of the footage we have of that scene, it gives unpleasant “jump” (for techies, the mirror causes a line cross for Ariel when you cut to another angle. If you flop the shot, it causes a line cross for the rest of the room geography).

I’m still attached to the shot, it is a lovely one, but I’m not sure it will even make it to the rough cut.

What I’m doing now is adding the latest batch of Audio Network music to my hard drive. These most awesome people supply the huge music library on which all our RE and ES productions depend. 564 CDs worth at present time, to be exact! Waiting for the latest batch of 11 DVDs to copy over suddenly made me realise I should blog 🙂

With big productions where the music is scored afterwards, it is common to edit first, then fine tune the music to the movie. For small productions, using music which is fixed, we often work the other way around. Dramatic moments in the film work so much better if they come along with a crescendo in the music, so much so that it is worth stretching and trimming the scene to make sure the most important bits happen in time to the music.

So before editing a rough cut, I usually like to have a clear idea of what my soundtrack is going to be. So this morning’s job (after copying all the new DVDs) is to audition dozens of tracks and decide which ones “feel” right for a couple of key scenes. That will give me a theme or two for the movie, and also set the overall musical style.

Which leads me to wonder… what SHOULD the musical style be? I sort of imagine the Slave Auction story being a bit retro, even though it is clearly set in modern times it has a lot of look and feel of the 1950’s about it already. Should the music emphasise that? Should I go with classical and orchestral music, or something a bit more intimate feeling? I don’t think I want anything pop/rock/indie feeling, but maybe solo piano would be a good timeless way to begin? I’ve not done much with Jazz, maybe some classic-era Jazz would sit well?

So excuse me, must turn up the volume and listen to a few dozen music tracks along with some of the shots and see what floats my boat!

Hywel