JC Dávila's BLOG post #10 - Rough Cut?

I am finishing the quarter with something close to a rough cut. I believe a rough cut is a matter of perspective, so my perspective here is that I have a rough cut of the rough cut. Still, much effort has been engaged into the editing of long hours of material, this feels gratifying in certain way. I believe that a break for a few days from the documentary will help me to come with a new vision and fresh eyes towards it. I have enjoyed the process, the quarter and all I have learned in class.

In my "rough cut", I am building the story as I originally intentioned. Following the original idea, after all seems to be the correct way. The story of my documentary develop throughout a day's work in the life of my participants with interventions of related events and landscapes.

It is official, my participant Paola Illias didn't make the 1st rough cut of the rough cut. This feels like a bad mainstream reality show in a way, where one of the participants didn't made it to the second round. Interestingly, Nelson Escudero has assumed a role more important than the one I have thought originally for him. At the moment he is opening the documentary. He is very fluent and knowledgable of the problematic exposed in the film, for this reason I want to make good use of his personality and employ his participation in an intelligent way.

The protagonist seems to be Efraín Cortés. Jesús Salgado and Keishla Ramírez have also noticeable participation. This rough cut is about 30 minutes long. I haven't used in it many sitdown interviews, just for Salgado and Escudero, everything else is in a verite style. I feel good about it, I understand that I should stick to my original idea because is the one that traces the proper path. Nevertheless, I use many voice-overs throughout the piece. I am tying to build it in some ways as a fiction narrative piece, the only problem is that there are some concepts I want to define such as: deregulation and job-flexibility, that challenge me to look for creative ways to define them without entering in a tutorial mode.

There is a slight possibility I might be adding more sit-down interviews in my next cut; 1st cut? official rough cut? 1st cut of the 1st cut? 2nd cut of the rough cut? I don't know what my next cut will be, but definitely I have already identified a few scenes where I want to begin the trimming. I am tired and burned out at the moment. The process has been difficult, but in some ways I am excited to go to the next editing round.

Music has not been worked in this cut, neither graphics or titles... just cutting! I am also excited to add music and titles. I think that adding subtitles in this early stage has been tiresome, but still, I prefer them opposed to recording voice overs.

In conclusion, I had an excellent quarter where I learned a lot. I learned a lot from the professor, the class, my footage, my participants and even me as an aspiring documentary filmmaker and video artist. The blogs have been also interesting, because sometimes I get to write as if I am writing a journal and get away from all the structures of academia. Sometimes I feel like a kid writing this response blogs... but, isn't the inner kid what makes the creative artist?

Anyways, see you on the next cut. Peace out!