We’ve edited our final video for People To People, and I think we are all proud of what we have done. The sound could have been better, but due to some faults with the equipment that we didn’t realise were there until it came to editing, we couldn’t do anything about that.
Whilst editing the video, we did have a look into colour correcting the video, to make it seem warmer by adding an orange hue, or making it look more depressing by adding a blue hue, but we decided that the footage looks alright as it is. We felt that if we added a colouring that was obviously trying to push the audience into a certain direction, then the message of the video would become lost.
One of the hardest parts of the editing process was choosing what parts to include in the final edit. Rachel said a lot of good things that in their own right could have been included in the final documentary, but we cut it down to the stuff that fitted the message that we wanted to get across, that depression isn’t something to fear, and that you can have a successful and fulfilled life whilst suffering from it.
One scene in the documentary that we weren’t sure about keeping was when the cat jumps up into Rachel’s lap whilst she is talking. We really wanted to keep in what she was saying, but we weren’t sure if the cat would ruin it, but when we discussed our worries with Ken, he said that the cat added realism to the video, which is one of the things that we were aiming for, so we decided to keep the cat in to make Rachel seem more relatable. This ended up helping to emphasise our message, that Rachel is just a normal person that normal things happen too.
I think that we’ve been quite creative throughout this project, we chose sequences that aren’t what you would normally expect, and camera shots, like the cat jumping up, that aren’t conventional of a typical documentary. There were things that we could’ve done better, namely the sound, but through the editing we managed to improve it a bit, cutting out some of the background noise and making it more pleasant to hear, but overall I think the edit has come out well.
The People To People project has really opened my eyes to the world of depression. Before making this documentary, I never really thought about depression. I knew people had it, and I knew that it made you feel sad, but I never thought of the way that it makes you feel, that you can’t do anything, that you aren’t worth anything to anyone, that you aren’t important. I think that is what i’ll take away from the People To People project, a better understanding of what depression is, and how it isn’t something to fear, but something you can overcome.
luke cutts 