Footage Review
Once I returned home with an SD card packed with clips documenting my experiences journeying around Greater London Town centres, I felt a bit overwhelmed with the amount of footage I had to consider. By this point I had been to Haringey and Barnet, but had only filmed at the listed town centres. I started watching back all of the footage I had acquired and realised a good way of remembering each clip would be to name it properly according to where it was taken, e.g. Chipping Barnet, Edgware, etc. I then decided to note down specific moments of interest in each clip, along with the minute/ second within the video it occurred – for a much easier job of editing clips together later on.
When I began to film extra clips, of things I found interesting or poignant in between each town centre, such as the clip of the sunrise in Hyde Park, I separated these types of clips into a different folder, labelled ‘Extras’, aside from the folders I had already been creating according to borough/ route. The videos were all automatically alphabetically ordered, according to the names I had assigned them within each borough’s folder, however, the correct date and timestamp for each video was also a filterable option to sort by.
As I had written the dialogue independently of my gathering of footage around London, and as I had watched back all of the footage and noted down moments of interest in each one, along with the timestamp, selecting seconds worth of footage from the hours of videos I had shot was much a much easier, quicker, and smoother process than it could’ve otherwise been.
My method felt instinctive more than anything else, but was influenced by what I had read in the essay In Search of the Centaur: The Essay Film, written by Philip Lopate. Lopate suggested some ways in which an essay film can be visually crafted to accompany the text that they believe must be present within an essay film.
- To write or borrow text and go out and find images for it.
- The filmmaker can shoot, or compile previously shot, footage and then write a text that meditates on the assembled images.
- The filmmaker can write a little, shoot a little, write a bit more, and so on – the one process interacting with the other throughout.
As I mentioned in my section ‘Why An Essay Film’ – all of these options appealed to me, and so this is essentially the method I followed – to write a little, film some things and (also inspired by the responsive commentary of documentary creator – John Wilson, in his show How To With John Wilson) as I went around filming things that felt interesting or of significance in some way – I thought of little things to say about them. I did the same again as I watched back over all of the footage, and so some of my notes in my book where I wrote down timestamped moments of interest, I have also noted down words or terms that come to mind in response to the action within the clip.
It felt much like a process of stitching the visuals together with some loosely written dialogue until I was content with the quantity and quality of my very informal, colloquially worded, essay.
Editing Software
I have chosen to edit my essay film together using Adobe Premier Pro, as I have a reasonable amount of knowledge in how to use its many features, from cut-editing, to transitions and visual/ audio effects, including use of keyframes. I really enjoy putting my knowledge to use by editing footage together, and although I enjoy testing my skills and learning more that I’m able to do using Premier Pro, I decided against using too many fancy editing features for my Final Major Project essay film. This was largely because, excluding moments I wanted to ensure the viewer pays attention to (example wide shot and close-up image discussed below), I felt no need to filter London. In fact that is my point entirely with this film – I don’t try to ‘sugar-coat’ London, or life here; I am aware it’s not everyone’s cup of tea and I don’t expect everyone to accept my thinking. However, I do wish to voice my opinions in favour of the city I love. Ultimately, it was for this reason that I decided to keep my collected footage pretty simple and avoid using too many transitions.
As mentioned above, there were a few aspects of background footage that I noticed only when I was at home reviewing what I had captured using my Canon camera whilst out and about around London. For example, in Church End, Finchley – there was a sign by the road that read “No Tower Block Here”. I actually only saw this on review of the footage – and even I am impressed that my eyesight could make out the lettering from the wide shot I had originally taken.
It took a while to adjust the keyframes over the footage I had obtained to try and keep the frame as stationary as possible – in the final outcome this wasn’t exactly achieved, however I feel the sign is visible enough for a good length so people are able to read it. I do also quite like the idea that within my essay film there are aspects people could potentially miss on first watch – that perhaps it would be necessary, even – tempting, to watch my work again to gain a better understanding of the meaning behind selected clips, or to examine candid London in further detail.
My reasons for wishing to include the sign at this moment are linked to me discussing ‘what makes a real Londoner?’ and is in many ways a subtle/ ironic comment on the people who evidently don’t want a tower-block to be built in their neighbourhood. Personally – so long as the housing being created is affordable and beneficial to the surrounding area and its population; I am of the opinion that there should definitely be more available homes in London. I think my personal views show through the use of slight editing processes such as the one above.
Opening Options
Option 1
I have pondered, what feels like – every aspect of how to begin my essay film.
A piece of feedback that has stuck in my mind throughout the course of creating my opening sequence is something a friend commented about the initial teaser/ trailer I created previously. They said that it was interesting how the first shot within the trailer felt to draw the viewer in, despite not much actually happening. This is a feeling I find difficult to explain the ‘how’ of, although I feel I understand what my friend meant. There is a sort of eerie-feel to the opening shot, which is also noticeably longer than shots that follow. Being that I wanted to keep the enticing, eerie quality in my final outcome, I considered what it was about the shot in the trailer that gave it those qualities.
In my opinion, I see it thus, firstly – the shot itself was filmed at around 11pm on a quiet road, on a reasonably quiet night of the week. So it’s dark, and quiet. Secondly, the audio builds slowly, and although it is clear what the sound is (the engine on a vehicle) the fact we hear the sound building / engine approaching before we can see it adds a level of intensity or anticipation for what could be to come.
Next, looking at creating that same tone with the new footage I had captured with my Canon camera from my actual trips around town centres, I considered what I had that did a similar job to the video of the approaching car at night.
I firstly thought of a clip I had obtained a whilst travelling between town centres in Redbridge. The footage was from Redbridge Tube Station – I’d actually got distracted and gone the wrong way on the underground slightly, so what I got was a sort of fortunate accident. At the time I was passing through, Redbridge station was almost empty, and I was the only person on the platform as the train pulled in. The mechanical, clanging noises in the background; in addition to the low light within the station, to me, felt eerie so to remember the clip I’d previously named it ‘Eerie Redbridge’.
As the train in the video pulls in, the sound naturally builds and intensifies. I actually often feel a bit anxious whilst waiting on platforms for tube trains to come in, I think because of the noise, the speed of the train, the gusts of wind created as it pulls in or out of the platform, and the intrusive thought I know I’m not alone in experiencing – that I or someone else could fall / jump / be pushed in front of the train, and that would be the end. It’s quite frightening, no matter the odd, quite unexplainable, yet apparently common thought. For this reason I always make sure I stay well away from the edge of the platforms and I wasn’t about to change this or compromise safety for the sake of a better, or interesting shot. I personally think the effect of something building is felt regardless of distance as the tube train approaches in the footage I have – at least, the intrusive thought’s still in my mind. To elevate this through a feeling of ambiguity “what happened next?!”) I even cut the clip as soon as the front part of the driver’s carriage goes slightly out of frame.
I chose to then cut to black as an invitation for the viewer to actively listen to the dialogue that begins from that point on.
Option 2
Although I liked the initial version I had – there were some other ideas for the opening sequence of my essay film that I wished to explore further before ruling them out. I started to think of the entire creation of my film’s journey – metaphorically in the sense of my essay’s message, but also literally in terms of the film representing a certain passage of time and subsequently my development of thought.
I looked at footage I captured early on in my project, more specifically – in the morning at the literal start of a day. I also still wanted to portray a sense of eeriness and again used my notes on the footage I had so far gathered to help me remember what I could play around with. I liked a series of videos collected from inside Highbury and Islington station early in the morning when no one else was around. The sounds of the machinery whirring and clanging can still be heard clearly in the background as with the clip used previously in Option 1. A sense of my journey deeper into the station, perhaps even – dare I suggest – into the heart of London itself unfolding was built on by my chronological sequencing of the clips I captured that morning.
Initially I felt unsure of how to piece together, or transition between the clips I was using but I liked the idea of fading in and out of the visuals. My instinct was to fade to and from black – to add to the eerie quality, the aspect of the daunting unknown – and so I first worked against this and tested my theory on why I felt fading to and from white wouldn’t work. As predicted, it made the shots feel quite a lot more clinical, and less realistic too in my mind. There was something heavenly or ethereal about the tone which didn’t feel right to me, and so I changed to fade in and out of black between a few clips showing my journey deeper underground.
I still wanted to include a train pulling in – a sort of harsh ‘wake up’ or snap back to the present. Not entirely satisfied with the final visual-audio punch before my dialogue would kick in – I added footage of another tube approaching, and so on – over the top.
I definitely enjoyed the increase in volume and intensity that this created, however it by then felt a little too forced, and over-complicated.
Comparing Options
Ultimately – when I looked at the two versions of my created opening sequence in comparison, I much preferred Option 1. Not just because of the simplicity of having just the one, slightly longer clip (although this was a factor, especially as I reconsidered the initial ‘teaser / trailer’ I had received positive feedback on), but I also preferred the angle of the shot, the dingy, gritty quality of the footage captured, and the strange, haunting sounds of machinery present in the background. Another visual aspect I really enjoy about the chosen opening clip in Option 1 is the glimpses of people passing in the light at the very end of the platform. This felt quite ghostly, and so brief that with one single chance to watch the screen – you could well miss it completely.
I decided to stick with the initial clip, ‘Eerie Redbridge’ for the opening sequence of my essay film. I enjoy the dingy lighting, the spooky/ eerie mechanical sounds and general atmosphere on the station platform.
I chose to bring in the spoken dialogue after this moment, like a sudden awakening, or the end of an introduction before the real conversation begins – what do I, an/ the artist, think of London?
Potential ‘Plan B’
Once I had completed the first section of my film, which totalled just under three minutes, I considered whether I had time to complete the rest of the process of editing footage together to cover dialogue I had already written and recorded. To be honest, I didn’t give myself much pause to think, I continued stitching the film together, because my ideal outcome was of something that would present all of the dialogue/ personal essay I had written, combined with visuals to display the hours I had spent lovingly documenting London. To finish this labour of love seemed too much the dream to not pursue it further – however, I did feel confident and proud enough of the opening few minutes to potentially present this as the ‘beginning of a much larger project’. I think the opening few minutes of the film works, both visually and audibly, as a summation of the film as a whole.
Update, 30th May 2026 – As I have continued to edit my way through my essay film, despite the hours of consideration and subsequent work spent – I’m very pleased I have decided to continue with the entire dialogue I began with. It feels complete in its form – albeit, not visually yet – and I’m very excited to present my final outcome. The pressure of having a deadline felt a little overwhelming for a time, but now I am feeling confident that what I have produced will be completed on time and to a standard that I am happy with.