Major Project - [Editing] - Race Day Sequence & Credits
Compiling The Race Day Sequence & Credits
We always knew that this sequence would be one of the most challenging edits of the documentary given how everything builds to this moment, however we didn't anticipate the race not finishing due to a fault in the car. This lead to the conundrum of how we address this within the sequence and how we handle the reveal of what went wrong. I'm very happy with what we've managed to put together though and will detail the process below.
We originally decided that both me and George would work on the race day sequence together, however we ended up agreeing that George would get all of the PTC's and interviews from the day into a timeline and sync up the audio from the clip-mics, so that I could simply drag them into my timeline without wasting time doing so myself. This worked out well as it ensured that I was able to construct the sequence without having to set aside additional time to sync up all 7 interviews. Of course these weren't all included in the sequence and some were alternate takes to existing ones, however having that pre-prepared for me when I went into Premiere Pro for the first time that day was incredibly useful, I took it from there.
The sequence begins with a shot outside the car window heading towards Brands Hatch on the morning of the race day, shortly after this there's a C.U. (Close-Up) of the driver's mirror as a lower third establishing the date appears in the bottom left of the screen. The music we chose for this sequence is known as '= - Mattia Cupelli' and establishes the tension and suspense leading up to the events of the day incredibly effectively. The sounds of the heartbeat that you can hear in the background are actually part of the song and were great in being able to heighten that sense of nerves that Alex is clearly feeling at the time. We then hear from Alex when I ask him "How are you feeling about the big day?" - at which point he discusses how far he's come and how nervous he is as I overlay establishing shots of Brands Hatch in anticipation of what's to come.
The music is then used to great effect when we see the car creep round the corner as we turn into Brands Hatch and see the 'Welcome to Brands Hatch' sign, before the music drops and cuts to black. There's a 1.5 second gap of black space here as you hear the heartbeat of the song in the background, before we come back in on the up-beat as Alex is walking down the pitlane for the first time. We see him walk past one of the many garages and peer inside at others preparing for their own events, all leading to further tension being built. As Alex walks past the garage we begin to hear the audio from the following shot fade in as Sam and his mother greet Alex when he walks into the garage we were based in. There's minor chit-chat between Alex and Sam, however the key moment here is when Sam shakes Alex's hand and says "Welcome to Race Day" - this was too good not to incorporate into the sequence somehow. I faded out the audio of Sam and Alex laughing with each-other and unintentionally ended up with a reverb effect that I think works really well as it bleeds into the following shot of Alex getting changed and gearing up ready for his qualifying laps.
As he's zipping his suit up we hear the race day commentators for the first time, establishing the format of the race to the audience. Meanwhile I cut to shots of the car and Alex putting his helmet on before we transition into the first PTC with Sam. The shots of the car and the helmet are cut to the beat of the heart in the background at this point which adds a bit more flair to the sequence, though these only work as a viewer because the two shots that are cut together are visually similar, for example the BMW cuts from an E.C.U. (Extreme Close-Up) of the BMW's rear to a W.S. (Wide Shot) of the car, same goes for the helmet. If this wasn't the case then the cut would feel jarring to the viewer. The PTC with Sam is introduced with on-screen captions as I ask him what qualifying actually is. These captions went through several iterations however we settled on the 'verdana' font with a background opacity of 90%, making them somewhat less of an eyesore than if they were just an opaque black box at the bottom of the screen.
Sam describes what qualifying is as I cut to various GV's of Alex & Sam coordinating together within the garage and the car, followed by some shots of Alex & Sam out on track during the qualifying period. These were really effective as some of the shots our operators were able to get were great at showing the speed at which the BMW can curve round some corners like Graham Hill Bend. As the first PTC wraps up, we transition into the second PTC with Alex leaning against the garage door. In order to make the transition more effective I cut to a shot of the car coming down the infamous Paddock Hill and key-framed the music to increase in volume by 6dB so you hear the end of the song more prominently as it fades out when Alex begins talking. I ask him how qualifying went and he proceeds to discuss how he felt about the entire experience, what he's going to be thinking about when he gets out on track and whether or not he feels prepared enough for it at this point. Little did he know.
During this PTC, I cutaway to shots of Alex in-car through the Go-Pro footage we have, switching over with Sam, putting his gloves on and waiting in the pitlane and various shots of them both out on the circuit during qualifying. After this interview we see the final countdown from 3 minutes to 0, at which point the race sequence actually begins. We see shots of Alex waiting in the pitlane accompanied by the sounds of the pitlane siren going off to indicate cars entering the area, as well as the race day commentators announcing the start of the race. We see Sam on the circuit going through the straight, as the commentators describe what is happening mentioning Sam's name when he comes up the inside of another driver. As he turns into Graham Hill Bend he strikes the curb at which point you see the Go-Pro visibly shake - I did the same thing here that I did with the music at the end of Sam's PTC, i.e. key-framed the audio to raise slightly during that specific area so that the sound of the tyre contact was much more prominent than anything else you hear, this was in an effort to highlight the incident itself and bring attention to the fact that something may be wrong before actually revealing the issue to the viewer shortly after.
As Sam pulls into the pitlane we hear the commentators suggest that there may be an issue and comment on the fact that he's bringing the car in slower than expected. At this point we hear Sam shout to Alex "Something's wrong, I think I've damaged the car!" - the audio was taken from the Go-Pro which was fortunate as the audio from the external Sony that I was operating wasn't anywhere near as good due to my distance from the vehicle, though I could use the audio from the Go-Pro and still cut to shots from the Sony for a better visual which was incredibly helpful and a testament to the importance of our extensive coverage during our shoot days. The commentators mention that the front wheel isn't sitting straight and that Sam is attempting to make repairs to the car, however it quickly becomes futile as we see Alex climb into the car and wait for the bad news, the commentary was a huge help in giving the sequence that additional layer of tension as they suggest that this will prevent Alex from making his racing debut. The final aspect of this sequence is the interview that Sam took part in immediately after the incident, in which he references how bad he feels for letting Alex down on his racing debut, followed by a shot of Alex sitting inside the car as Sam tells him that it's over as we cut to black. I decided to include a bass impact sound effect here to give the cut to black and bit more energy which I think worked well.
The final section of this sequence is the ending PTC where Alex sits, somewhat demoralised, in front of the BMW as Sam attempts to do something about it in the background. We opted for this choice in terms of an ending after discussing with Simon what would be best and have came around to the idea of keeping the raw feeling of that immediate interview, rather than the footage from the final diary room sequence. I also spent some time masking out both the background of the PTC shot, and Alex's face. This was done in an effort to apply sharpening to his face, and blur the background with the 'Gaussian Blur' effect - I've not had any experience with this effect personally however I'm familiar with how masking works withing Premiere Pro, so was able to achieve the desired effect. It's not flawless, however both the group and Simon seemed to think it was pretty effective which I was relieved to hear. I cut in slightly closer towards the end of this interview as Alex begins to start getting slightly choked up as I felt this added to the emotional impact of the ending sequence, at which point the shot holds on Alex staring off camera for a second and a half before cutting to black.
The credits then roll to the sound of 'Bee Hive - Drake Stafford' after the words "The Chase Goes On..." appear on screen, alluding to a future to this dream that may or may not lie ahead. The credits design was inspired by the same Xenosphere font as the title sequence and poster design including: Writer, Director, D.O.P, Producer, Editors, Featuring, VFX Artist, Sound Design, Music, Drone Operator, Executive Producers, Technical Advisor, Additional Cinematography, Sponsors, Special Thanks and Kickstarter Backers. Wrapped up with the UCA TV Production logo before the music fades out, marking the end of 'DreamChaser'.
We always knew that this sequence would be one of the most challenging edits of the documentary given how everything builds to this moment, however we didn't anticipate the race not finishing due to a fault in the car. This lead to the conundrum of how we address this within the sequence and how we handle the reveal of what went wrong. I'm very happy with what we've managed to put together though and will detail the process below.
We originally decided that both me and George would work on the race day sequence together, however we ended up agreeing that George would get all of the PTC's and interviews from the day into a timeline and sync up the audio from the clip-mics, so that I could simply drag them into my timeline without wasting time doing so myself. This worked out well as it ensured that I was able to construct the sequence without having to set aside additional time to sync up all 7 interviews. Of course these weren't all included in the sequence and some were alternate takes to existing ones, however having that pre-prepared for me when I went into Premiere Pro for the first time that day was incredibly useful, I took it from there.
The sequence begins with a shot outside the car window heading towards Brands Hatch on the morning of the race day, shortly after this there's a C.U. (Close-Up) of the driver's mirror as a lower third establishing the date appears in the bottom left of the screen. The music we chose for this sequence is known as '= - Mattia Cupelli' and establishes the tension and suspense leading up to the events of the day incredibly effectively. The sounds of the heartbeat that you can hear in the background are actually part of the song and were great in being able to heighten that sense of nerves that Alex is clearly feeling at the time. We then hear from Alex when I ask him "How are you feeling about the big day?" - at which point he discusses how far he's come and how nervous he is as I overlay establishing shots of Brands Hatch in anticipation of what's to come.
The music is then used to great effect when we see the car creep round the corner as we turn into Brands Hatch and see the 'Welcome to Brands Hatch' sign, before the music drops and cuts to black. There's a 1.5 second gap of black space here as you hear the heartbeat of the song in the background, before we come back in on the up-beat as Alex is walking down the pitlane for the first time. We see him walk past one of the many garages and peer inside at others preparing for their own events, all leading to further tension being built. As Alex walks past the garage we begin to hear the audio from the following shot fade in as Sam and his mother greet Alex when he walks into the garage we were based in. There's minor chit-chat between Alex and Sam, however the key moment here is when Sam shakes Alex's hand and says "Welcome to Race Day" - this was too good not to incorporate into the sequence somehow. I faded out the audio of Sam and Alex laughing with each-other and unintentionally ended up with a reverb effect that I think works really well as it bleeds into the following shot of Alex getting changed and gearing up ready for his qualifying laps.
As he's zipping his suit up we hear the race day commentators for the first time, establishing the format of the race to the audience. Meanwhile I cut to shots of the car and Alex putting his helmet on before we transition into the first PTC with Sam. The shots of the car and the helmet are cut to the beat of the heart in the background at this point which adds a bit more flair to the sequence, though these only work as a viewer because the two shots that are cut together are visually similar, for example the BMW cuts from an E.C.U. (Extreme Close-Up) of the BMW's rear to a W.S. (Wide Shot) of the car, same goes for the helmet. If this wasn't the case then the cut would feel jarring to the viewer. The PTC with Sam is introduced with on-screen captions as I ask him what qualifying actually is. These captions went through several iterations however we settled on the 'verdana' font with a background opacity of 90%, making them somewhat less of an eyesore than if they were just an opaque black box at the bottom of the screen.
Sam describes what qualifying is as I cut to various GV's of Alex & Sam coordinating together within the garage and the car, followed by some shots of Alex & Sam out on track during the qualifying period. These were really effective as some of the shots our operators were able to get were great at showing the speed at which the BMW can curve round some corners like Graham Hill Bend. As the first PTC wraps up, we transition into the second PTC with Alex leaning against the garage door. In order to make the transition more effective I cut to a shot of the car coming down the infamous Paddock Hill and key-framed the music to increase in volume by 6dB so you hear the end of the song more prominently as it fades out when Alex begins talking. I ask him how qualifying went and he proceeds to discuss how he felt about the entire experience, what he's going to be thinking about when he gets out on track and whether or not he feels prepared enough for it at this point. Little did he know.
During this PTC, I cutaway to shots of Alex in-car through the Go-Pro footage we have, switching over with Sam, putting his gloves on and waiting in the pitlane and various shots of them both out on the circuit during qualifying. After this interview we see the final countdown from 3 minutes to 0, at which point the race sequence actually begins. We see shots of Alex waiting in the pitlane accompanied by the sounds of the pitlane siren going off to indicate cars entering the area, as well as the race day commentators announcing the start of the race. We see Sam on the circuit going through the straight, as the commentators describe what is happening mentioning Sam's name when he comes up the inside of another driver. As he turns into Graham Hill Bend he strikes the curb at which point you see the Go-Pro visibly shake - I did the same thing here that I did with the music at the end of Sam's PTC, i.e. key-framed the audio to raise slightly during that specific area so that the sound of the tyre contact was much more prominent than anything else you hear, this was in an effort to highlight the incident itself and bring attention to the fact that something may be wrong before actually revealing the issue to the viewer shortly after.
As Sam pulls into the pitlane we hear the commentators suggest that there may be an issue and comment on the fact that he's bringing the car in slower than expected. At this point we hear Sam shout to Alex "Something's wrong, I think I've damaged the car!" - the audio was taken from the Go-Pro which was fortunate as the audio from the external Sony that I was operating wasn't anywhere near as good due to my distance from the vehicle, though I could use the audio from the Go-Pro and still cut to shots from the Sony for a better visual which was incredibly helpful and a testament to the importance of our extensive coverage during our shoot days. The commentators mention that the front wheel isn't sitting straight and that Sam is attempting to make repairs to the car, however it quickly becomes futile as we see Alex climb into the car and wait for the bad news, the commentary was a huge help in giving the sequence that additional layer of tension as they suggest that this will prevent Alex from making his racing debut. The final aspect of this sequence is the interview that Sam took part in immediately after the incident, in which he references how bad he feels for letting Alex down on his racing debut, followed by a shot of Alex sitting inside the car as Sam tells him that it's over as we cut to black. I decided to include a bass impact sound effect here to give the cut to black and bit more energy which I think worked well.
The final section of this sequence is the ending PTC where Alex sits, somewhat demoralised, in front of the BMW as Sam attempts to do something about it in the background. We opted for this choice in terms of an ending after discussing with Simon what would be best and have came around to the idea of keeping the raw feeling of that immediate interview, rather than the footage from the final diary room sequence. I also spent some time masking out both the background of the PTC shot, and Alex's face. This was done in an effort to apply sharpening to his face, and blur the background with the 'Gaussian Blur' effect - I've not had any experience with this effect personally however I'm familiar with how masking works withing Premiere Pro, so was able to achieve the desired effect. It's not flawless, however both the group and Simon seemed to think it was pretty effective which I was relieved to hear. I cut in slightly closer towards the end of this interview as Alex begins to start getting slightly choked up as I felt this added to the emotional impact of the ending sequence, at which point the shot holds on Alex staring off camera for a second and a half before cutting to black.
The credits then roll to the sound of 'Bee Hive - Drake Stafford' after the words "The Chase Goes On..." appear on screen, alluding to a future to this dream that may or may not lie ahead. The credits design was inspired by the same Xenosphere font as the title sequence and poster design including: Writer, Director, D.O.P, Producer, Editors, Featuring, VFX Artist, Sound Design, Music, Drone Operator, Executive Producers, Technical Advisor, Additional Cinematography, Sponsors, Special Thanks and Kickstarter Backers. Wrapped up with the UCA TV Production logo before the music fades out, marking the end of 'DreamChaser'.
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