AS Media Editing A Confrontation Scene Practical

Editing A Confrontation Scene Practical

Brief

Due to my previous blogs focusing around violence, I wanted to use a scene where there is some sort of confrontation between characters and edit it in a way to seem more violent and aggressive towards one of the characters, for example in "Shank".

Despite, already including aggression, I chose to use a scene between Lieutenant Dan and Forrest in "Forrest Gump" and manipulate it to make Lieutenant Dan seem angry towards Forrest, who I would like to portray as vulnerable. The clip is attached below:

Like a social realism film, this film is character driven as it retells the dramatic stories and events that occurred in the disabled main character's life. Not only in the film is Forrest seen as vulnerable but so is Dan in some places due to his disability. In this scene one can argue that, although Lieutenant Dan is aggressive, this could be due to his new life in a wheelchair after the war, which he has not come to terms with. Therefore, this would explain his alcoholism.

For our film opening, I would like to have a vulnerable and struggling character and perhaps show that sometimes alcohol and drugs are used as a coping mechanism. Or we could include the vulnerable character as a victim to an aggressive, older character like a gang member, similar to how I wish to portray Forrest in this clip.

Post-production

I first started by adding the clip into "Final Cut Pro X" and splitting the clips to single out the scene I wish to focus editing. I purposely chose the scene where Lieutenant Dan is frustrated with the "cripples down at the VA" giving him religious advice of finding Jesus to "help [him]self", and consequently shows his anger through raising his voice, complaining about them and throwing empty bottles.

From watching this clip I used the "Blade" tool to cut up sections of the scene where Lieutenant Dan is incredibly angry and is exclaiming but still had continuity with other clips I selected and made the scene make sense. This also involved having to rearrange the order of clips so that it follows some sort of speech and removing ones which were no longer relevant.

Due to all of this splicing up of the video the position in which Dan suddenly changes from each scene as it is played through, therefore, I had to interject at points with a duplicated scene of Forrest silently watching Dan. I believe having repeated this clip where Forrest looks lost nervous in a way makes him seem vulnerable and the cause or target of Dan's frustration.

This led to the following order:

Of course due to this cutting of clips, some sound stops and starts abruptly and sounds obviously cut. To mask this I attempted at fading sound and altering the speed of certain clips.

I also added sound from the below secondary source:

I wanted to use this sound to emphasise the props of the beer bottles and develop the idea of Dan being so angry that he hurls the bottles with such force they smash.

Outcome

Here is the final outcome:

Personal Comments

I felt that this scene I edited did not really manipulate the aggression and the purpose of the scene, but it instead just made the clip shorter. I believe I possibly needed a clip that had more shots to work with and a longer duration so that I can try out filters etc. that I explored in my source of inspiration and researched that using these techniques could add distortion and therefore tension and emotions like fear or frustration.