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A couple of the various Risk Assessments done for this documentary in relation to two different days of shooting.

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I used two kinds of contractual forms for this production. A template given to me for Film Footage, which i have now signed by all the wonderful contributers of footage for this documentary; and a variation of this template for film participants such as Andy Cooke, the percussionist of the Jit Jive Band, and for Rise himself. They have also signed it already. In relation to locations where I filmed such as Pleasence Gym and Leith Depot, screenshots of exchanged emails authorizing filmiing in the venue have been taken and kept for the documentary´s production dossier. Correspondence with people that have given me stock footage has also been kept.

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Some Production Notes

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Some pictures of the shooting at the Pentlands and Roslyn Glen. I used a Blackmagic Cinema Camera for my documentary less the gym footage (canon 5d). It was filmed in ProRes422 at 25fps,1920x1080, 16:9.

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The final stage of this project was the credits. I had a someone outside of the class to make them for me. I was trying to engage the credits with the image both to save time, but also to make them more whole and creative. We tried different letterings to see what worked best. In relation to my roles, I ended up opting for something that said “a film by” rather than a description of all my roles. In this case, the darkness of the concert at the end of the movie came in handy to see the credits properly.

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After colour correction I took the project into Pro-tools fo sound design. It was mainly for mixing sound and to place transitions as most of the sound positioning was done when I was editing the project. This process took about three days and i tried different approaches to transiitoning between shots/dialogue etc. A lot of the interview’s dialogue needed to be fixed because it had several weird cuts. For the three days i was cleaning the dialogue as much as possible and making it very present in relation to all the other sounds in the timeline. My approach to sound was to make music not just background music but rather very present and a part of the narrative without taking protagonism from Rise´s voice. This was a bit tricky. I also included environmental sounds such as the noises inside his building and the gym. I also tried to be creative, mixing music from his previous band with music from the concert recorded in Edinburgh, as well as at one point, with traditional music played by other people. I was tying to create a relation between all of these that would translate into Rise’s musical style. Because this is a documentary about music i was trying to include as much music as possible, but at the same time I felt it was important to have silent moments with just his voice, which I would have stretched longer if i had more than 10 minutes. Time was of the essence for this documentary. It was good to work in Pro-tools because i hadn´t done it for about 2 years and I had forgotten a lot of things. I also learned new things whilst working on it. Sound is a key aspect of this documentary and I tried my best to make it as good as possible as well as original/creative.

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Going to Resolve

I never did colour correction or used DaVinci Resolve before (besides a short workshop with Tina) so this project was a crash-course of three days trying to do the best i could. I did not find anyone to do the grading so i was the only option. And i’m glad because even though it was hard and frustrating at points, i managed to do it. There were several problems with some images: a dead pixel in the gym footage, too much darkness in the concert and in the interview (as well as ugly lightin), among other issues. With resolve (and tips from Tine) i managed to solve the pixel issue very fast and easily. Same goes to some dust in one of the images of the Pentlands. The darkness and lighting was harder to achieve, but i did the best i could by turning up the brightness, playng with the midtones and temperatures and reducing noise as much as possible. By the end of it i believe the grading is acceptable, and i had learned a lot about how to work in Resolve. In addition I made some extra grading in symphony as it worked better to correct some darkness issues in the concert. One of the aims for colour correction was that the temperature of the images of Scotland would contrast with the ones from Zimbabwe in relation to coldness/warmth. Because i chose cloudy days to film, Scotland footage didn’t need much work as it was dark and cold by itself, For the Zimbabwean footage I turned up the warmth of the images to make the colours more vibrant.

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The visual and sound editing process after the interview edit was concluded

After concluding the interview edit i started to put the visual part of the edit together. This was chanllenging due to the lack of visuals for his past life chapter and several other factors. It is a somewhat abstract documentary so building the visual narrative in a somewhat accordance, but not really, with what he says was very very chanlenging. Visuals moved around a lot and i tried different approaches. I tried to the the visuals all moxed together, past/present, a variation of this, and landed on doing things in a somewhat cronological order. Whilst the visuals changed, so did the order of his voice-over. Another chanlenging thing was the fact that i couldn´t “stay” visually on Rise´s face a lot because the interview had been so chopped, jump cuts appeared every 5 seconds. So i had to figure out a way to engage with him and his past/present environment, without focusing on his interview´s visuals. This was not completely aginst my plans as i had difined from the beggining that i wanted to avoid talking heads. I used visuals of stock footage given too me by different people to ilustrate his past: his previous band and Zimbabwe; and filmed everything realted to his present: images of Scottish landscapes, Edinburgh cityscapes, his flat, him at the gym, an important activity for him and a concert at Leith depot. I then played around with the visuals, monologue and sound to build a visual narrative that would portray what he was feeling more than what he was saying whilst at the same time trying to be slighlty ilustrative of his conversation. After many weeks of editing I reached an order, narrative, and aesthetic that i was pleased with and thought made sense. I approached people to watch it and give their opinions. Some I agreed with and made changes, others i didn´t and followed my own path.Another important aspect of this project is the different formats. These build a relation between different moments of Rise’s life and bring dynamic into the movie. Because i’m using stock footage from phones, old cameras, etc, all the formats differ so it was a plus that the different formats worked in a way that separates Rise’s life from his present one in Scotland. Some i mantained the same but most i altered in realtion to the ones I mantained.

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AVID Project - Final look

This is the final look of the editing project of Rise. All images and most sounds are in its place ready to go into Da Vinci Resolve for colour correction and Pro-tools for sound design.

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The latest transcription. Colours indicate what to take and what to maybe keep. I divided things by chapters so it makes it easier to set up the narrative

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3 of the 19 pages of the first transcription

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Editing the interview - putting 3 hours into less than 10 minutes

Editing the interview was a difficult process. There was a lot of interesting information and life stories that i just could not decide worth keeping or not in the short span of time i have. Subejcts such as racial differences and sbjugation in Zimbabawe, Rise´s childhood, syles of music, his rise to fame, his band members and the tragedies that fell uppon them, Rise´s problems with managers and being particularly deceived by one of them, his life in Scotland and even purely circuntancial talk seemed all interesting enough to keep. Through a gradual process of intense editing of over 4 weeks i kept cutting information until what i have now. To achieve this, my first step was to transcribe all the 3 hours into paper so i could cut more easily thins that, in paper, didn’t seem as important in the narrative. Second process was to figure out how, after making such cuts, i coul still have a conversational balance. This prooved even harder as Rise has a particular way of talking and making points. After building a narrative, and achieving a balance in the conversation, i continued cutting until i had my under 10 minutes. Blank spaces, sounds, repetitions and additional information that didn´t seem extremly necessary was cut. I transcribed the conversation i´ve built into paper and did the same process as in the beggining. I was trying to achieve a story that would engage with the different aspects of Rise´s life that led into his residency here in Edinburgh in a way that would make sense to an audience that never heard his story before.This was hard for me to do as i already knew his story by heart and and at times couldn’t distance myself from this new narrative i was bulding. I asked several people to listen to my narrative and tell me if it made sense to them or not. And gladly, it eventually did.

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So far I've been granted one video of a live concert of the Bhundu Boys by an Australian tv producer. However, this video is after one of the leading band members left, Biggie Tembo, and I wanted a video with the full band. I am currently trying to find permission to another concert with all the initial band members and hopefully, I'll get it. 

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Some screenshots of the videos I gathered so far of Zimbabwe. Most of them were captured by my friend Karolina Krawczyk when she was traveling there, less one, gifted to me by someone from a facebook group. These will be included at key moments in the edit in a contrasting format, quality and color temperature from the Scottish footage.

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Now it’s time to film Scottish landscapes. I have made a first attempt to film the Pentlands but the rain made us give up with only a couple of shots, so we’ll have to go back. Rosyln Glen is also another location and some typical Edinburgh cityscapes are next in the plan

**i hold no rights to this image**

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With the help of Michael and Ewan, I had two cameras filming the jit jive duo concert at Leith Depot, a variation of the usual 4 member band with just guitar, vocals, and percussion. The concert was great but we encountered a lot of difficulties due to space and lighting. Some very dark but pretty footage came out as result and with some color correction, it might become great. Unfortunately, these are the only pictures that I have which were taken with a phone hence the low resolution.

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The interview with Rise at the end of January went very well. Over two hours and half of information about his eventful life. Now it’s time to cut the interview into 10min which feels near to impossible with such an interesting life story. I have footage of his flat which mirrors his personality in a interesting way

Thank you to Ewan for these pictures