A quick note to say not only has work re-started on my latest film, but I’ve also (finally) finished the first full assembly! This is a major milestone. It’s the first time all the material I’d like to see in the film is collected in order on a single timeline. Now I can see the shape of it.
A process that ended up being tremendously helpful was to allow my intuition to make poetic associations between visuals, largely based on mood and emotion. Then I might write some music to match the mood, and edit a scene in that flow. This led to some surprising discoveries of connections between material and, I hope, a much more interesting film to watch.
It’s been a long, iterative process. I’ve been through three or four major reorganization of the material. As it stands the film is two hours and 40 minutes long, with 90+ scenes. Time to start cutting it down to just the essence!