The Making Of Insula – Editing Diary: Downpour Assembly

Syncing footage is a slow and painful process, one that can well and truly fry your brain. With two camera setups on each instrument during the recording sessions it means I’ve got quite a bit of syncing to do.

It took several hours just to sync all the instruments for one song, after a while it’s so confusing trying to organise all the footage on the timeline, and then sync it up.

Thankfully Daw sat in with me throughout the process, he was also able to point out bits of footage that can’t be used; changes that were made to songs during recording etc. But we did manage to cut some shots to measure up to songs in other places which was quite handy.

It can be kind of difficult to put a narrative structure on something when you’re shooting without a script. Trying to blend into the background and just let the lads do their thing, not distract them whilst trying to keep on track of what I’m shooting on both cameras all the time.

That being said, as I begin to go through the footage, I’m delighted with the coverage of everything and how it accurately captures the mood and feeling in the studio during the recording process.

With all the coverage of ‘Downpour’ (it’s previously unheard ) ready to go, I couldn’t resist starting a rough assembly of the cuts. It’s easily going to be one of my favourite songs on ‘Insula‘; filled with catchy vocals and harmonies, the song slowly builds into chunky riffs and an awesome breakdown before drifting into an eerie ending.

I chiselling away at the footage and the rough assembly is already looking better than I imagined, it still needs a lot of work but it can only get better and as it’s taking shape I’ve also been able to figure out the structure of the project and how it will be presented.

All of which is still quite a bit away, for now it’s back to syncing footage…