To kick off this week’s PaceDocs meeting, the team settled in and dimmed the lights to view the first rough cut of “For the Love of Food“. Clicking keyboard and notebook scribbling sounded from the audience as the team made note of various critiques. When the house lights came on, we immediately tapped in and prepared ourselves for the next steps in the post-production process.
With less than two weeks until the documentary premieres, what are the final garnishes to our dish?
Music was at the top of everyone’s list. Music can seem like a mere background character amongst the delicious food and compelling interviews, however, the soundtrack will set the tone for the scenes and transport our audience to the streets of Paris. Though there are millions of French pieces on the internet, the crew is picky with the instrumentals. Each instrument plays a vital role in bringing out what the audience is seeing and hearing, acting as a subtle ingredient in the dish. If a team member wasn’t involved in the ongoing editing, we were on the hunt for free French tunes.
Traveling to France was an incredible, once-in-a-lifetime experience for the PaceDocs crew. During our France journey, we acquired an abundance of interviews, beautiful landscape footage, and memorable shots that will make the narrative of the documentary shine. What’s the only downside to this incredible trip? Everything is in French.
Thankfully, our resident French student Elizabeth was able to translate a solid portion of the interviews. Additionally, the team worked with online translating software to transcribe the interviews a few weeks ago. Now, the team must type out the subtitles for the audience to follow along. Throughout the weekly Tuesday night editing, the team continued to fine-tune the subtitles and ensure the authentic message is coming across to the viewers.
On a similar wavelength with subtitles, the lower thirds must be implemented as well. What are lower thirds? When a viewer is watching a video, for example, a documentary, a graphic will appear in the lower third of the screen. This text will state the name and occupation of the subject. For every farmer, market vendor, and restauranteur, there will be a graphic, a lower third, to introduce them to the audience.
Though each ingredient seems minuscule when thinking about the entire production as a whole, it’s the small details that will make our dish stand out. With every minor change, the final product will further convey the narrative of the slow food movement to our audience. We hope that each viewer will leave feeling connected to farm-to-table living and want to further explore it.
The goal by the end of the night? Be able to say that the documentary is on picture lock. This means that all changes are final and we move on to the final step before the premiere.
Next Tuesday, the crew will join together at the Jacob Burns Film Center to for a tech check.
Don’t forget to reserve your tickets for the “For the Love of Food” documentary on May 8th! Use the promo code: PACE23FREE to get your tickets for free!
Keep up with our final steps on the PaceDocs social media pages.