As the project progresses, our NYC crew has been putting in great effort to keep bringing the story of the Viola da Terra to life.
Act 2 delves into the intricate mechanics of the instrument, including its unique two heart-shaped holes, which hold significant cultural importance. We’re thrilled to share these fascinating details with our audience on May 5th, 2025, the day Harmony of the Azores premieres.
In our recent editing sessions, we’ve been reviewing the paper edits to identify the best sound bites that will help tell the story of the viola da terra. Thanks to the numerous interviews we conducted back in March with Azorean locals, we have a rich selection of material to choose from. Additionally, we have been tweaking the English captions. We’ve also been putting a lot of effort into organizing our timeline– rearranging the order of the interview sound bites to ensure the storytelling flows seamlessly.
Since Act 2 is being edited remotely from the New York City campus, we’ve been sharing our editing timeline via screen sharing on Zoom with Dr. Luskay, Professor Guarneri, Anya (a member of the story team), and Carolina (our resident Portuguese speaker). This allows us to stay connected with the professors and anyone else working on the documentary outside of New York. Communication is key.
On the topic of communication, we’ll soon be reaching out to some of our friends in the Azores again. During one of our editing sessions, we realized that one of our interviewees (Hugo), who was explaining some technical details about the construction of the Viola da Terra, used a few words we couldn’t translate into English. Accuracy is incredibly important to our team, especially when it comes to correctly quoting those who have so generously contributed to this documentary. 
We’ve also been utilizing Adobe Premiere Pro’s Team Projects, a cloud-based collaboration tool that’s not new but is a first for Pace Docs. After working through a few technical challenges, we’ve gotten the hang of it. This has been a great advantage for the NYC crew, allowing us to get more editing done without the need to travel to Pleasantville.
This Tuesday night, we’ll present our work over Zoom to the rest of the class to gather constructive feedback on what we’ve accomplished so far.
We’re getting very close to finalizing the rough cut of our A-Roll, and our Act 2 team is eager to start assembling the B-Roll. Stay tuned for our next post about the editing process for the final act.