Editing Is A Slippery Slope
I started with Jake's reading of his story, and the first thing I did was tweak it with EQ and compression, turning it into this. Then plugging it into my DAW and adding reverb. So far, not controversial.
Then I started cutting up the paragraphs and spacing them out. After all, I had to leave room for the music to "breathe", didn't I? And spacing out sentences. There had to be room for sound effects, too. And then... phrases within sentences. After all, it is more dramatic to have pauses. Consider: "I try to just lie in bed for a while (...3 sec) but I am all too conscious that the bed is repositioning its cushions (...1 sec) to better match what it thinks (...1 sec) will maximize my comfort (...0.75 sec) as I wake up." OK, so that's not the way he read it. I admit it. But surely it isn't a crime to spruce it up this way?
But, oh, what a slippery slope. Once I got to the section after "I lose myself in writing for a bit, but before long I notice that my chair is reconfiguring itself to improve my posture, and once again I'm aware of my surroundings." I entered criminal territory. As written, the story has "Dave" (1) commenting on the bots' anxiety, (2) hearing and complaining about their chatter, (3) eating and being disappointed by breakfast, (4) trying to do the dishes, getting frustrated, and sighing, and (5) finally snapping.
With a few mouse clicks, I rearranged it as (3) (4) (1&2 intermixed) and (5). I felt I needed to do that in order to build the tension between Dave and the bots before he snapped. It's not so bad, is it? Still Jake's words! Film editors do that all the time - in the cutting room, they come up with a presentation that makes more sense than the script as written. Surely at worst only a misdemeanor!
Ah, but where to stop? In order to transition between Dave's writing and having breakfast, first I have the bot ask him if he wants breakfast. But then the next sentence in the script was "For the moment I set that aside and have some breakfast." What is "that"? Not good. I suppose I could have just dropped the sentence and gone to "It's prepared perfectly and the presentation is a delight to the eye: as always, a disappointment." But that's rather abrupt.
So I decided to commit a felony. Grabbing the word "writing" from "I lose myself in writing for a bit" and the hard-G sound from "it's at last gotten me to participate", I turn the offending sentence into ""For the moment I set writing aside and have some breakfast." Check it out.
I confess! I did it because I could! And it feels great! And I'll probably do it again!
Another hour, up to 26.4.
Then I started cutting up the paragraphs and spacing them out. After all, I had to leave room for the music to "breathe", didn't I? And spacing out sentences. There had to be room for sound effects, too. And then... phrases within sentences. After all, it is more dramatic to have pauses. Consider: "I try to just lie in bed for a while (...3 sec) but I am all too conscious that the bed is repositioning its cushions (...1 sec) to better match what it thinks (...1 sec) will maximize my comfort (...0.75 sec) as I wake up." OK, so that's not the way he read it. I admit it. But surely it isn't a crime to spruce it up this way?
But, oh, what a slippery slope. Once I got to the section after "I lose myself in writing for a bit, but before long I notice that my chair is reconfiguring itself to improve my posture, and once again I'm aware of my surroundings." I entered criminal territory. As written, the story has "Dave" (1) commenting on the bots' anxiety, (2) hearing and complaining about their chatter, (3) eating and being disappointed by breakfast, (4) trying to do the dishes, getting frustrated, and sighing, and (5) finally snapping.
With a few mouse clicks, I rearranged it as (3) (4) (1&2 intermixed) and (5). I felt I needed to do that in order to build the tension between Dave and the bots before he snapped. It's not so bad, is it? Still Jake's words! Film editors do that all the time - in the cutting room, they come up with a presentation that makes more sense than the script as written. Surely at worst only a misdemeanor!
Ah, but where to stop? In order to transition between Dave's writing and having breakfast, first I have the bot ask him if he wants breakfast. But then the next sentence in the script was "For the moment I set that aside and have some breakfast." What is "that"? Not good. I suppose I could have just dropped the sentence and gone to "It's prepared perfectly and the presentation is a delight to the eye: as always, a disappointment." But that's rather abrupt.
So I decided to commit a felony. Grabbing the word "writing" from "I lose myself in writing for a bit" and the hard-G sound from "it's at last gotten me to participate", I turn the offending sentence into ""For the moment I set writing aside and have some breakfast." Check it out.
I confess! I did it because I could! And it feels great! And I'll probably do it again!
Another hour, up to 26.4.