Bathroom Etiquette

This was the second film I completed for my introductory film class. The story is based on a radio essay created by David Sedaris for This American Life. It was aired on the episode 20 Acts in 60 Minutes. The film was shot on a cheap DV camera. My class didn't have any access to sound equipment so the sound sucks. It was the first video with snyced sound though so that provided a fun new obstacle. When shooting I recorded a track of just the aural sounds of all the locations. I had this play over all of the cuts in order to make them a little more seamless. Sometimes I also staggered the sound and visual cuts for the same reason. After shooting I found that I hadn't recorded any reactions during the dialogue scene and subsequently I feel like this section is a little rushed. There are some glaring mistakes. For instance, at 36 seconds you can see the LCD monitor of the camera. A lot of the lights are visible in reflections. Most glaring is the girl's lack of a phone during the intended phone conversation in the second half. I really kicked myself for that. The lighting's a little inconsistent too. It was a lot of fun playing with the volume of the different audio tracks during the first scene. I also rerecorded the audio during the phone conversation by recording it as it played out of the computer's speakers. I was intending to give it a lower-fidelity phone-type sound quality. Of the two, this one was a lot more fun to edit, but it's probably the less entertaining of the two because I'm not relying on the professionally recorded audio track. I welcome any feedback or criticism.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Based
• on
• radio
• essay
• by
• David
• Sedaris