Editing: Reliving my pilgrimage

I'm closing in on the last third of my rough assemble edit. What is that, exactly? It's my selected video and photos placed in the timeline with the rough voice over, but without clean edits, transitions, sfx, music, sound mix, etc.

It's been a bit stressful with other summer obligations and the rising reality of a new school year about to begin. I took some PTO and carved out five whole days to pound away at this in the middle of August. And then, on day three.... tested positive for Covid. 

Really right now? 

I worked through fever and coughing to get something done, and thankfully the symptoms only lasted a couple days. I pushed through and am bound to complete this rough/assemble edit by the end of this week, now that I'm fully over the lingering Covid fatigue.

The next stage will be sending this to both Derrick the editor and Terry and composer so that they can begin their respective tasks. I know I'll be revising the script and will then re-record a good quality voice over track.

When I wrote the script, I knew that it was wordy and bulging. I also knew that as I started to edit, some of this would automatically be deleted, which has happened just as I'd anticipated. I think this is a good sign. The vlogs I recorded speak to some of the thoughts and reflections that I'd dumped into the script, and which have since come out.

Farmers selling their produce in Namchang, Ulsan

And dude, can I just tell you... SO MUCH FOOTAGE. I mean, crazy footage amounts. And yet... there were things I realized I'm missing and have to go scouring to fill in for. Those are mainly the "every day things" that I'm finding embedded elsewhere. But that's part of the beauty of documentary filmmaking (or any filmmaking, really):  finding the gems that you might not even realize are sitting on your hard drive.

As I've moved through my footage, I find myself reliving the pilgrimage in detail - remembering things that I'd forgotten, like how I took the bus from Namchang to Ulsan on my last night there, and how the sunset looked over the stream we crossed on a bridge... then how the light faded until there were only lit signs and traffic lights by the time I got back to my hotel. Those moments are precious. If nothing else, I'm grateful I shot all that footage to remind me of them.

For now, I'm back to working on the Namchang and Ulsan section of the film. I'll post again when my assemble edit is done! St. Andrew Kim Daegon, pray for us!