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Final Editing
We’ve finally come to the editing process of Into The Pit. After all the interviews and research, we have just under 2 hours worth of audio to condense into a 15 minute piece. To do this, we had to decide what was the most important content to include and what we should leave for if there is room. Fortunately, Elliot has an idea of the parts he thinks are the most essential so this shouldn’t be too much of a problem.
One difficulty we ran into is that Elliot’s audio was very varied in levels and had a light bit of crackle in places. Although we are not 100% sure as to why the equipment was making this noise in recording, Will was able to reduce this using noise reduction tools so the material could be used. Without this, we could have lost a lot of good content.
Another problem we encountered was when we were transferring the edit over different computers. As the edited files were only saved on the computer it was edited on, some files could not be found as the new computer didn’t have these edits. This led to parts of the factual being either missing or replaced by other audio. When we loaded the files on the original computer, the files were still lost so had to be re edited. Although this could be amended, it was still very time consuming. The lesson we could take from this is reduce the number of file transfers across computers as much as possible.
To reduce the length of the piece, certain parts of the documentary had to be dropped. The lamp interview went into a lot more detail and explored how the lamp functioned. As interesting as this was, we felt that it wasn’t essential and that the initial point had been made. We also had a part about a lump of coal which Elliot’s Grandmother had kept in a box in her loft. Again, we felt that we had already established that Elliot’s grandparents had a lot of mining memorabilia.
In terms of added sound, Elliot wanted to reduce the amount of added sound as much as possible to not draw attention away from the dialogue. If we perhaps had almost a day in the life of a miner, we might have been able to create almost a soundscape to play alongside. Had we come up with this idea earlier on, we would have liked to create this. The added sound we did include was a brass band piece at the start and end. We did debate whether this was the best decision but, based on the topic, we felt this was the best choice. We were careful not to overuse this music as too much would possibly become quite aggravating.
Overall as producer I am very happy about the final product, I feel that the documentary follows what we set out to do in the initial proposal/ treatment, however if we was to do it again I would consider sourcing more additional sounds to have in the editing process.
Coal mining museum trip.
Today me and Elliot (Director), went to the National Coal mining museum to complete the section of the documentary on ‘preserving the history’. When we arrived we was planning on actually going down into the mine to see if we could collect any additional sound material. However seen as it was all booked up we first had a look round and learnt about the history of coal mining, we saw a traditional coal bath house, machinary used to collect the coal, equipment and even stuff like snack tins which were used by the miners. Towards mid day we met up with our interviewee who works at the coal museum library, and was the best choice for learning about the importance of keeping the history alive through the museum. David, our interviewee talked to us about how eager people are to learn about the coal industry (most particulary regarding the horryfying accidents which occurred in some of the pits) and how they even employee ex miners to work and show people around the mine. In this interview you could tell that the guy was really passionate about the Yorkshire mining community and the importance of showing todays children what life was like down the pit. From what I saw the children queuing to go down into the pit were not only intrigued and fascinated but also very excited to go down into the pit. We are looking forward to editing and looking over this section of the documentary in more depth.
Interview- Askern Miner
Today I have recorded ten minutes of sound for the Adults perspective of coal mining. My neighbour was willing to help and had over 30 years experience in working down the mine. During the interview he talks about how he worked himself up through the ranks from working as an ordinary miner on the coal face to being an official who would be in charge of hiring and organising where to mine etc in the colliery. Another section I managed to include in this interview was his reaction to the pit closures, and not only what it meant for him but the local community. I feel that this section is quite powerful where he talks about how a part of the village community has been taken away when Askern collierly closed down. I am excited to go back in editing and listen to the best parts of the interview and select the most powerful sections.
Wright Family Interviews
To gain interviews, our director went back to his home town of Wakefield to conduct interviews with his family members who had been involved in coal mining. His interviewees consisted of Marie Wright, an ex teacher who’s father Frank Price worked down the mine for most of his life. Roy Wright, Marie Wright’s husband, spent most of his life as a carpet fitter however he worked in the pit offices for a short time as a young man. Jack Wright, another relation, did steel work at Nostell Priory Pit for 23 years and was involved in both the strike of 1972 and 1984. The interviews proved very resourceful as he was able to record over an hours worth of footage. One of the difficulties that he encountered was that he found it difficult to interview Roy and Jack simultaneously. This was because it didn’t allow him time to change levels or move the mic closer to the interviewee speaking. In retrospect it may have been better for him to have interviewed them separately for a smoother set of interviews. Fortunately this can be amended in the editing however more experience in interviewing may have been needed to conduct an interview in that style.
On the other hand, Marie’s interviews went very smoothly and gave us a lot of content. Elliot found out a bit more about his great grandfather, such as that he played for Sheffield Wednesday and Nottingham Forest whilst also working in the coal mines. Other than this claim to fame, Marie also brought up quite an interesting lead. On Facebook, she is part of a group called “Crofton’s Old Lumpers” Which is a group dedicated to keeping one of the communities that was separated by the closures together. This is quite an interesting find as it wouldn’t have been a way we would have thought mining communities would have stayed together. Hopefully there will be time to explore this further in the edit.
(Below, Miners lamp and piece of coal which were discussed in the interviews)
