I went back over to Little Stone Wood on Wednesday 17th February and did some more filming. It now feels that I am watching for breaks in the weather, when it isn’t raining or blowing storm force winds.

On coming back and editing the film my main concern is of how long shall I hold each shot for, and I’ve decided on settling for 15 secs, as mentioned in the previous post. Incidentally I found out that the average attention span nowadays is only 8 seconds, so having it got 15 seconds is long enough to produce the impression of peacefulness and stillness, but not long enough for the viewer to get bored.

I think also as well, that if the film is only 5 minutes long then it will still be interesting and wont feel as if it’s dragging. It will also be long enough to create the impression of Little Stone Wood and to show how restful it is.

The main problems I have encountered so far has been sound issues. The ambient noise is quite loud as the M20 motorway is only 200 yards away and there’s nothing blocking the sound. Also, because of it being winter, there are no leaves on the trees, which act as a natural sound barrier. Consequently, the sound from the motorway carries straight through the wood and I have had to reduce the ambient noise in iMovie. Also, the microphone seems to be picking up a high pitched hum that seems worse on some shots than others, which I’ve managed to filter out some of it, but am not sure if its all gone as I’ve got tinnitus in my ears. I did also think about removing the sound entirely and replace it with another forest sound. But I then think it wold lack authentication because it would be fabricated, it could be a case that I would be the only one that would know, but I would know and it would undermine the authenticity of the film.

I’ve also found that I needed to generally darken everything as my camera is determined to make everything as close as possible to 18% grey. Again, this is not a problem as it can be changed in iMovie but is just slightly annoying.

So, below is the film from the last visit made into a short film. I think I now have enough clips for when I put all four films together to produce the 5 minute film but could probably do with a few more clips of the trees swaying in the wind. But again, I need to wait for a break in the weather as I don't want to be in there when it’s gale force winds as trees are getting blown over and I don’t want to be underneath one of them but it needs to be more than a light breeze. I think when they forecast winds of about 20mph should be strong enough to create the effects I’m after.

I also received back the colour 5x4 negs, which I am scanning on Monday 22nd Feb, and am looking forward to seeing what they are like.