mightyfelix wrote: ↑November 19th, 2020, 9:43 pm
Nice job, Kelly, especially for a first time editor!
Dramatic editing is more art than science, and a lot of it is personal style, so I've made several suggestions below, but most of them are only suggestions for improvement, not things that
must be corrected. This includes many spots where I think you can cut the stage directions out to keep the scene flowing. Often, stage directions will specify something that the reader does well with their voice, like a laugh, a cough, a specific emotion, etc. In those cases, it's often redundant to keep the stage directions and slows the scene.
One more general comment regarding timing before I get to the specifics. I feel (and again, much of this is subjective) that a lot of these lines follow too closely after one another. My own rule of thumb is about half a second between lines. I'll do a little less if it's an emotionally charged situation, like an argument, and a little more if it's more of a pensive discussion, or if the characters might feel hesitant or shy. It helps if I picture people on a stage interacting with each other. Of course, because timing is rather subjective, there's no need to address it on this one. But you may want to keep it in mind if you do more of these in the future.
Now, on to the notes:
File name needs to be corrected, as Todd pointed out above.
0:16 Immediately after the disclaimer here, you've left five full seconds of silence. I think this is far too much. I would cut it down to no more than two or three.
1:51 On the other hand, you may want to add two or three seconds here, after the opening remarks. Currently, there is less than half a second. Not really time to absorb what has just been said, I think, before the cast starts in.
1:59 For some reason, instead of reading "Nobby Nick, his boy," as stated in the script, we have "Nobby Nick, his assistant." I notice that the MW says "assistant," so I presume that Adrian was reading from there. But I think this is maybe a case of changing the words as printed to something more palatable to modern ears. I think we need to stick to what's printed, and ask for a redo of this bit from Adrian.
11:22 This "&c" here should probably be either spoken by the narrator or cut. It doesn't seem in character for Cockles to say it here.
14:53-15:20 Volume seems a bit low here.
16:07 Cut "Laughs."
18:09-18:19 The narrator's voice announcing the song here can probably be cut. It slows things down without contributing to the action. I would at the very least cut the "Air: I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls," as that is just telling you what tune it is sung to.
21:27 You might consider also cutting "Cockles, laughs, goes to center" to make things flow better. He gave us a great laugh for this bit, and I'm not sure that it makes much of a difference that he's at center.
24:03 Cut "Nick, laughs."
25:03 Cut "faintly"
29:05 Cut "laughs"
Again, nice work. I hope that you enjoyed the process.
