Alas, I will not be discussing the ins and outs of Final Cut Pro.  I will reserve that lively discussion to a later point, but rest easy for I assure you the program is wonderfully effective.   Instead, today, I will be stepping back and looking at the overall aim of what I want to produce.

While editing yesterday, I had this strange, creeping feeling as I cut one and a half hours of footage into my timeline that I was soon going to end up with three hours of footage with no idea of how to manage it.  I needed direction.  I needed to hoist my loins, no, lift my whole robe up and think freely and thoughtfully.   I was too tight, too trapped.  Erring I was, without a breath of fresh air.

And so I created the story boards or little boxes of thinking to work through my vision:

As you can tell, dear and enthused reader, I have many disparate segments of film.  When I embarked into Cambodia, I used my video camera as an extension of myself to observe the world around.  I was travelling to many different places, with no idea of what to expect, how long I would be there, or even of how long my camera was going to last.  There are holes in the footage, of when I was sick, occupied, or simply didn’t want to film.  But I have to tell a story, and I have to make it look precise and focused like the ebb and flow of the Tonle Sap.

Furthermore, this isn’t a film about the trip nor the people I was with.  Actually, I anticipate to have no to very little dialogue of any sort in the final product.  No, this is a look into the world I saw and experienced and hopefully can convey something about the mechanisms through which tourism operates.   Below is a flow chart I made to work through the basics of how this footage could be organized:

There are some central components to the film.  First, I have a number of still landscape shots, of sunsets, sunrises, of the farm, of places in the city, of the beach.  These segments can be used as the introduction and the conclusion and as a frame into the Cambodian landscape for the documentary.  Then, I have a day of footage at a Zoo which has more action, which can serve as the first major part of the film.  This will kinda of set the stage and be shorter.

Afterwards, I have a bunch of film while I was moving on a tuk-tuk or on a river boat, which is beautiful and can also symbolize as movement and the passage of time between the zoo and the second larger piece,  Angkor.  Angkor, also, has captivating shots and a good deal of action from the intensity of tourism infesting every temple.   From there, I can depart into the sunset and go home, hopefully.

So from here, I aim to start building the intro and the Zoo part, since I have nearly extracted all the footage I want from these parts.  From there, I can see what works and what doesn’t as I go into extracting the final four hours.