The Footage Selection

119 shots, a memory card on life support, and an Esha with 3 cups of coffee on by-stand sums up the process behind the footage selection, but it was in-fact more elaborate than that.

After the shoot, the first step I took was to transfer the footage to a folder in my laptop and hard-drive so I can begin reviewing it. The total footage was about 3.37 GB in size.

I began watching all the clips and made a second folder where I began sorting clips I liked.

The criteria for filtering them out is listed below, and are factors I highlighted in my camera work post:

The clarity of shots
The angle
The duration of the shots
The stability of shots

Rejected Shots

We took multiple shots of Tashfa, because these were the first shots we took. This shot didn't make the cut because the angle felt quite awkward and too zoomed in, and it wasn't adding any cinematic flair.

I attempted to hold the bandurria, but we realized that I probably shouldn't, because I may break it within 5 minutes and Myiesha may consequently have my head. This shot was taken from a tripod, so I didn't have to be present behind the camera, and had Maroosh monitor the focus and settings.

We then tried the same shot with Maroosh, who was much better at holding the bandurria than I was, but we didn't particularly like this background for the shot, so we explored new locations in the house.

The following was a shot we took from my tripod of Rameen and Sameen as a couple, which turned out to be a shot of "how long can Esha and Maroosh remain civil?". We weren't extremely gifted actors, therefore we kept laughing, and this shot didn't make the cut. Although, I did end up using a frame from this video in one of the headlines.

We retook the shot of Maroosh with the bandurria. Quite a few shots, like this one, didn't get selected because I wasn't particularly a fan of the angle and had better alternatives.

Quite a few shots were shaky or blurry, so they immediately went in the discarded list.

After the tedious process of watching all the footage 180000 times, I ended up short listing 24 shots, 17 of which were used.