Once I’d finished scripting the movie, I recorded it using FRAPS. At this juncture, I hit a slight snag in that I was unable to run the final map without some framerate issues on my own PC. I then decided that I’d take the opportunity of our lecture on the 27th to record it on the University computers, which I already knew would run it smoothly.
Alas, bureaucracy is the compost of indolence, and thanks to the lazy incompetents who are in charge of that sort of thing, we weren’t informed until that morning about the maintainence scheduled for that room (and we only found out then because I ran into Tim outside the door). Because of this, the raw video I had to use for the final product is somewhat laggy in places.
This aside, editing it in Premier Pro went quite smoothly. I chose to use a flaring transition between monochrome and colour footage to symbolise the dawning of realisation as the protagonist first discovers nature and selected the first movement of Schubert’s 3rd Symphony for its dramatic trumpet swell, which seemed an ideal accompaniment to this moment. As it turned out, I was forced to take a metaphorical meat-cleaver to the music (occasioning no small feeling of guilt), in order to fit it more ideally to the film. With this distasteful task complete, I brushed the mutilated semiquavers from my sleeves, and turned to the black-and-white opening section, which seemed to me a shade too barren.
Fortunately, a solution presented itself: poetry! While I felt that “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” was perhaps a shade clichéd, its dual themes of solitude and nature were too ideal for me to pass up, and so I dubbed it over the top of the opening section, where by pure happenstance it fit perfectly.
As a final touch, I decided to start the film with an appropriate quote, an opening bon mot, if you will. A friend suggested Descartes famous “Je pense donc je suis,” but I found it to be less than apt. In the end, I decided to quote Feynmann, ultimately for no better reason than that I was pleased by the almost tangential relationship of the quote to the subject of the movie.
Altogether, this was not only the easiest but also the most pleasant part of the project’s creation, and I find myself quite pleased with the outcome.


